Rhetoric, power and legitimacy: A critical analysis of the public policy disputes surrounding stem cell research in Australia (2005–6)

Abstract

In December 2006, the Australian Parliament liberalized regulation governing stem cell research. This decision and preceding legislative review generated considerable public debate, which centred on objections to the deliberate creation and destruction of human embryos for research purposes. This paper draws on qualitative research conducted on the public debate surrounding this policy episode. The aim of this research was to examine how science and scientific knowledge are mobilized by participants in these debates to support their arguments. Data were collected from 109 newspaper opinion editorials as well as 23 in-depth interviews and examined using qualitative content and thematic analysis. Results of this analysis depict science as a rhetorical, moral and political resource that provides opportunities for participants to gain legitimacy, negotiate meaning and assert authority in the public domain. The mobilization of science in public discourse is discussed along with suggestions that are aimed at encouraging greater transparency and inclusiveness in public debates around contested science and emergent technologies.

Speech acts and performances of scientific citizenship: Examining how scientists talk about therapeutic cloning

“…To draw on a different example, scientists who want to effectively promote an area of research may need to rigorously maintain their non-partisan/rational stance and ways of talking. This echoes Lysaght and Kerridge's (2010) argument that being able to describe one's claims as "scientific" and "value-neutral" is an important rhetorical strategy to improve one's epistemological, but also moral authority. It indicates that scientists can make the authority they have in the scientific field relevant to the public engagement field, but they must be careful to maintain their expected role.…”

“…Stem cell research (SCR) has been the source of much debate and stem cell researchers have been important stakeholders during Australian public discussions of the regulation of embryo research and cloning (e.g. Robins, 2005;Harvey, 2005;Ankeny and Dodds, 2008;Lysaght and Kerridge, 2010). in other countries such as the UK.…”

“…Because science-based worldviews tend to frame public discussions about techno-science, scientists are key in science-public interactions (e.g. Nelkin, 1975;Parry, 2009;Lysaght and Kerridge, 2010): they have high levels of recognised authority, that is high levels of "symbolic power" (Bourdieu, 1975;Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 148). The focus here is on how scientists in the field of stem cell research (SCR) in Australia talked about the label "therapeutic cloning" 2 whilst this technology was under moratorium there.…”

Stem Cells between Ethics and Entrepreneurship: How a Contested Bio-Object Became ‘Normal’

“…This means that in different discourses, the bio-identity is fabricated in different ways; the discourses limit and enable use of the bio-object in research, as well as what questions can be raised in the mass media (cf. Lysaght & Kerridge, 2012). Are hESCs political and ethical objects or merely tools for stem cell therapies and research (cf.…”

“…The flexible and promising stem cells, in combination with successful and solid researchers, carried expectations of better medical opportunities. However, as in many other countries (e.g., Lysaght & Capps, 2012;Lysaght & Kerridge, 2012), there was opposition to research on the use of human embryos in an Ethical discourse. One interview with a representative of the Christian Democrats, Per Landgren, came to be a reference point for many articles concerning how fundamentalist the opposition was: (Dagens Nyheter, 2001-07-12).…”