This study elaborates on theoretical models of consent formation by examining the interaction of public argument and legislative debate in the construction of public policy regulating a contested social practice, lay midwifery and homebirth. It explores the ways in which the discourse of a representative governing body serves to explicitly represent, omit, or modify public argument in its construction of public policy; and how public policy, once enacted, serves to advance certain meanings over others in public argument, in effect re-norming it. Lay midwifery policy instantiated more positive meanings of alternative birthing practices than those characteristic of the public consensus. This divergence indicates that legislative discourse can be generative, particularly when the crafting of local strategic accommodations leads to the privileging of intra-legislative ideographs over public ideographs.
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