Democratic expert influence through bioethical advisory commissions? The case of Sweden

Summary, in English

Bioethical government advisory committees have profound influence on political decision-making on gene technology issues, concerning not only patients with genetically related diseases, but also, potentially, the whole society.

• Decision-making on issues concerning all society should be democratically legitimate in all aspects, including the work of government advisory committees.

• Democratic legitimacy of expert advice is desirable not only for the democratic values per se, but also for the quality of political decisions.

• In the case of PGD legislation in Sweden, the national government advisory committee functioned as a bridge between political representatives, specialist civil servants, and scientific experts, but the connection with public opinion was more or less absent.

• Had the advisory committee worked more openly and allowed a multiplicity of perspectives being heard, the democratic and quality aspects in this legislation process would have been strengthened.

• Author: Maria Hedlund
• Editor: Ulf Kristoffersson; J. J. Cassiman; Jörg Schmidtke
• Department/s: Department of Political Science
• Publishing year: 2010
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Quality Issues in Clinical Genetic Services
• Document type: Book chapter
• Publisher: Springer
• Topic: Political Science
• Keywords: expertise; democracy; bioethics; PGD; Sweden
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 978-90-481-3918-7