ABSTRACT
This chapter presents findings from analysis of a particular set of representations of kinship in the context of new reproductive technologies (NRTs). These are the parliamentary debates accompanying the passage into law of the British government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, introduced in November 1989 and enacted in November 1990. Following a brief contextualisation of these debates and a discussion of the analytic procedures undertaken, I present an analysis of the official records from Hansard. The findings are organised with respect to three analytical perspectives: (1) the ways in which the debates can be read from an anthropological perspective as a formal, public negotiation of kinship; (2) the implications of such a perspective for an understanding of the framing and grounding of the terms of public debate, and thus future debates; and (3) the implications for anthropological understandings of kinship which may be seen to derive from the particular representations of kinship produced in these debates.
