Fetal and animal research in Sweden

The construction of viable lives in regulatory policy debates, 1970–1980

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10798672
AutoresPer-Anders Svärd (0000-0003-0550-4710), Helena Tinnerholm Ljungberg (0000-0003-3622-3903)
Año2021
Volumen89
Páginas248-256
Fecha de publicación2021-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaStudies in History and Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0039-3681 • E-ISSN: 1879-2510
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.08.012
PMID34520944
OpenAlexW3199393459
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas26

Following demands to regulate biomedicine in the post-war period, Sweden saw several political debates about research ethics in the 1970s. Many of the debates centered on fetal research and animal experiments. At stake were questions of moral permissibility, public transparency, and scientific freedom. However, these debates did not only reveal ethical disagreement-they also contributed to constructing new boundaries between life-forms. Taking a post-Marxist approach to discursive policy analysis, we argue that the meaning of both the "human" and the "animal" in these debates was shaped by a need to manage a legitimacy crisis for medical science. By analyzing Swedish government bills, motions, parliamentary debates, and committee memorials from the 1970s, we map out how fetal and animal research were constituted as policy problems. We place particular emphasis on the problematization of fetal and animal vulnerability. By comparing the debates, we trace out how a particular vision of the ideal life defined the human-animal distinction

Animal rights · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Legitimacy · Marxist philosophy · Meaning (existential · Political science · Politics · Problematization · Social science · Sociology · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Race, Genetics, and Society