Senator Martin Harmon is poised to claim his party’s nomination for Vice-President of the United States. He has improved his chances dramatically by becoming the leading spokesperson for a law, the REA, designed to prevent abuses in genetic engineering; abuses that Harmon believes threaten the country and mankind.  But there’s only one problem and it revolves around two women—the woman whom he loves who is not his wife, and his wife, a woman who wants nothing to do with the intense spotlight that comes with a presidential campaign.
 
As Harmon struggles to resolve his dilemma, he must confront the consequences of the law he fought so hard to enact, for if he has won political friends with his support for the REA, he has made enemies among genetic researchers, including Max Grunfeld, an aging scientist of towering reputation whose most recent discovery will revolutionize the entire field of genetics.
 
As events unfold, Harmon and Grunfeld find themselves on a collision course with the highest stakes possible—human life. Witness the consequences of Bethesda's Child.