Bio-politics are nationally and internationally important and there is profound moral-ethical disagreement about whether such technologies should be allowed or forbidden. Among the social groups that strongly shape the character of these debates are many religious organizations and actors. But the legitimacy and the functionality of such religious interventions in the “secular” state are both politically and theoretically not uncontroversial (see for example R. Dworkin, J. Rawls, J. Habermas). Therefore, it is of specific interest in what ways religious traditions and organizations formulate their bio-ethical positions and which kinds of reasons they give to validate their positions within the political process. Moreover: how do religious actors influence politics, e.g. in which ways and under what conditions do religious positions and arguments achieve influence political decisions? We will present two case studies (Germany and USA) in the field of bio-politics studying the political regulation of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, reproductive cloning and embryonic stem cell research since the 1980s. Comparing Germany and the US allows to estimate the effects of highly different religio-political contexts on the action and argument repertoires of religious traditions and actors in influencing bio-politics. While the vast majority of Western Europeans would support the concept of separating politics and religion, the United States of America appears to be a country in which this context is seen differently (even though the legal separation of church and state is much stricter). It is supposed that large parts of its population are more intensely religious, that politicians use religious symbolism in their rhetoric and back their arguments by reference to religious beliefs, and that religious groups vocally inform political decisions.
