Medicine has developed with human history and these days, with the advancement of biotechnology, medicine has come close to the stage of curing a variety of diseases completely through bio-medical treatment practice.
Medical experts in the 21st cent ...
Medicine has developed with human history and these days, with the advancement of biotechnology, medicine has come close to the stage of curing a variety of diseases completely through bio-medical treatment practice.
Medical experts in the 21st century are doing research on the treatment method of using cell or tissue substitution for damaged cells, tissues or internal organs deviating from the treatment through medication or surgery. Such research on regeneration medicine is expected to make it possible to do a basic treatment, not a partial treatment of a disease and, in the center of such a medical treatment lies human embryo cells.
However, the remedial research using human embryo stem cells is touching off the legal, ethical, social issues due to the destruction of human embryos and use of generative cells inevitably concomitant with the research. Accordingly, a discussion on the dignity of human life and ethical position of human embryos started off and internationally, there have appeared efforts to deduce an agreement on ethical issue of research on stem cells.
Starting Jan. 1, 2005, the Act on bio-ethics and safety has been enforced, but it still remains as a problem to allow transplantation between different species limitedly in the research on embryos. Concerning this, on Nov. 6, 2007, total revision[ revised bill] of bio-ethics and safety Act and law enactment [bill] on generative cells was laid before the National Assembly.
First of all, this research is going to look into the regulations on embryo research and its informed consent provided in the British law on human fertilization and embryo research which was enacted 15 years earlier than Korea. In addition, this research is going to point out provisional contradictions of an informed consent and suggest an alternative to it by comparing and examining the provisions on collection of generative cells, donations and consent, and formation of embryos, etc. stipulated in the law on provisions related to human embryo stem cells and generative cells, etc. among the total revision[revised bill]on bio-ethics and safety law.