FRANKENSTEIN AND THE DEBATE OVER EMBRYO RESEARCH

This study uses evidence from the press and from the parliamentary rec ord to examine the extent to which, and the ways in which, people invo lved in the public debate over laboratory experiments on human embryos in Britain during the 1980s drew on images from science fiction. It i s shown that negative images from science fiction were used in the deb ate, but that these images could be transformed into resources for def ending, as well as attacking, this form of scientific endeavor It is a lso shown that other fictional structures were present in the debate a nd that both sides relied heavily on fictional components to justify t heir competing appraisals of embryo research.