Knowledge,bodies, and values: Reproductive technologies and their scientific context

This essay sets human reproductive technologies in the context of biological research exploiting the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule in the early 1950s. By setting these technological developments in this research context and then setting the research in the framework of a philosophical analysis of the role of social values in scientific inquiry, it is possible to develop a perspective on these technologies and the aspirations they represent that is relevant to the concerns of their social critics.