Passing on the Right: Conservative Bioethics is Closer Than it Appears

Ford L. , “Professor Will Lead Bush's Advisory Panel,” Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) August 10, 2001, at 17A.

“Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry” (July 2002); “Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness” (October 2003); “Being Human: Readings from the President's Council on Bioethics” (December 2003); “Monitoring Stem Cell Research” (January 2004); “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies” (March 2004). All available through <http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/>

Leon Kass asserts that May asked to be relieved of further service. Kass L. , “We Don't Play Politics with Science,” The Washington Post, March 3, 2004; at A27. May is reported to differ, and to assert that he never asked to leave the Council. Kohn D. Bell J. , “2 Appointees Defend Place on Bioethics Panel: Bush Critics Say Politics, Not Science, Ruled Choice,” The Baltimore Sun, March 2, 2004, at 7A (“Kass, the council chairman, said the 76-year-old May had ‘expressed a desire not to continue on the council’ and would serve as a consultant. But May said yesterday that it wasn't his choice to leave the council.'”).

Smallwood S. , “Bush Drops 2 Supporters of Embryo Research from Bioethics Panel,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 1, 2004, available at <http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/03/2004030103n.htm>.

Blackburn E. Rowley J. , “Reason as Our Guide,” Public Library of Science—Biology, March 5, 2004, available at <http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020116>.

Cook G. , “President's Panel Skewed Facts, 2 Scientists Say,” Boston Globe, March 6, 2004, at A1

Personal communication from Elizabeth Blackburn to the author, February 28, 2004.

“Critics See a Tilt in CDC Science Panel,” Science 295 (2002):1456–57; “Battle Over IPCC Chair Renews Debate on U.S. Climate Policy,” Science 296 (2002): 232–233; Office of Representative Edward J. Markey, “Lead Poisoning Advisory Panel Weighed Down by Lead Industry's Friends” (October 8, 2002).

Symons J. , “How Bush and Co. Obscure the Science,” Washington Post, July 13, 2003, at B4; Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman to EPA Secretary Christine Todd Whitman (October 8, 2002), available at <http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs/pdf_inves/pdf_enviro_epa_hydraulic_oct_8_let.pdf>.

See “Experts React to the Administration's Interference with Science: Scientific Organization Defend Peer-Reviewed Research,” at <http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/nih_support.htm> (last visited April 25, 2004).

See “Abortion Foes Seize on Reports of Cancer Link in Ad Campaign,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2002, at A26; Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman et al. to Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson (December 18, 2002); “AIDS Panel Choice Wrote of a ‘Gay Plague;’ Views of White House Commission Nominee Draw Criticism,” Washington Post, January 23, 2003, at AI; “Gays Shocked at Bush Choice for AIDS Panel,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 23, 2003, at A1; “Choice for AIDS Panel Withdraws after Criticism,” Washington Post, January 24, 2003, at A2; “Certain Words Can Trip up AIDS Grants, Scientists Say,” New York Times, April 18, 2003, at A10; Zerhouni E. , Testimony before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research, 108th Cong. (May 22, 2003); American Association for the Advancement of Science, Center for Science, Technology and Congress, “GOP Moderates Question Bush Stem Cell Policy” (June 30, 2003) at <www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/news/articles2003/030630_stemcells.shtml>; “The Effectiveness of Abstinence-Only Education,” at <http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/example_abstinence.htm>.

“Cheating Nature?; Science and the Bush Administration,” The Economist, April 10, 2004, at 76; “The Big Bad Bullies of the Scientific Playground,” Irish Independent, March 29, 2004, at <http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=45&si=1154717&issue_id=10653>. Marchione M. , “Scientist Calls Council's Stem Cell Reports Biased: Biologist Says Bioethics Panel Ignored Data Contrary to its Positions,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 13, 2004, at 5A; Phillips S. , “The Right's Hijack Of US Science,” The Times Higher Education Supplement, March 12, 2004, at 20; Gorner P. , “Researchers Accuse Bush of Stacking Bioethics Panel,” Chicago Tribune, March 4, 2004, at 14.

Testimony of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, Hearing of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Senate Committee, September 5, 2001. (“The administration will not reconsider its [August 9th] deadline as far as the destruction of embryos.”)

