RON BAILEY SAYS THAT Bill Kristol is wrong, very wrong in his predictions that genetic technology will lead to a Brave New World scenario:

As a consequence of this growing federal role, the government would necessarily be involved with setting standards and protocols for any new genetic technologies, including most especially interventions aimed at genetic enhancements. According to Kristol, cloning, even just therapeutic cloning to create perfect transplants, is further down the slippery slope where, when we reach the bottom, we will find that the Brave New World of government-mandated eugenics is inevitable. . . .

No one else appeared to notice the irony of Kristol’s analysis. Here was the man who is often credited with single-handedly stopping Clinton from nationalizing health care now declaring that free market medicine is doomed. Of course, Kristol might declare it doomed because such a declaration conveniently suits his political needs of the moment — that is, bolstering his campaign to ban both therapeutic and reproductive cloning. In any case, instead of trying to stop potentially beneficial biomedical research because he fears what the government may do with it one day, Kristol should instead be redoubling his already successful efforts to make the government less powerful and less intrusive in the private choices of citizens.

What he said.