Robert P. George, former member of the President’s Council on Bioethics appointed by former President George Bush, has raised precisely this question in an online essay entitled, “A Diverse Bioethics Council?”. The article published at Public Discourse, recounts his experience serving on the Kass Council.
However, his account, as reported on CatholicNewsAgency.com, is not only reminiscent but also forward-looking to the upcoming administration under President Obama. George, fairly certain that another presidential bioethics commission is soon to follow the President’s Council on Bioethics, says:
“When he does, will he favor the country with a council as diverse as his predecessor’s? … Will nearly half hold strong pro-life views that contradict the President’s own beliefs about the moral status of the human embryo and related questions? Will Obama be as open to differing perspectives and ideas as Bush was?”
The idea that President Bush’s bioethics council was open to “differing perspectives” is an incredibly tough sell. Yet, George fails to elaborate on what that phrase really means. Would Elizabeth Blackburn agree? Or does openness really mean that a wide range of scholars were invited to speak at the “bioethics seminars” held by the Council and that in those sessions no voices were excluded. But when a report was actually written only a few voices were included in the discussion?
In this article, however, one does not find George slamming bioethicists who may be selected to serve on an Obama bioethics council for being social liberals, he instead blames the media for portraying such a new council as being “diverse” rather than “stacked” with bioethicists who all agree with President Obama’s policies. Essentially, he is making a fairness argument for bioethics commissions from one administration to the next.
“If Obama stacks his council with social liberals, will the contrast with the Bush council be noted? Or will the media implicitly adopt the view that a council stacked with liberals isn’t really ‘stacked’?”George asked.
In George’s view, the definition of a “diverse counsel, would mean “entirely noble way” of “using bioethics advisory councils to enhance the overall quality of deliberation and debate.”
Whatever that means.
Perhaps it would mean not holding ever single meeting in a stuffy inside the Beltway hotel so that voices more diverse than just the counsel members could be heard during public comment periods. Perhaps it would mean including persons from industry or the general public who have credentials in bioethics. Perhaps it would mean putting the most conservative bioethicists and the most liberal on the same counsel. What kind of diversity, specifically, are we seeking?
But we all know that we are talking about a political world, not an ideal one. Professor George, a jurisprudential scholar from Princeton, can dream of a world where deliberation and diversity is possible. But inside the Beltway, presidents choose the advisors whom they believe will give them the best advice that is consistent with their own administration’s views.
Depending on one’s own political affiliation, we may or may not like any given bioethics councils composition or conclusions, but so long as there is transparency, opportunity for public comment, the use of the best available scientific data, and a President who will listen, I do not think one could expect bioethics counsels or commissions to ask for much more than that.
Summer Johnson, PhD