This study uses evidence from the press and from the parliamentary record to examine the extent to which, and the ways in which, people involved in the public debate over laboratory experiments on human embryos in Britain during the 1980s drew on images from science fiction. It is shown that negative images from science fiction were used in the debate, but that these images could be transformed into resources for defending, as well as attacking, this form of scientific endeavor. It (...) is also shown that other fictional structures were present in the debate and that both sides relied heavily on fictional components to justify their competing appraisals of embryo research. (shrink)