| animal rights | The moral and ethical bases of the protection of animals from cruelty and abuse. The rights are extended to domestic animals, laboratory animals, and wild animals. (12 Dec 1998) |
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| cell line rights | <cell culture> Ownership of a new organism entity. Rulings indicate that any organism that is patentable at all can be patented if it has been manipulated to do something useful. Usually, the rights do not reside with the individual who has supplied the source of the organism, but with the individual or organisation who has made it. (26 Mar 1998) |
| civil rights | Legal guarantee protecting the individual from attack on personal liberties, right to fair trial, right to vote, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, age, or gender. (12 Dec 1998) |
| women's rights | The rights of women to equal status pertaining to social, economic, and educational opportunities afforded by society. (12 Dec 1998) |
| human rights | The rights of the individual to cultural, social, economic, and educational opportunities as provided by society, e.g., right to work, right to education, and right to social security. (12 Dec 1998) |
| assisted reproductive technology | Originally, a range of techniques for manipulating eggs and sperm in order to overcome infertility. Encompasses drug treatments to stimulate ovulation; surgical methods for removing eggs (e.g., laparoscopy and ultrasound-guided transvaginal aspiration) and for reimplanting embryos (e.g., zygot intrafallopian transfer (or ZIFT); in vitro and in vivo fertilization (e.g., artificial insemination and gamete intrafallopian transfer (or GIFT); ex utero and in utero foetal surgery; as well as laboratory regimes for freezing and screening sperm and embryos, and micromanipulating and cloning embryos. The field's first major success came in 1978 with the birth of "test-tube baby" Louise Brown, engineered by Steptoe, Edwards, et al., of England. As the technologies spread, they increasingly are being employed for purposes beyond infertility, i.e., to reduce the risk of, or avoid passing on, hereditary disease and to select for infant sex. Further uses that would aim at improving the "quality" of offspring have been widely discussed and raise profound legal and ethical questions. See: eugenics. (05 Mar 2000) |
| basic reproductive rate, ratio | <epidemiology> See Reproductive Ratio. (05 Dec 1998) |
| cells, reproductive | The eggs and sperm are the reproductive cells. Each mature reproductive cell is haploid in that it has a single set of 23 chromosomes. (12 Dec 1998) |
| reproductive | Relating to reproduction. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reproductive adaptation | A peculiarity of the reproductive mechanism of a species that results in it being better fitted to its environment (for example, prolonged seed dormancy). (09 Oct 1997) |
| reproductive and urinary physiology | Physiology of the human and animal body, male or female, in the reproductive process and the physiology of the urinary tract. (12 Dec 1998) |
| reproductive assimilation | In sensorimotor theory, an active cognitive process by which past experience is applied to novel situations. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reproductive cells | The eggs and sperm are the reproductive cells. Each mature reproductive cell is haploid in that it has a single set of 23 chromosomes. (12 Dec 1998) |
| reproductive control agents | Substances used either in the prevention or facilitation of pregnancy. (12 Dec 1998) |
| reproductive cycle | The cycle which begins with conception and extends through gestation and parturition. (05 Mar 2000) |