Marcy Darnovsky, Ph.D., is Associate Executive Director at the Center for Genetics and Society (www.genetics-and-society.org ), an Oakland, California-based public affairs organization working to encourage responsible uses and effective societal governance of new reproductive and genetic technologies. She speaks and writes widely on the politics of human biotechnology, focusing on their feminist, social justice, human rights, health equity, and public-interest implications. She has taught courses on the politics of science, technology, and the environment in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University, and on the sociology of gender at California State University Hayward. Her Ph.D. is from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Presentation: "Liberty and Justice in the Gene Age"

Many applications of human biotechnology promise new ways of preventing and curing disease. But others could exacerbate existing discrimination and inequality and create new forms of injustice. Proposals to use reproductive and genetic technologies to produce "enhanced" children are particularly problematic, since this would open the door to a high-tech consumer eugenics that could divide human society, and grant novel forms of control over individuals' lives and life prospects to those purveying the technologies.

While "transgenic babies" may remain beyond technical reach, biotechnologies being developed today also pose under-examined challenges for justice and equality. Debate about stem cell and cloning research, for example, has focused on rebutting religious objections to the use of human embryos in scientific investigation. Research supporters have often inadequately attended to issues such as the health equity impacts of proposed cloning-based individualized therapies, and the protection of research subjects, including women who provide eggs for somatic cell nuclear transfer.