Abstract

Scientific and technological development requires a reflection on the need for legal regulation which can be made alongside bioethical reflection. However, the characteristic pluralism of the contemporary western legal systems makes the intervention of law difficult since there is no agreement with regard to the fundamental ethical categories. With this premise the article analyses the normative solutions that the legislator and jurisprudence have formulated in regulating biotechnologies and the different juridical models in the continental and Anglo-Saxon legal systems. The need appears for a balancing among the various values at play, with particular reference to autonomy and human dignity.