Surrounding Embryos: Biology, Ideology, and Politics

Abstract:     
This article considers several parameters of the late twentieth and early twenty-first-century debate in the U.S. about ethics, politics, science, and ideology (popularly referred to as the "culture wars"). The article focuses, in particular, on shifting understandings of the embryo. The article reviews developments in science (especially the advent of stem-cell research and cloning) that have affected understandings of embryo, the history of debate about abortion in the U.S., and the place of discourse about abortion in a more far-reaching social debate about family, personal relationships, and the scope of personhood in the U.S.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 39

Keywords: abortion, cryopreserved embryos, embryo adoption, embryonic status, reproductive rights, stem-cell research

Accepted Paper Series