While out browsing the blogosphere, I came across an interesting post on bioethics at Selling Waves. It's good to know that I'm not the only person in the world unhappy with the modern state and influence of bioethics.
The outrage and commentary over the recent re-stacking of the President's Council on Bioethics seems to have wound down to an acceptance that this is all politics as usual. Thus, we should filter anything that Leon Kass and his appointees have to say through their known prejudices and the desires of the current US administration. There are a strong group of writers - like Ronald Bailey and Chris Mooney - who will do just that. The rest of us should stand up and call for the council to be abolished and continue to support research for longer, healthier lives.
No matter how Leon Kass wants to finess it, his declared views on medical research and human nature state - directly - that continued suffering, disease and death on a horrific scale should be enforced. In other words, attempts to cure these conditions should be blocked by government fiat. This is, frankly, a repugnant worldview. It springs all too readily from a certain type of religious conviction, more is the pity. Hold it yourself, by all means (and live, suffer and die by the strength of your convictions), but don't force your consequences on people who have different goals and different views of the future of medicine.
From Brian Alexander's book "Rapture":
"Kass was already well known in science for his early opposition to IVF, arguing that it would amount to the manufacturing of people and that it could not be considered a therapy because it did not cure infertility."
That's one of the most inane things I've ever heard. Not a cure for infertility? Is he saying that the resulting baby is not real? My eyeglasses don't cure my poor eyesight, but I'm glad to have them.
Not too many people are troubled about IVF in this country. But this extremist is in charge of the President's Bioethics Council.