Bažnyčios įtaka įstatymų priėmimui Lietuvoje: Biomedicininių tyrimų etikos įstatymo ir Pagalbinio apvaisinimo įstatymo projekto atvejų studija /

This Bachelor thesis aims to analyze in what ways and methods Church attempts to influence the legislation in Lithuania. Both, the Law on Ethics of Biomedical Research and the Artificial Insemination Bill, came back to political agenda almost on the same time – last year, but the outcome was totally different. In the Parliament session, where the Law on Ethics of Biomedical Research was unanimously passed, speakers stressed the benefits for the country, science and technology that this law would bring. On the other hand, the Artificial Insemination Bill has not been agreed on for more than 10 years and the Church is sometimes blamed for that. So the main problem raised in this bachelor thesis is that the regulatory law on artificial insemination is neccessary for Lithuania, however when the Church gets involved in policy-making process it is impossible to reach the agreement. The aim of this paper is to disclose what methods the Church uses to influence the legislation on laws, based on morality, human values and medicine. Two theories are used in this thesis to explain how policy and legislation can be influenced. The first one is interest group theory and G. Almond‘s classical classification of interest groups. A newer Hague, Harrop and Breslin classification of the possible ways for interest groups to influence legislation is used. The second theoretical approach is veto players theory developed by George Tsebelis. However, Simon Fink developed a more direct theory on Church as a veto player and his approach is also used in thesis. Based on both of these theoretical approaches the main supportive theses are raised: 1. Having a huge mobilization potential and a large number of supporters, Church in Lithuania is capable to influence legislation more easily; 2. Church in Lithuania not only has influence when forming the world-view of its‘ supporters, but also is capable to recruit them for direct action; 3. The existance of religious party (Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats) helps Church to pursue its ambitions. To answer these questions, a qualitative content analysis of the following main objects are maid: Analysis of both case studies shows that the Church is indeed trying to influence the legislation in Lithuania. Although, the analysis of the Law on Ethics of Biomedical Research showed no actual influence, the findings on Artificial Insemination Bill were different. Not only Church representatives but also other individuals or organizations used the same argumentation concerning the procedures of artificial insemination. The main groups of argumentation were these: 1. Traditional view on family; 2. The conception of „morally good“; 3. The role of a child in a family; 4. The status of the embryo; The results of the analysis of the Artificial Insemination Bill, which had two versions but the liberal one was rejected, it showed that all of these arguments are fixed in the Bill. Thus it can be concluded that the Church has influence on legislation, recruits its supporters for direct action and is involved in the policy-making process through a religious party. The role of the Church as a veto player or interest group in Lithuania was also confirmed. However, the findings of the analysis do not show whether the argumentation used by other individuals is directly influenced by the Church or if it is formed that way because the individual belongs to some kind of religious society and why one act is of greater interest to the Church that the other. Further research should be conducted by using the method of interview and talking to representatives of the Church.

Grantor dc:publisher

Institutional Repository of Vilnius University

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Petrauskaitė, Jolanta,

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dementavičienė, Augustė

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

lit

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.vu.lt/VU:ELABAETD35558388&prefLang=en_US

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vu.lt:elaba:35558388