Search results for "IVF debate"

A Civilization of Death: Argumentative and Rhetorical Strategies in the Catholic Church's Position on Biotechnology

2017

Although political deliberation rarely proceeds fairly and effectively (Habermas 1984, 1989), the author of this paper assumes the fundamentally deliberative nature of the democratic public sphere, in which different religious institutions may take a stance and argue either for or against certain legal solutions. The study examines argumentation behind the Catholic Church’s negative stance on biotechnologies such as, for example, in vitro fertilization (IVF). Drawing on the theoretical and descriptive work on normative assumptions, knowledge bases and argumentative patterns involved in practical reasoning (Perelman, Olbrechts- Tyteca 1969; Walton 1990; Fairclough, Fairclough 2010, 2012), as…