Abortion rhetoric in American news coverage of the human cloning debate

Jensen, Eric; Weasel, Lisa H.

doi:10.1080/14636770601032940

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In the American sample on the other hand journalists understood the abortion controversy as a still active debate (also see Jensen and Weasel, 2006), rendering that anti-abortion activists' role in therapeutic cloning coverage was not once questioned by American newspaper journalists in the present sample. Indeed, the abortion controversy maintains its potency in the US following the US Supreme Court's 1972 Roe v. Wade decision favoring federal abortion rights, becoming partly constitutive of the simmering discontent confronting therapeutic cloning research in America.…”

Section: Marginalization 1 Of Anti-abortion Activistsmentioning

confidence: 78%

Mediating subpolitics in US and UK science news

Jensen¹

2010

Public Underst Sci

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The development of therapeutic cloning research sparked a scientific controversy pitting patients' hopes for cures against religious and anti-abortion opposition. The present study investigates this controversy by examining the production and content of Anglo-American print media coverage of the branch of embryonic stem cell research known as "therapeutic cloning." Data collection included press articles about therapeutic cloning (n = 5,185) and qualitative interviews with journalists (n = 18). Patient activists and anti-abortion groups emerged as key news sources in this coverage. Significant qualitative differences in the mediation of these subpolitical groups and their arguments for and against therapeutic cloning are identified. Results suggest that the perceived human interest news value of narratives of patient suffering may give patient advocacy groups a privileged position in journalistic coverage. Finally, Ulrich Beck's theoretical arguments about subpolitics are critically applied to the results to elicit further insights.

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Section: Marginalization 1 Of Anti-abortion Activistsmentioning

confidence: 78%

Mediating subpolitics in US and UK science news

Jensen¹

2010

Public Underst Sci

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“…Nevertheless, there is still potential for news media to play a role in fostering thick bioethical discourse about therapeutic cloning and other issues. 2,4…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Through thick and thin: rationalizing the public bioethical debate over therapeutic cloning

Jensen

2008

Clinical Ethics

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Beauchamp and Childress (1994) elaborated an approach to bioethical deliberations based on four universalistic principles. This framework of ‘principlism’ has been criticized from within biomedical ethics as insufficient and problematic. However, this article considers a more radical sociological critique by John Evans (2002) that rejects the entire approach of defining ‘principles’ a priori. This sociological critique is based on classical sociologist Max Weber's (1925) distinction between instrumental (‘thin’) and substantive (‘thick’) rationality. As an exploratory assessment of Evans' critique, his conceptualization of ‘thin’ versus ‘thick’ rationalization is applied to a large sample of Anglo-American press coverage ( n = 5126) of the bioethical controversy surrounding therapeutic cloning. Given the role of mainstream news media as a key arena for the discursive framing of biomedical research and its ethical implications, the findings raise important questions about principlism and the mediation of bioethical debates on issues such as therapeutic cloning.

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“…Most recently under the Obama administration these funding restrictions have been overturned, with support from the legitimating power of patient narratives. In both cases, a long-running debate over abortion and the status of the human embryo simmered unresolved in the background (Jensen and Weasel 2006).…”

Section: Life Political Actors and Group Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abortion rhetoric in American news coverage of the human cloning debate

Abstract: Acknowledgments:

Cited by 12 publications

References 29 publications

Mediating subpolitics in US and UK science news

Mediating subpolitics in US and UK science news

Through thick and thin: rationalizing the public bioethical debate over therapeutic cloning

Celebrity life politics in US and UK journalistic coverage of therapeutic cloning research

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