Stem Cells, Politics and the Progress Paradigm

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Bubela, Tania
  • DeBow, Suzanne
  • Caulfield, Timothy

• The analysis of Parliamentary debates provides the opportunity to assess the political context of Canadian legislation, particularly in controversial areas such as stem cell research. Parliamentary debates surrounding the recent Assisted Human Reproduction Act,1 which lasted nearly a decade, were dominated by religious conservatives. At the forefront of the debate were issues such as the moral status of the embryo and the regulation of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The resulting restrictive statutory provisions that ban SCNT ultimately arose from a convergence of rhetoric on dignity and the moral status of the embryo, and the resultant promotion of adult stem cell research.

• Date created

  2014-11-12

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Politics
  • Public Policy
  • Cloning, Organism--legislation & jurisprudence
  • Embryo Research--legislation & jurisprudence
  • Stem Cells

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3B28P

• License

  © 2006 Health Law Institute, University of Alberta. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original authors and source must be cited.