Full Description
The Human Embryo in vitro explores the ways in which UK law engages with embryonic processes under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended), the intellectual basis of which has not been reconsidered for almost thirty years. McMillan argues that in regulating 'the embryo' - that is, a processual liminal entity in itself - the law is regulating for uncertainty. This book offers a fuller understanding of how complex biological processes of development and growth can be better aligned with a legal framework that purports to pay respect to the embryo while also allowing its destruction. To do so it employs an anthropological concept, liminality, which is itself concerned with revealing the dynamics of process. The implications of this for contemporary regulation of artificial reproduction are fully explored, and recommendations are offered for international regimes on how they can better align biological reality with social policy and law.
Contents
Introduction; Part I. Into Liminality: 1. The evolution of 'the embryo' in law: a matter of process?; 2. 'The embryo' in law today: the human fertilisation and embryology act 1990 and beyond; 3. From process to purgatory: moving beyond legal stasis; Part II. Through Liminality: 4. Navigating legal purgatory: the otherness of embryos; 5. A liminal lens; Part III. Out of liminality: 6. A context based approach; 7. Looking forward: the 14-day rule, in vitro gametogenesis, and ectogenesis; Conclusion; Bibliography.
