Paper's abstract

Philippe Oliviero, The Notion of "Pre-embryo" in the politico-scientific Literature
For contemporary biomedical research, the issue is not only to set the scientific basis for experimenting on living things, but also to establish the conditions for the possibility of objectiving "corporal materials of human origin". A study of the arguments in favor of experimenting on embryos less than 14 days old allows us to shed a light on the mechanisms used by scientific communication towards the political decision-makers in charge of financing research programs. At the end of a minute analysis, we will thus discover the various ways opened to thought by biology in order to represent the embodiment of a person. This tentative made by scientists to found an ethic of experimentation on human beings on strictly biological criteria actually lies on the use of a "negative psychology" which defines the conditions of a personalization of corporal materials.

Key Words : embryo, science, exepriment, bioethics, medicine
t. 36, 1991 : p. 85-107

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