Generic consistency

I’m a fan of science fiction. Specifically, Star Trek. Like most good science fiction, it involves substantial world-building to allow viewers to buy into the story. In adult life, I have come to appreciate the occasional bits of medico-legal and bioethical development in the series, such as a tribunal having to decide if Data (pictured) the android is a being entitled to civil rights; whether it is moral to kill a person accidentally created by combining two others in a teleportation accident; and a recurring debate about the ethics of genetic enhancement to give an individual superior abilities. 

I couldn’t help thinking of these Star Trek episodes as I read this book, as Shaun Pattinson explores how the law might be applied to current bioethical debates. His philosophical position is based primarily on Alan Gewirth’s Principle of Generic Consistency, which broadly states that every agent must act in accordance with his or her own and all other agents’ generic rights, accepting, in effect, that because they claim their own rights, others must have equivalent rights, and they must act accordingly.

He analyses how the law may apply in four developing bioethical areas – Heritable Genome Editing, Ectogestation, Cybernetic Biohacking and Cryogenic Reanimation – all of which have a pleasingly sci-fi feel. Pattinson then constructs a scenario to test his thinking, fleshing it out with either an Explanatory Note to a proposed bill to deal with any gaps in the law, or a faux-judgment to illustrate how it applies. This technique works very well and gives a feeling of narrative to the work. His faux-judgments are wonderfully plausible, and his analysis well-considered. I do not necessarily agree with his philosophical approach – my own leaning is towards a more virtue-ethics and ultimately Catholic view – but he gave me substantial food for thought.

James E Hurford is a solicitor at the Government Legal Department, London