Law and biomedicine: Main risks, new approaches to regulation

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Abstract

Biomedical technologies have advanced rapidly in recent decades, impacting human nature itself and reshaping the surrounding social environment according to new principles. These developments carry significant implications for law and public policy, highlighting the importance of legal research in regulating biomedical innovation. This article explores the transformation of traditional legal principles in family and inheritance law, focusing primarily on surrogacy under the influence of reproductive technologies. The concept of biolaw is introduced as an integration of law and biomedicine, alongside the emerging interdisciplinary field of neurolaw, which studies how advances in neurobiology influence jurisprudence. Key areas of interaction between neurobiology and law include the development of judicial practice, legislative reform informed by neuroscience evidence, and shifts in the general theory and philosophy of law. Philosophical ideas about constructing future societies grounded in biomedical achievements - proposed by thinkers such as F. Fukuyama, E. Toffler, A. Bard, and J. Söderqvist - are discussed. The article highlights certain central public concerns: social control, biologically based hierarchies, renewed eugenics, and discriminatory practices. It identifies biomedical technologies with potential to fundamentally transform society, the emerging risks they pose, and possible legal ramifications. Examples discussed include the creation of artificial wombs and genome editing, both of which may have applications beyond biomedicine for broader social purposes. The article also points out gaps in Russian legal regulation and presents the results of a comparative legal study, culminating in general recommendations for improving Russian legislation.

About the authors

Olga V. Romanovskaya

All-Russian State University of Justice

Email: olga71.olgarom@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4563-1725
SPIN-code: 5496-7700

Doctor of Law, Full Professor, Professor of the Department of Civil Law and Procedure, Middle Volga Branch (Institute)

430003, Republic of Mordovia, Saransk, 6 Fedoseenko Str

Georgy B. Romanovskiy

Penza State University

Author for correspondence.
Email: vlad93@sura.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0546-2557
SPIN-code: 2791-8376

Doctor of Law, Full Professor, Head of the Department of Criminal Law

40 Krasnaya str., Penza, 440026, Russian Federation

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