tance to the whole idea of genetically modified or-
ganisms (GMOs).
Discussion of the possibility of mounting a proj-
ect to sequence the human genome began in 1986,
and in 1988 James D. Watson was appointed head of
the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s human ge-
nome initiative; the project got under way in the fol-
lowing year. The same technical advances that made
possible the Human Genome Project assisted the
spread of “genetic screening” of embryos for various
hereditary conditions. Although it was not com-
pleted until the early twenty-first century, the launch
of this project was a key symbol of the expectations
attached to bioengineering in the 1980’s.
Impact The rapid development of genetically
modified plants made less impact than expected,
partly because of environmentalist opposition and
partly because progress slowed somewhat after ini-
tial successes. The advancement of animal trans-
genics also slowed dramatically because of unfore-
seen technical difficulties, so the promise of the
1980’s was only partly fulfilled in the next two de-
cades. Still, by decade’s end, many genetic tech-
niques had moved out of the realm of science fiction
to become probable technologies of the near future.
Further Reading
Boylan, Michael, and Kevin E. Brown.Genetic Engi-
neering: Science and Ethics on the New Frontier. Upper
Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. A useful
summary of the development of genetic engi-
neering and the ethical issues raised by its appli-
cations.
Bud, Robert.The Uses of Life: A Histor y of Biotechnology.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
- A succinct history, culminating with the
breakthroughs and advances made in the 1980’s.
Fowler, Cary.Unnatural Selection: Technology, Politics,
and Plant Evolution. Amsterdam, the Netherlands:
Gordon and Breach, 1994. An argumentative
analysis of the social implications of 1980’s ad-
vances in the bioengineering of plants.
Kneen, Brewster.Farmageddon: Food and the Culture of
Biotechnology. Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society, - An alarmist account of the development
of the environmental movement’s opposition to
GMOs in the 1980’s and 1990’s and the associated
changes in regulation.
Krimsky, Sheldon.Biotechnics and Society: The Rise of
Industrial Genetics. New York: Praeger, 1991. An
account of the rapid growth of biotechnology
companies in the 1980’s and the range of their
enterprise.
Silver, Lee M.Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering
and Cloning Will Transform the American Family.
New York: Avon Books, 1998. A painstaking ac-
count of the application of biotechnology to prob-
lems of human infertility in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Brian StablefordSee also Agriculture in the United States; Biopesti-
cides; Cancer research; DNA fingerprinting; Envi-
ronmental movement; Fetal medicine; Food trends;
Genetics research; Health care in Canada; Health
care in the United States; Inventions; Medicine; Sci-
ence and technology.Biological clock
Definition Slang term referring to a purported
desire (primarily female) to have children while
still of child-bearing age
During the 1980’s, popular culture embraced this term to
emphasize the pressures felt by professional or single women
who wanted to become mothers but believed they were run-
ning out of time to do so.
Although often meant to caricature the situation,
the term “biological clock”—with its image of a tick-
ing timepiece counting down the period in which re-
production remained a possibility—pointed to a
genuine double-bind felt by some women forced to
choose between different kinds of personal fulfill-
ment.
Beginning in this decade, women’s studies texts
and the media treated the social expectation for
women to have children, as well as the importance of
age to that process, in contrasting ways. Media treat-
ment hyped the desirability for women to marry and
have children and the unsuitability for them to have
careers preventing this. Women’s texts treated the
topic under “infertility” and as reproductive choice
and additionally were critical of what were seen as
scare tactics. While the media told women they can-
not “have it all,” the women’s studies books empha-
sized that reproduction is not the only measure of
success for a woman.
Both, however, agreed that women’s fertility peaks
in the twenties, remains strong through thirty-five,The Eighties in America Biological clock 111