Embryonic Hopes: Controversy, Alliance, and Reproductive Entities in Law and the Social Sciences
| Author | Marie-Andrée Jacob,Barbara Prainsack |
| Published date | 01 December 2010 |
| Date | 01 December 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663910373308 |
| Subject Matter | Debate and Dialogue |
Debate and Dialogue
Embryonic Hopes:
Controversy, Alliance,
and Reproductive
Entities in Law and the
Social Sciences
Marie-Andre
´e Jacob
School of Law, Keele University, UK
Barbara Prainsack
King’s College London, UK
The beginning of the debate leading up to this contribution to Social & Legal Studies was
conceived in Spring 2008 on the occasion of a workshop entitled ‘Embryonic Hopes’.
The workshop was built around a visit of Israeli lawyer and ethicist Carmel Shalev to
the UK. In her talk Carmel Shalev addressed diverse interpretations of the concept of
human dignity (legalistic, religious, secular, nationalist, pro-natalist) in debates on the
use of embryos for research and assisted reproduction purposes in Israel (Shalev,
2008). Seeking to expand the scope of the discussion, we had invited a number of scho-
lars, researchers, and activists from various backgrounds to join us at this event.
Although fruitful conversations on the regulation of embryo research were already tak-
ing place within both socio-legal and social studies of medicine circles respectively, we
felt that genuine face-to-face encounters across fields, as well as the controversies and
lasting alliances emerging from them, were very rare. Thus one of the objectives of the
workshop was to stimulate face-to-face interaction on embryo research and assisted
reproduction technologies (ART) between socio-legal and social science scholars. In
other words, we shared what we may call ‘epistemological hopes’ for interdisciplinarity,
as well as an interest in the forms of hope that embryos, but also law, elicit. Specifically
we sought to tackle the tension that we thought was arising from epistemological differ-
ences between law on the one hand, and sociology/anthropology on the other, with
regard to the ‘boundedness’ of core concepts. The core concept in our field, the human
embryo, is often referred to as perpetuously fluid and open to negotiation in the social
studies of medicine, while it has clearly defined boundaries in the way it is operationa-
lized in legal doctrine, critique and practice.
In the interactions at our workshop, however, we found an unanticipated level of
agreement across disciplines on the unbounded character of the concept of the embryo,
Social & Legal Studies
19(4) 497–517
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663910373308
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497
on the need to analyse embryos in the context of networks of social and biological rela-
tions that they are embedded in, and even on which methods yielded the most meaningful
insights into understanding the ways that embryos are enacted in social realities. At the
same time, and despite this explicit reference to embryos-in-practice (to paraphrase Tim-
mermans and Berg’s (2003) concept of technology-in-practice), the agreement remained
at a conceptual level. As soon as workshop participants had started talking about how we
actually use the concept of the embryo in our own professional practices, gaps between
disciplines re-emerged. Social scientists requested ‘more analytic clarity’ regarding what
Shalev’s core terms signified in practice, and some socio-legal studies colleagues and
health care lawyers looked for clear anchor points for a systematic analysis of the ele-
ments within the thick description of an anthropological case study. In other words, when
discussing definitions, definability, and even the possibility of the un-definability of con-
cepts such as the embryo, agreement was easily achieved across disciplines. However, as
soon as the discussions moved to how concepts could be mobilized towards something
else – action, further analysis, etc. – mutual understanding proved more challenging.
Before we discuss what we believe the reasons are for this seeming paradox, let us
turn to a conversation between workshop participants. The next pages are devoted to
a debate between two scholars in the field of law, Marie Fox and The´re`se Murphy; and
Sarah Franklin, a scholar in the social studies of medicine, on what sorts of hopes
embryos embody, and what roles law and the social sciences play in facilitating or mate-
rializing these hopes, and ultimately, how hope’s function in law is intimately linked to
its disappointment.
References
Shalev, Carmel (2008) ‘Human Being, Nature and Dignity’, paper presented at the ‘Embryonic
Hopes’ workshop, London, June.
Timmermans, Stefan and Marc Berg (2003) ‘The Practice of Medical Technology’, Sociology of
Health & Illness 25 (Silver Anniversary Issue): 97–114.
Can Law Facilitate Embryonic Hopes?
Marie Fox and The
´re
`se Murphy
‘I’m hoping for a girl. They’re hoping for good weather. He’s hoping for the best, and
she hopes for good news. You think there’s no hope for us.’ Hope is, it seems, ubiquitous.
Still, this short piece examining the relationship between law and hope in the context of
debating embryos, feels like new ground. In legal circles, law and hope is not exactly a
widely-discussed coupling, and the triumvirate of law, hope and embryos is certainly not
familiar. Moreover, even though embryos have generated extensive legal commentary,
their precise legal status remains undecided, or perhaps undecidable. The Warnock
Report, which famously shaped the legal landscape in this field, concluded that embryos
were not persons but merited ‘respect’ (Department of Health and Social Security, 1984:
para. 11.17) and recommended that legislation specify that embryos cannot be owned
(Department of Health and Social Security, 1984: para. 11.20). However, the 1990
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which ultimately enacted most of the
498 Social & Legal Studies 19(4)
498
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