Washington D.C., Jan 25, 2009 / 17:03 pm
Robert P. George, a Princeton law professor and member of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, has written an essay asking whether President Barack Obama will be open to including pro-life thinkers among his bioethics advisers.
President George W. Bush created the President’s Council on Bioethics through a November, 2001 Executive Order. Its mission is to “advise the President on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedical science and technology.”
The Council may study issues “such as embryo and stem cell research, assisted reproduction, cloning, uses of knowledge and techniques derived from human genetics or the neurosciences, and end of life issues.”
In the essay “A Diverse Bioethics Council?” published Jan. 23 on the web site The Public Discourse, Robert P. George reported that in 2002 when President Bush announced his appointees to the President’s Council on Bioethics, liberal bioethicists claimed that the president had “stacked” the council with “religious conservatives” who shared his views on embryonic stem cell research and “therapeutic” cloning.