Science and religion: the debates around embryonic stem cell research in Brazil

Abstract

In this article, I expose and analyze the debates on the researches involving embryonic stem cells in Brazil based fundamentally on the newspaper and Internet textual sources, and on the most recent document published by the Catholic Church concerning new reproductive technologies: the Instruction Dignitas Personae. On the whole, two issues have emerged from this controversy: the first one referring to the embryo’s status, and the other one referring to the contradiction between the scientific view and the religious conception of the world. I try to describe such controversy with the theoretical and conceptual aid of the symmetrical anthropology, proposed by Latour, and from the sociological and anthropological reflection about the position of the religion within the modernity, which leads, necessarily, to the exploration of the theme secularization and secularism. This way, I emphasize not only the intervention of religious actors and values in this question, but also the struggle of the laity actors for the affirmation of the scientific field autonomy.