Embryonic Silences: Human Life Between Biomedicine, Religion, and State Authorities in Austria

This contribution seeks to develop a better understanding of the role of the Catholic Church in Austrian biopolicy making. It argues that the ambiguous place of the Catholic Church in Austrian culture and politics helps us to make sense of the particular shape of biopolicy debates. The argument is based on an exploration of moments in the politics of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryo research over the past three decades, which are situated in the values, norms, and imaginaries of the political culture of Austria’s postwar Second Republic. The study shows that biopolicy debates focused on the use of ART technologies in reproductive medicine and the legitimate shape of Austrian families. This focus went along with a blurred vision on IVF embryo research and constitutive silences on IVF embryos. The brief moments in which IVF embryos were given center stage revealed that unborn human life is entangled in competing visions on its moral status and disagreements about the appropriate place of the Catholic Church in Austria’s public life. In line with the norms and imaginaries of Austrian political culture, such disputes were not publically debated but pragmatically circumvented and silenced.