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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.
Thomas Banchoff is Director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and Professor in the Department of Government and School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign Policy, 1945–1995, editor of Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics and Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism, and coeditor of Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights and Legitimacy and the European Union: The Contested Polity.
"Commentators have often noted that debates about embryo research are inherently political, but before now we have had no reliable guide to the contours and history of this politics. Thomas Banchoff has produced the definitive work, not only on embryo politics but also on the politics of bioethics generally. We are all in his debt."
"Banchoff's historical outline of these debates over embryo research and use is accurate and engaging, showing clearly how the different political backgrounds against which they took place shaped their later contours. He also addresses the difficult moral questions surrounding the moral status of embryos, how the law should respond to this status, and how these questions intersect with the need for biomedical progress where such 'progress depends on research on embryos. This is a very clear, well-written, engaging volume, and one that could be read with profit and interest by anyone curious about what is one of the most pressing debates of the moment. Summing Up: Highly recommended for all readership levels."
John H. Evans, UC San Diego:
"In Embryo Politics, Thomas Banchoff summarizes a very large amount of data to make a cohesive argument about embryo debates in four countries over forty years. It is a masterly accomplishment."
Simon Cole:
"As Thomas Banchoff notes in Embryo Politics, 'the human embryo only slowly emerged as an object of ethical controversy.' This lucid and well-written book relates a comparative history of this controversy in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France."
Gail Grossman Freyne:
"Banchoff does not fall prey to the allures of science fiction and he avoids sensationalism, but his book is sensational. It is an exciting read and should generate a great deal of public interest because it sets out with clarity the many strands, both ethical and political, that make up in vitro fertilization (IVF), stem cell research and cloning."
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