PIP: Fetal tissue transplants holds the best hope for those suffering from previously irreversible neurological diseases and injury (Parkinson's , Alzheimer's, paraplegia from spinal cord injury), yet the procedure raises complex questions of ethics, law, and biomedicine, and is linked with the abortion controversy since the primary source of fetal tissue comes from electively aborted fetuses. Assuming the superiority of fetal tissue transplant and its potential for significant improvement in the quality of life, we need to consider the implications for the pregnant woman, the fetus, the scientific community, and society in general. In 1974, Congress established the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research which considered the important competing values: protection of the individual vs. the advancement of science for the betterment of others. The federal government's involvement became most with the Reagan Administration's opposition to abortion and to fetal tissue transplant. The states have a variety of regulations controlling private research on fetal tissue; otherwise the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) (Nationwide) controls, allowing post mortem gifts of "all or part of the body" for research, therapy, or transplantation, and includes a "stillborn infant or fetus" within its definition of "decedent." Under the UAGA, nothing prevents a woman from getting pregnant solely to provide fetal tissue, even to sell the tissue. The present regulatory assortment lends itself to abuse; explicit regulations and comprehensive guidelines are needed to prevent the obvious abuses and to create a framework to decide questions as they become medically relevant.