Blackburn E. , “A ‘Full Range’ of Bioethical Views Just Got Narrower,” The Washington Post, March 7, 2004, at B2.

Gollaher D. , “Proceeding Cautiously on Cloning,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, July 14, 2002, at G-3

“In fact, support on the panel for research cloning was broader than the vote suggests. A majority of council members have expressed support in principle for research cloning, and the moratorium option became the majority position only after two panel members changed their publicly stated positions after the council's June meeting. “The fact on the ground is that the majority of the council has no problem with the ethics of biomedical cloning' says council member Michael S. Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, who complained that the shift in the council's majority decision was unknown to many members until the draft of the final report was circulated. Some members also complain that the moratorium option was not adequately discussed. It ‘got thrown in at the last minute’ says Elizabeth H. Blackburn, a respected molecular biologist at the University of California (UC), San Francisco.” Hall S. , “President's Bioethics Council Delivers,” Science 297 (2000): 322.

Mooney C. , “Irrationalist in Chief; The Real Problem with Leon Kass,” The American Prospect September 24, 2001, at 10. See also Kukis M. , “White House Bioethicist a Cautious Skeptic,” United Press International, August 20, 2001 (“‘Jonas was a man of enormous moral passion and deep human understanding,’ said Kass, who spoke in a telephone interview from his native Chicago, where he was brought up in a family of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. ‘He was a man whose love of wisdom was informed by a passionate concern for humanity, and I loved that in him,’ Kass said of Jonas. ‘It just drew me.’ Kass said he never had the opportunity to study with Jonas, but the two became friends nonetheless before Jonas died in 1993. ‘He was the first person who showed me how you could philosophize deeply about the phenomenon of life while paying attention to the findings of modern science.’ Philosophy scholars describe Jonas, and Kass, as skeptics leery of unforeseen ills in technological gains, especially concerning biomedicine.”).

“Leon Kass, Philosopher-Politician,” The Economist, August 18, 2001, at 21.

Cook , supra note 6.

Hall , supra note 17.

Jonas H. , The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

Lobe J. , “What Is a Neo-Conservative Anyway?” Inter Press News Agency (2003), available at <http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19618>

Project for the New American Century, at <http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Project_for_the_New_American_Century> (last visited April 25, 2004).

New Citizenship Project, at <http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=New_Citizenship_Project> (last visited April 25, 2004).

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Scholars and Fellows, at <http://www.aei.org/scholars/filter./scholar_byname.asp> (last visited April 25, 2004).

Discovery Institute, at <http://www.discovery.org/> (last visited April 25, 2004).

Kristol W. Kilner J.F. , “An Open Letter to President George W. Bush on Human Cloning,” at <http://www.cbhd.org/resources/cloning/kilner_2002-01-01.htm> (last visited April 25, 2004).

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, “About the Center,” at <http://www.cbhd.org/aboutcbhd/> (last visited April 25, 2004). Among CBHD's most prominent members and advisors is Nigel Cameron, another creation science advocate who is himself affiliated with the Biotechnology Project of the Wilberforce Forum, whose goal is to “shape culture from a biblical perspective.” “About the Wilberforce Forum,” at <http://www.pfm.org/Content/NavigationMenu/The_Wilberforce_Forum/Leam_More7/About_The_Forurn/About_The_Wilberforce_Forum.htm> (last visited April 25, 2004).

First Things, at <http://www.firstthings.com/index.html> Cast visited April 25, 2004).

Glendon was appointed in March 2004 to be the head of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, thus making her the Roman Catholic Church's highest-ranking lay woman.) Owen R. , “Pope Gives Woman Key Post in Church,” The Times (London), March 11, 2004, at 20. While the Vatican certainly doesn't count as “neo-conservative,” its views on matters concerning sexuality and reproduction might appropriately be called conservative, thus demonstrating the ties of the PCB members into the traditional conservative movement as well as the neo-conservative movement.

See <http://www.sepschool.org> and click on item 3 (“Which Leaders Support this Movement?”) for the “VIP” list.

Ethics and Public Policy Center, at <http://www.eppc.org> (last visited April 25, 2004).

It should be noted here that previous commissions did not neglect religious viewpoints. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission, for example, had a professor of religious studies among its members and regularly invited religious leaders to testify or submit background material on issues such as cloning and stem cell research. Such views were reflected in the resulting reports.

