Präimplantationsdiagnostik

This book discusses the new regulation of preimplantation diagnostics through § 3a of the German Embryo Protection Act (ESchG), which allows PID under strict conditions. It focuses on the question for which method of PID and to which extent §3a ESchG, speaking of ‘cells’ in general, applies: to the so-called ‘early’ PID that uses potentially totipotent cells or the ‘late’ PID that uses only multipotent cells.
The book debates the special role of totipotent cells, which are legally defined in § 8 ESchG as embryos. Regulatory discrepancies to other methods of reproduction medicine like abortion are discussed and also the strain on parents by the ethics commission. After a teleological and constitutional analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the strict rule of § 3a ESchG applies in extenso to the early PID, whereas only parts of the paragraph apply to the late PID.