Abstract
This paper considers the legislative debates in Australia that led to the passage of the Research Involving Human Embryos Act (Cth 2002) and the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act (Cth 2002). In the first part of the paper, we discuss the debate surrounding the legislation with particular emphasis on the ways in which demands for public consultation, public debate and the education of Australians about the potential ethical and scientific impact of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) research were deployed, and the explicit and implicit framing of the scope of public consultation. We then ask whether, given the calls for public consultations, debate and understanding, current work in democratic theory could be helpful in analysing the process of policy-making in these areas. In particular, we canvass the literature relating to aggregative and deliberative models of democracy for processes that support the legitimacy of policy. We identify features of the debate that reflect the appeal of deliberative approaches as well as some of the possible hurdles or limitations to developing deliberative democratic approaches to policy in ethically contentious areas.
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Notes
It is interesting, in light of this view, that Recommendation 9, which immediately follows this explanation, makes a less explicit claim with regard to public consultation: ‘The Committee recommends that the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) be responsible for monitoring scientific developments in this area, analysing their potential impact and providing advice to Commonwealth, State and Territory governments on these matters’ [1: 228–229]. The Recommendation seems designed to leave public consultation and debate out of the process that generates advice to governments.
A six-member Legislation Review Committee (LRC), chaired by John S. Lockhart, was established in mid-2005 and submitted its report to COAG for its 19 December 2005 deadline; the report was also tabled in both Houses of the Australian Parliament and will be debated in 2006 [24: 4].
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant Big Picture Bioethics: Policy-Making and Liberal Democracy. The paper has benefited from comments and suggestions by the reviewers from this special issue, as well as by Françoise Baylis, Fiona Mackenzie, and Kerry Ross.
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Dodds, S., Ankeny, R.A. Regulation of hESC Research in Australia: Promises and Pitfalls for Deliberative Democratic Approaches. Bioethical Inquiry 3, 95–107 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-006-9007-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-006-9007-4