From winged lions to frozen embryos, neomorts and human-animal cybrids

the functions of law in the symbolic mediation of biomedical hybrids

Britta van Beers

pp. 177-199

in: Bart van Klink, Britta van Beers, Lonneke Poort (eds), Symbolic legislation theory and developments in biolaw, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

This chapter argues that legal discourse offers a vital contribution to the social-cultural symbolisation of biomedical hybrids. Products of biomedical developments, such as human immortal cellines, three parent babies, frozen embryos and synthetic human tissues, appear to be questioning the founding frameworks, categories and distinctions of our moral experience. The main reason is that these hybrid entities go beyond the categorical distinctions between, for example, person and thing, alive and dead, male and female and natural and artificial. Under these circumstances, law's intricate system of categories and constructions can become of vital importance in the collective effort to come to a cultural-symbolic understanding of these novel entities. In this chapter, law's symbolic functions in this process are elucidated, analysed and compared to other possible approaches.