WASHINGTON — Advocates of a sanctity-of-life ethic have given the appointees to President Bush’s Council on Bioethics generally favorable marks.
The long-awaited names of the council members were released Jan. 16, a day before the panel’s first meeting in Washington. The 17 members named by Bush to join chairman Leon Kass included medical researchers and ethicists, as well as professors of law and other specialties.
The council will weigh a number of contentious bioethical issues, including human cloning, embryo and stem-cell research, reproductive technologies and end-of-life decisions.
Two law professors, Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University and Robert George of Princeton University, were cited by Land as council members who are “champions for the sanctity of human life.”
At least four members have expressed publicly their support for a ban on human cloning, whether for reproductive or research purposes, according to The Wall Street Journal. They are Francis Fukuyama, a professor at Johns Hopkins University; Charles Krauthammer, a columnist for The Washington Post; James Wilson, a professor emeritus at UCLA and Georgetown.
Gilbert Meilaender, a professor at Valparaiso University, and Kass are among panel members who also have taken conservative positions on some bioethical issues.
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