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Animals, in the age of biotechnology, are the subjects of a myriad of scientific procedures, interventions, and modifications. They are created, altered, and experimented upon--often with highly beneficial outcomes for humans in terms of knowledge gained and applied, yet not without concern also for the effects upon the experimental subjects themselves: consideration of the use of animals in research remains an intensely debated topic. Concerns for animal welfare in scientific research have, however, been primarily directed at harm to and suffering of animal subjects and their prevention. Little attention has been paid to the benefits research might potentially produce for animals themselves and the interests that some animals may therefore have in the furtherance of particular avenues of science.

Dr Catherine Rhodes is a research fellow at the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation specialising in the international regulations relevant to control of biotechnology. Professor John Harris is director of the Institute and has particular interest in biomedical ethics and medical jurisprudence. Sarah Chan is deputy director of the Institute. Professor Sir John Sulston was the founding director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1992 to 2000, where so much of the sequencing of the human genome was completed in a furious race to publish before American commercial interests patented. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many arguments from many sides, which purport to give reasons for limiting access to reproductive technologies and to gene-based reproductive procedures. There is one reason to reject them all, and that is that they do not point to dangers or harms of sufficient seriousness, probability or proximity to justify the limitation on human freedom that they require. This paper shows why this is so and argues that reproductive liberty must also include the liberty to select against disability both for moral and for libertarian reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]