Bordering on "human": British and Brazilian debates on embryo research

Following the arrival of in vitro fertilization techniques at the end of the seventies, a worldwide debate soon flourished on the status of the embryo produced within the laboratory and on its use in experimental scientific research. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare two of these debates as they unfolded in the British and Brazilian Parliaments. The former resulted in the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, while the latter led to the provisions of the 2005 Biosafety Law concerning embryonic stem cell research. Exploring the anthropological literature on the topic, the analysis aims to show not only the contemporary opening up of the borders of the 'human' to explicitly political forms of negotiation, but also the main vectors directing such negotiations in the case of scientific research using human embryos.