How to Talk about Bioethics?

In liberal political theory, it is often assumed that justifications of political decisions should not make use of non-political values, especially religious ones, but only of political values. Deep moral questions, notably concerning bioethics, have however failed to meet this standard. In this paper, I argue that the distinctions between political and non-political values and between religious and secular values are blurrier than is usually acknowledged. I illustrate this claim with an analysis of arguments used in France and in the United States in debates about stem cell research.