When society wants to prevent doubtful social practices that are made possible by specific technologies, it may appear to be a strong strategy to ban that technology. Often, the opposite is true.
A ban can be the weakest possible reaction. Science does not always develop in the straightforward way politicians or even scientists anticipated. Scientific work is developing in many directions and in a large variety of different theoretical and practical contexts. The same social practices that society wants to ban, will often become possible in different contexts and using different scientific developments than the technologies that are banned. This leaves society unprepared, because we believed that the situation was under control by endorsing a ban, and we did not spend attention to the analysis of the social and ethical concerns involved and the different contexts where they could occur.
When society wants to develop a cautious and responsible attitude towards cloning and gene therapy, other initiatives will be needed than imposing a ban on some technologies.
Ongoing.
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