Embryo Politics : : Ethics and Policy in Atlantic Democracies / / Thomas Banchoff.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Banchoff, Thomas,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2011]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)

Since the first fertilization of a human egg in the laboratory in 1968, scientific and technological breakthroughs have raised ethical dilemmas and generated policy controversies on both sides of the Atlantic. Embryo, stem cell, and cloning research have provoked impassioned political debate about their religious, moral, legal, and practical implications. National governments make rules that govern the creation, destruction, and use of embryos in the laboratory-but they do so in profoundly different ways.In Embryo Politics, Thomas Banchoff provides a comprehensive overview of political struggles aboutembryo research during four decades in four countries-the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Banchoff's book, the first of its kind, demonstrates the impact of particular national histories and institutions on very different patterns of national governance. Over time, he argues, partisan debate and religious-secular polarization have come to overshadow ethical reflection and political deliberation on the moral status of the embryo and the promise of biomedical research. Only by recovering a robust and public ethical debate will we be able to govern revolutionary life-science technologies effectively and responsibly into the future.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Emergence of Ethical Controversy -- Chapter 2. First Embryo Research Regimes -- Chapter 3. The Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research -- Chapter 4. Stem Cell and Cloning Politics -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index