Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1983
Abstract
This article examines some legal and moral issues associated with two developing areas of biomedicine; cloning and cryonics. The author firstly considers the practical benefits to society of developing perfecting and utilizing the process of cloning. These include the ability to overcome inheritable genetic defects and the provision of organs for transplantation. Against this must be weighed some moral and ethical problems of genetic engineering. Professor Smith then discusses the process of deep-freezing a person and the development of cryonics as a social movement. The major legal problem stemming from cryonics is determining the time at which a cryonically suspended individual dies, important in settling his estate. The author concludes that these difficult problems in biomedicine are to be resolved not by avoidance, but by striking a careful balance between individual need and social good.
Recommended Citation
George P. Smith II, Intimations of Immorality: Clones, Cyrons and the Law, 6 U. NEW S. WALES L. J. 119 (1983).