The use of national ethics committees in the biomedical policy making process
(2013) International Conference on Public Policy — Location: Grenoble (26.June.2013)
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- Biotechnologies have faced a rapid development in the field of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Issues linked to biotechnologies became, for that matter, a usual subject of the political and media-related agendas (Bauer and Gaskell, 2002; Bleiklie et al, 2004; Montpetit et al, 2007). Blank and Merrick (1995:228) maintain that “the rapid development of new interventions in human procreation and the increase in knowledge about fetal development make the issue surrounding them important matters of public policy”. The risk arising from the use of biotechnologies and the rapid progress made in the sector, led to a large range of public regulations (Montpetit et al, 2007; Bleiklie et al, 2004). Facing these “new issues, something the policy-maker has not dealt with before” (Weiss, 1986:276), experts have become indispensable to the policy-makers to get an orientation during the policy-making process. They need “the backing of experts to assure citizens that they are acting responsibly, in good faith, and with adequate knowledge and foresight” (Jasanoff, 2005:221). This situation led among others to the creation of National Ethics Committees (NECs). If scientific literature on policy advice and on NECs in general exists abundantly, the use of experts’ advice and, above all, their weight on policy-makers has been more scarcely studied in depth. The global contribution of this paper is to identify and to explain the use made of the NECs experts’ advice by policy-makers, and their influence on the policy-making in the field of ART. The BACB will serve as a case study. How does it work? How is the content of its advice on ART connected to the laws on ART? Can we observe a direct influence of its use by policy-makers? If not, are there other ways of use and influence? Is politicization of experts a major way of influence? Is it linked to interpersonal factors (contacts between a member of the BACB and a Parliamentarian, for instance) or to systemic factors (the characteristics of the political system in which policies are adopted)?
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Sakkas, S., & Schiffino-Leclercq, N. (2013). The use of national ethics committees in the biomedical policy making process. International Conference on Public Policy, Grenoble. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/46180