Shifting Rationales: The Waning Influence of Feminism on Canada's Embryo Research Restrictions

This article analyzes the competing influences on the federal government's policy and eventual legislative action regarding embryo research in Canada. Beginning with the events surrounding the establishment of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, the article traces the diminishing importance of feminist rationales to the ultimate legislation regulating embryo research, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. The article reveals the steady rise of pro-life discourse that has helped to displace feminist concerns about the threats to women’s bodies posed by new reproductive technologies in general and, instead, made the embryo the focus of legislative debates. As legal debates around abortion are relatively settled in Canada, the authors conclude that pro-life arguments are enjoying a level of respect in the embryo research context and a political and legal voice that has been denied in the abortion arena. The article ends by briefly raising questions regarding the discursive impact of this resurgence on attitudes towards abortion.