Exploring the significance of legal theory in guiding and practicing the ethical regulation of biotechnology research

Abstract

As the application fields of modern biotechnology are gradually expanding, the research on the legal regulation of its ethical issues urgently needs to be complemented. Taking genetic engineering and cell engineering as examples, this paper analyzes the research history of modern biotechnology and explores the possible ethical issues of biotechnology at three levels: the ends and means, the evolution of organisms, and the regulation of ecological balance. Using the Toulmin legal argument model, the emerging personality interests arising under technologies such as cloning and gene editing are asserted, and the lineage of identity rights is argued under the conditions of specific social relationships. Through the analysis of biotechnology ethical review practice, a regulatory path combining legal theory is proposed. Among the observed indicators of ethical review, 96.32% of the cases passed the test on “adequacy of risk assessment” and 94.11% of the cases passed the test on “availability of reasonable compensation and protection measures”. A comparison of the percentage of failures in the statistics of indicators for different types of cases can reflect which indicators are problematic in the review of different types of cases. This study can provide some reference significance for the legal regulation of biotechnology ethics.