ADVERTISEMENTS

Michael P. called our attention, a few days ago, to the President's creation of a new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and also to his appointment of Amy Gutmann to serve as Chair of the Commission.  In my own (non-expert) view, Leon Kass and Edmund Pellegrino (both of whom chaired President Bush's Council on Bioethics) provided the previous President, and the country, with valuable service, work, and reflection, and with a welcome moral clarity on heartland human-dignity-and-science questions.  Amy Gutmann is, of course, well known and accomplished, but -- based on my reading of her Democratic Education and Democracy and Disagreement -- I have concerns (though, given all the givens, I realize that President Obama was not likely to appoint to such a position a scholar with whom I agree on these matters) about the likely content and direction of the new Commission's work.  We'll see. . . .

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