Analyzing Social Policy Argumentation: A case study on the opinion of the German National Ethics Council on an amendment of the Stem Cell Law

This paper analyzes and evaluates the 2007 majority opinion of the German National Ethics Council which seeks to establish new information (as to the inferior quality of legally procurable human embryonic stem cells) as a sufficient reason for a relaxation of the 2002 Stem Cell Law. A micro-level an...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Frank Zenker
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Windsor 2010-03-01
Series:Informal Logic
Subjects:
Online Access:https://informallogic.ca/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/2947
Description
Summary:This paper analyzes and evaluates the 2007 majority opinion of the German National Ethics Council which seeks to establish new information (as to the inferior quality of legally procurable human embryonic stem cells) as a sufficient reason for a relaxation of the 2002 Stem Cell Law. A micro-level analysis of the opinion’s central section is conducted and evaluated   vis à vis the strongest known opponent position in the national debate at that time. The argumentation is claimed to rely on an unsupported semantic assumption regarding the parthood relation of the 2002 compromise and to misconstrue the strongest known opponent position.
ISSN:0824-2577
2293-734X