Problems of political representation in the field of Biopolitics: Parliamentary decision and popular preferences on Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis

2011年，德国议会决定给予面临高遗传风险的夫妇免于全面禁止植入前遗传诊断（PGD）的豁免。但即使是这些新的规则是非常严格的PGD在许多其他欧洲国家的监管相比。与此同时，有一些零散的证据表明，公众比立法者持有更多的自由主义偏好。这种假定的代表性差距是显著的，因为PGD已经很大的医疗和商业潜力正在进一步迅速增长，而法规似乎无法跟上这一领域创新的快速步伐。该项目的目的是通过调查普通民众对项目前指导和相关生物伦理问题的偏好，评估代表性差距的规模和实质性相关性。一方面，推定的差距可能仅仅是缺乏信息和代表公民进行审议的结果。另一方面，普通公民可能持有不同的观点、信仰和偏好，这导致了对监管的需求比议会辩论的选项更自由。为了验证这些假设，调查将采用一种实验设计：a）在随机选择的一组受访者中调查对进一步自由化的支持情况B）然后让这两组受访者面对议会辩论中提出的论点样本，看看他们是否能被说服支持现行立法，从而有可能评估公民与其代表之间的规范差异到底有多大问题。

In 2011, the German parliament decided to grant couples facing high genetic risks an exemption from the blanket ban on Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). But even these new rules are very restrictive compared to the regulation of PGD in many other European countries. At the same time, there is some scattered evidence that the general public holds much more liberal preferences than lawmakers. This presumptive representation gap is significant, because the already large medical and commercial potential of PGD is rapidly growing further, while regulations seems unable to keep up with the fast pace of innovation in this field. The aim of this project is to assess the size and substantive relevance of the representation gap by surveying the general population on their preferences on PGD and related bioethical issues. On the one hand, the presumptive gap could simply be the consequence of a lack of information and deliberation on behalf of the citizenry. On the other hand, it is possible that ordinary citizens hold different opinions, beliefs, and preferences, which result in a demand for regulation that is more liberal than the options debated in parliament. To test these hypotheses, the survey will implement an experimental design:a) Support for further liberalisation will be probed in a randomly selected subgroup of respondents b) Both subgroups will then be confronted with a sample of the arguments that were raised during the parliamentary debates to see if they can be convinced to support the current legislation.Thus, it will be possible to assess how problematic any normative discrepancies between citizens and their representatives really are.