Getting inside the head of Leon Kass, George W Bush’s bioethics advisor
Leon Kass served as chairman of the bioethics council charged with advising US President George W. Bush on many “hot” bioscience issues such as stem cell research and cloning.
Noted for his frankness and pretty much misogynistic ideals, once you cut through all this, his arguments do make some sense. For example:
“There’s a large cultural bias toward progress, a belief that innovation is good innovation. … I’m inclined to a more classically tragic view in the sense that all the good comes with some bad.”
AND
“In the biomedical area, the people who are bringing you all the novelties occupy the moral high ground. They are humanitarians. They are interested in curing disease, ending suffering, extending life. If anybody says, “Let’s go slow here,” it looks like the imposition of a narrow religious view on what is a pluralistic society, and the response is “Get your morals off my science.”"
He was recently interviewed by Discover magazine and it makes for a thought-provoking read:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/20-a-chat-with-george-w-bush.s-conscience
Elaine Warburton www.geneticsandhealth.com
