RON BAILEY ON OBAMA’S BIOETHICS COUNCIL: Can Obama do better than Bush when it comes to biotech freedom? “In June, President Barack Obama disbanded Bush’s controversial President’s Council on Bioethics. He is expected to appoint a replacement panel sometime this fall. This is no small matter. Before terrorism became the all-consuming interest of his presidency, it looked like bioethics policy might be Bush’s lasting legacy—his first televised speech to the nation was about restricting stem cell research. Now it’s Obama’s turn. What should the next bioethics council do? . . . A national bioethics panel can serve a very valuable function in communicating to the public the ethical risks and benefits of new biomedical treatments and research endeavors. But when people of good will deeply disagree on moral issues that don’t involve the prevention of force or fraud, it is a fraught exercise to submit their disagreement to a panel of political appointees or a democratic vote. That way leads to intolerance, repression, and social conflict. Whatever else President Obama’s new national bioethics council does, it must make sure that Americans have wide scope to pursue their own visions of the good without excessive hindrance by their fellow citizens.”

The advice that I gave the Kass Council still looks pretty good (not that it was followed!). But I’m guessing we’ll see Carmen Electra II.