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The ethics of the genetic manipulation of animals
When the European Commission drafts proposals for Directives relating to biotechnology or considers how to apply existing directives in this area, one of the strong influences comes from its own Group of Advisors on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology.
The EU set up this group up in 1991 with a remit to identify the ethical issues in biotechnology, advise the Commission on those issues and to assess the ethical impact of the Commission's activities in the biotechnology field.
The current Group has nine members. Three of them - Dr Anne McLaren (UK), Professor Margareta Mikkelsen (Denmark) and Professor Luis Archer (Portugal) - are biological scientists. Three others - Professor Egbert Schroten (Netherlands), Professor Dietmar Mieth (Germany) and Professor Gilbert Hottois (Belgium) are philosophers specialising in bioethics. The remaining three members are a lawyer - Professor Stefano Rodota (Italy), a physician - Mr Octavi Quintana-Trias (Spain) and a politician - Mrs Noelle Lenoir (France), who chairs the Group.
The Commission usually suggests topics for the Group to address, but the Group has the freedom to select its own subjects. The group s opinions are only advisory - they have no power as such. However, the corollary of this is that the Group is totally independent of the Commission and all other authorities. Since 1991, the Group has delivered opinions on eight subjects: bovine somatotropin, the manufacture of human blood products, the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, gene therapy, labelling of genetically-engineered foods, prenatal diagnosis, the genetic modification of animals and the patenting of inventions containing elements of human origin.
The full text of their opinion on transgenic animals starts, as do all their opinions, with a preamble noting the relevant directives, conventions, reports and the hearings the Group with various interested parties. The second section is similar to the recitations that commence many Commission documents. In other words, they begin "Whereas ..." This section notes the scientific power of transgenic animal technology, the important implications for medical progress, the concerns expressed about the technology, the relationship between humanity and animals and the difficulty, in a group of pluralistic societies like the EU, of finding complete consensus on moral issues.
The third and final section delivers their actual opinion on the ethics of this issue and is set below.