New discoveries in human genetic technology have a significant impact on society and open up new perspectives in medicine. Genetic information provides the ability to diagnose or predict genetic conditions for the risks of illness and may bring about significant benefits to health care in the future. However, the use of genetic information poses daunting questions and great challenges to public health care and our legal systems. One of the most demanding issues of the integration of new genetic technologies into medicine is the challenge of equality. The second biggest issue is the problem of the protection of patients' autonomy and privacy in the age of genomic medicine, especially when genetic information can be used and misused for miscellaneous purposes. Both of the above mentioned concerns are based on a common social fear – the fear of genetic discrimination that has stimulated legislators of many countries to pass special laws guaranteeing genetic privacy or preventing people from genetic discrimination in such fields as the insurance system and employment.

In the present essay I shall discuss some of the issues concerned with the problem of genetic discrimination. I shall present what genetic discrimination means and how it can manifest itself. I shall also discuss the main controversies that arise when the law preventing genetic discrimination is at stake.

The present book is the fourth volume of the series Studies in the Philosophy of Law which has appeared since 2001. The previous two volumes had a monographic character, the last one being devoted to the topic of the economic analysis of law and published in English. The present volume also has a monographic character and concerns various issues of bioethics, law and philosophy.

The volume is a part of a research project “Biojurisprudence” pursued from 2007 through 2010 by the Department of Philosophy of Law and Legal Ethics at the Jagiellonian University and sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Within the project our team has published many articles, monographs and edited works. One monograph Evolutionary Foundations of Law was written by Dr. Wojciech Załuski and was published in both Polish and English in 2009. We have also prepared the monograph, Paradoxes of Legal Bioethics together which is forthcoming this year. Furthermore, we have prepared a book which is a collection of various papers presented at the international Symposium “Law and Biology” organized by our Department in December 2009.

This volume consists of various essays written by scholars from Italy, USA and Poland. Half of the papers included in the volume were presented during the 23rd IVR World Congress of Legal and Social Philosophy held in Krakow in 2007 in the special workshop organized and supervised by Dr. Marta Soniewicka and Dr. Wojciech Załuski.

Introduction: the curse of immortality

From ancient times many philosophers have considered the question of whether it is a bad thing to die. In this essay I would like to concentrate on the question, of whether it would be a good thing not to die. The idea of achieving immortality has been present in human speculation since the dawn of history. Furthermore, this dream has resurfaced not only in the idle speculation of humans but also in scientific research. Alchemists who put all their effort into finding the elixir of immortality have been replaced in our times by scientists who aim at creating a brave new world where people would be able to fully control the act of human birth and death by scientific methods. However, is immortality really something worth desiring?

I think that the average person would answer negatively to the question given in the title of the essay. We can find some vivid depictions which illustrate our fear of a never ending life in literature, where writers such as George Bernard Shaw or Jonathan Swift present the tragedy of the impossibility of finding death.

The present book is the fifth volume of the series Studies in the Philosophy of Law which has appeared since 2001. The previous three volumes had a monographic character, the last one being devoted to the various issues of bioethics, law and philosophy and the previous one to the topic of the economic analysis of law. Both of these were published in English. This volume is part of a research project “Biojurisprudence” pursued from 2007 through 2010 by the Department of Philosophy of Law and Legal Ethics at the Jagiellonian University and sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Within the project our team has published many articles, monographs and edited works such as the Studies in the Philosophy of Law, vol. 4: Legal Philosophy and the Challenges of Biosciences(edited by J. Stelmach, M. Soniewicka and W. Załuski, Jagiellonian University Press, 2010). One monograph, entitled Evolutionary Foundations of Law was written by Dr. Wojciech Załuski and was published in both Polish and English in 2009. We have also prepared a joint monograph entitled Paradoxes of Legal Bioethics and which is forthcoming this year.

The present volume also has a monographic character and consists of two parts and an appendix. The first part, entitled Legal Implications of Medical Advances, consists of four chapters that address the ethical and legal issues of the integration of new genetic technologies into medicine.