Cloning, politics and values : the Norwegian legislative debate on cloning in a risk perspective

Abstract

The political debate on gene technology, concerning the technology of cloning, has raised a lot of questions on ethics, political strategies and research programs. The debate raised new heights after the controversial news about the cloned sheep, Dolly. The political debate in Norway has been concerned about how to regulate and control the gene technology development. All the questions have in common that they are all mainly focusing on the eventual risks and threats to human life posed by gene technology. The debate is as such situated in a risk perspective, where the risks and threats are seen mainly as products of science and technology. The Norwegian legislative debate within the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) has resulted in a restrictive law, which forbid producing genetically identical individuals. I have analysed the political arguments through a religious, a scientific and an aesthetic ideal-typical position. The three ideal-types represent differentiated ways of debating and understanding risk posed by gene technology. The paradox is that the debate has a shared base, a shared political platform, among the politicians, which overlaps the ideal-typical distinctions. This means that the arguments are partly blurring the traditional party-political boundaries. The shared political view is based on an agreement to put restriction and prohibition on the agenda.