Kirejczyk M
Soc Stud Sci. 1999 Dec;29(6):889-912. doi: 10.1177/030631299029006004.
Twenty years ago, the technology of in vitro fertilization created a new artefact: the human embryo outside the woman's body. In many countries, political debates developed around the artefact. One of the central questions in these debates is whether it is permissible to use human embryos in research and, if so, under what conditions. To date, no uniform answer to this question has been given by the governments and parliaments of the different nation states. This highlights the importance of national cultures and local dynamics in the process of crafting the space for human embryo research. In this paper I approach the issue of the national context by comparing the Dutch and British parliamentary debates on human embryos. Though some arguments used in both debates were similar, the outcomes were very different. In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was passed in 1990. In the Netherlands, several bills on human embryos have been drafted, but each of them was withdrawn from the proceedings before reaching Parliament. To understand the processes which led to these different outcomes, I scrutinize the roles in the Netherlands of the political parties, of the scientists' lobby and of women speakers, and compare them with the findings of the UK debate. I also reflect upon the role played by gender in these two culturally different political contexts.
二十年前，体外受精技术创造了一种新的人工产物：处于女性体外的人类胚胎。在许多国家，围绕这一人工产物展开了政治辩论。这些辩论中的核心问题之一是，在研究中使用人类胚胎是否被允许，如果允许，在何种条件下允许。迄今为止，不同民族国家的政府和议会尚未就这个问题给出统一答案。这凸显了民族文化和地方动态在为人类胚胎研究打造空间的过程中的重要性。在本文中，我通过比较荷兰和英国议会关于人类胚胎的辩论来探讨国家背景问题。尽管两场辩论中使用的一些论点相似，但结果却大不相同。在英国，1990年通过了《人类受精与胚胎学法案》。在荷兰，已经起草了几项关于人类胚胎的法案，但每项法案在提交议会之前都从审议程序中撤回了。为了理解导致这些不同结果的过程，我仔细研究了荷兰政党、科学家游说团体和女性发言者所扮演的角色，并将它们与英国辩论的结果进行比较。我还思考了性别在这两种文化不同的政治背景中所起的作用。
