Bush isn't interested in a balanced dialogue, his interest lies only in
promoting his puritanical, right wing approach to life. He doesn't
represent all Americans, just the ones who agree with him. How sad.


Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council
Changes Renew Criticism That the President Puts Politics Ahead of
Science
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post
Saturday, February 28, 2004; Page A06


President Bush yesterday dismissed two members of his handpicked Council
on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among
the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells.

In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who
has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who
has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members
supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion
and the "threats of biotechnology."

The turnover immediately renewed a recent string of accusations by
scientists and others that Bush is increasingly allowing politics to
trump science as he seeks advice on ethically contentious issues.

Last week, a Washington-based interest group released a report detailing
what it called many examples of the administration distorting the
scientific process to achieve desired policy answers relating to
pollution, embryo research and other topics. Some in Congress, led by
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), have also been getting vocal on the
topic, as have academics, scientific organizations and science journal
editors.

One of the dismissed members, Elizabeth Blackburn, is a renowned
biologist at the University of California at San Francisco. She said she
received a call yesterday morning from someone in the White House
personnel office.

"He said the White House had decided to make some changes on the
council. He wanted to express his gratitude and said I'd no longer be on
the council," Blackburn said.

She said she had no warning and had not heard from the council's
director, University of Chicago ethicist Leon Kass. She said she
believed she was let go because her political views do not match those
of the president and of Kass, with whom she has often been at odds at
council meetings.

"I think this is Bush stacking the council with the compliant,"
Blackburn said.

The other dismissed member, William May, an emeritus professor of ethics
at Southern Methodist University, is a highly respected scholar whose
views on embryo research and other topics had also run counter to those
of conservative council members. Efforts to reach him last night were
unsuccessful.

Asked why Blackburn and May had been let go, White House spokeswoman
Erin Healy said the two members' terms had expired in January, and they
were on "holdover status." Asked whether, in fact, all the council
members' terms had formally expired in January, she said they had.

Pressed on why Blackburn and May had been singled out for dismissal, she
said: "We've decided to go ahead and appoint other individuals with
different expertise and experience." She would not elaborate further.

Kass, who has written prolifically about biotechnology's toll on human
dignity and was selected by Bush to head the council, was traveling
yesterday and could not be reached.

Bush created the council by executive order in 2001 to "advise the
President on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of
advances in biomedical science and technology." He recently renewed its
commission for another two years.

The group of scholars, scientists, theologians and others has produced
several reports, including ones on human cloning, stem cell research and
the use of biotechnology to enhance human beings. But the council has
often found it difficult to reach consensus on issues.

The three new appointees are Benjamin Carson, the high-profile director
of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University; Diana Schaub,
chairman of the department of political science at Loyola College in
Maryland; and Peter Lawler, a professor of government at Berry College
in Georgia. All are respected members of their fields. And their
writings suggest their tenures will be less contentious than their
predecessors'.

When not performing some of the most difficult surgeries in the world,
Carson is a motivational speaker who often invokes religion and the
Bible and has lamented that "we live in a nation where we can't talk
about God in public."

Schaub has effusively praised Kass and his work. In a 2002 public forum
discussing the council's cloning report, she talked about research in
which embryos are destroyed as "the evil of the willful destruction of
innocent human life."

In a book review in the conservative Weekly Standard in late 2002,
Lawler warned that if the United States does not soon "become clear as a
nation that abortion is wrong," then women will eventually be compelled
to abort genetically defective babies.

Michael Gazzaniga, a Dartmouth neuroscientist who sits on the council,
said he was "upset" by Blackburn's ejection.

"She was one of the basic scientists who understood the biology of many
of the issues we're talking about," Gazzaniga said. "It will be a loss
for sure."

Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.