Biotechnology, bioethics and Liberalism: problematizing risk, consent and law.

At the conclusion of the famous article of 1953 announcing the molecular structure of DNA, Watson and Crick observed “that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for genetic material.” Six months later, Pope Pius XII addressed the First International Conference of Medical Genetics on ethical issues. The Pope said that since the aim of genetics “is to influence the transmission of hereditary factors in such a way as to promote what is good and eliminate what is harmful,” genetics is “morally irreproachable.” In these two events we have a prediction and a warranty: the scientist predicts the future fruitfulness of a biotechnological science, the Bishop of Rome warrants its moral value. The relationship between attempts to fulfill the prediction and maintain the warranty typifies what we now call “bioethics.”