Ethics and Public Policy Center, “Staff Directory,” at <http://www.eppc.org/about/pageID.232/default.asp> (last visited April 25, 2004).

Kass L. , “The End of Courtship,” The Public Interest 126 (1997): 39–64.

The Public Interest, at <http://www.thepublicinterest.com/>(last visited April 25, 2004).

Brief Biography, at <http://mason.gmu.edu/%7Eberkowit/bio.htm> (last visited April 25, 2004); PeterBerkowitz.com, at <http://mason.gmu.edu/∼berkowit/vita.htm> (last visited April 25, 2004).

Gazzaniga M. , Transcript, Friday, September 5, 2003, ““Session 6: Biotechnology & Public Policy: Proposed Interim Recommendations, II: Discussion of Section III of Staff Working Paper, “U.S. Public Policy and the Biotechnologies that Touch the Beginnings of Human Life: Draft Recommendations,” (September 5, 2003) available at, <http://www.bioethics.gov/tran-scripts/sep03/session6.html>.

Meilaender G. , “The Politics of Bioethics; In defense of the Kass council,” The Weekly Standard(April 12, 2004), at 13–15.

Levin Y. , “The Paradox of Conservative Bioethics,” The New Atlantis 1 (2003): 53–65.

See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, “Biomedical Ethics in U.S. Public Policy,” OTA-BP-BBS-105, GPO stock #052-003-01325-8, NTIS order #PB93–203768 (1993), available through <http://www.wws.princeton.edu/∼ota/ns20/year_f.html> (last visited April 25, 2004).

Levin's article notes that he is writing under his own name and not on behalf of the PCB, but an examination of the PCB's reports reveals that this same approach is present in their writings.

Executive Order 1237, available at <http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/executive.html> (last visited April 25, 2004). Compare the charter for the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, appointed by President Clinton in 1996, which called for at least three public members. National Bioethics Advisory Commission Charter, available at <http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/nbac/about/nbaccharter.pdf> (last visited April 25, 2004). See also The National Research Art, Public Law No. 93–348 § 202, 88 Stat. 342, (1974), which created the National Commission in July 1974, after earlier attempts at constituting a similar commission failed. In establishing the National Commission, Congress directed it to identify the principles of ethics needed to protect human subjects involved in research and to use those principles to recommend actions by the federal government. Eleven members were appointed by the Secretary of the then Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW): Five scientists, three lawyers, two ethicists, and one person in public affairs. In 1978, Congress created the President's Commission, Public Law No. 95–622; 42 U.S.C. 6A. Congress also elevated the new body to independent presidential status, in contrast to the National Commission, which had operated autonomously within DHEW. Appointment powers resided with the President. By summer 1979, the eleven commissioners had been appointed for rotating terms, and the first meeting was held in January 1980. By law, commissioners were drawn from specific areas: Three who practiced medicine, three biomedical or behavioral researchers, and five from other fields. Over the President's Commission's duration, this latter category included individuals from law, sociology, economics, and philosophy, as well as a homemaker and a businessman. In all, twenty-one different commissioners served on the President's Commission. The body was well staffed: During the three years the President's Commission functioned, about thirty to forty people worked for it, but generally only twenty at any given time. See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, supra note 42.

Pfaff W. , “The Long Reach of Leo Strauss,” International Herald Tribune, May 15, 2003, available at <http://www.iht.com/articles/96307.html>.

Kass Leon R. M.D., at <http://www.bioethics.gov/about/chairman.html> (last visited April 25, 2004).

“Being Human: Readings from the President's Council on Bioethics,” supra note 1.

“The birth of public bioethics was inextricably intertwined with an attempt to narrow the range of public debate and to keep bioethical questions out of the hands of elected representatives. The aim was to make bioethics the province of a small cadre of experts — however limited their insight might be beyond their range of expertise.” Meilaender G. , “The Politics of Bioethics: In defense of the Kass council,” The Weekly Standard, April 12, 2004: 13–15.

The most recent report, for example, on assisted reproductive technologies, handles these issues in twelve paragraphs in the introductory chapter. PCB, “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies,” Chapter One, Section V (March 2004).

Kass L. , Toward a More Natural Science (New York: The Free Press, 1985): at 4.