Morality Plays in Science Policy Making: The Human Embryonic Stem Cells Debate in the U.S. Congress

• In Event: 178 - Regular Session. Ethics and Science

Abstract

Until 2009, researchers in the US were banned from using federal funds to work with human embryonic stem cells. We analyze congressional hearings held between 1998, when embryonic stem cells were isolated, and 2006, when President Bush vetoed a law expanding funding, and trace scientists’ attempts at becoming “moral entrepreneurs.” Our analysis brings insights from the “new sociology of morality” to scholarship on science policy making. At its core, we view this debate as a morally-loaded political battle about how to define and value human life. Unlike in the UK, where scientists convinced parliamentarians of the existence of a “pre-embryo” and its suitability for research, we find that scientists in the US could not rely on claims to privileged knowledge to accomplish a similar goal. Nor could they rely on an alignment with patients and their advocates to shift the moral terms of debate. Despite having won over some prominent anti-abortion senators, without successfully establishing the “pre-embryo” as a moral “obligatory passage point” scientists were unable to sway a largely conservative administration in their favor. Nevertheless, their performances in congressional settings are significant in three related ways: first, they shape how and what kind of science can be done with the state’s legal and material support; second, they illuminate how science functions as a cultural discourse that can be enrolled to mold public conceptions of human life and its worth; and third, they clarify how scientists themselves wield this discourse to garner credibility and sway political decision-making.

Authors

• Mariana Craciun, Northwestern University

• Jason Owen-Smith, University of Michigan