Title: Rites of Passage: Discursive Strategies in the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill Debate.
Authors: Kettell, Steven
Abstract: The transformational impact of the ideational turn in political science has been profound, but academic inquiry into the role of discursive strategies has remained limited. This article examines this issue through a study of the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. The debate surrounding the Bill was characterised by two competing discourses of ‘hope’ and ‘fear’. Established during previous debates over the regulation of research using human embryos, these contrasted the potential medical benefits to be derived with the social and ethical dangers of an unregulated science. This article deconstructs these discursive strategies and considers their impact on both the course of the debate as well as the mechanics of the Bill's passage through Parliament itself. It maintains that discursive and institutional contexts are mutually constitutive.
Subjects: UNITED Kingdom; CONCEPTION; HUMAN fertility; EMBRYOLOGY laws; POLICY sciences; POLITICAL science; GREAT Britain. Parliament; ETHICS; LAW
Publication: Political Studies, 2010, Vol 58, Issue 4, p789
ISSN: 0032-3217
Publication type: Academic Journal
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00847.x

Rites of Passage: Discursive Strategies in the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill Debate.

Kettell, Steven