
President Bush Stacks Council on Bioethics
by Guest Blogger, 3/8/2004
On Feb. 27, President Bush dismissed two handpicked members of his Council on Bioethics who had publicly supported human embryonic stem cell research -- which the president opposes -- and replaced them with three members who can be counted on to fall in line.
The two dismissed members include Elizabeth Blackburn, a renowned biologist at the University of California at San Francisco, and William May, a highly respected emeritus professor of ethics at Southern Methodist University. In their place, the president appointed:
- Diana Schaub, a political scientist at Loyola College who has opposed embryonic stem cell research, referring to it as “the evil of the willful destruction of human life,” according to the Washington Post;
- Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, who has called for more religion in public life; and
- Peter Lawler, a professor of government at Berry College in Georgia, who has written against abortion and the “threats of biotechnology.”
