Posted by
RobertB on Friday, July 14, 2006 2:24:59 PM
Actually I believe many "progressive" bioethicists are being sincere when they consider their approach less political than that of the fundamentalists and bio - Luddites. That is because they understand that "professionals" need to deal with bioethical issues creating recommendations and procedures thru medical review committees and science councils. If necessary, the judicial branch can get involved with deliberative review and further elucidation of rights.
Except for the funding of their projects, they see the involvement of the legislative and executive branch at the state and federal level as where political demogoguery occurs and this may be independent of whether Republican or Democrat dominates (see
California Stem Cell Report blog on the Democrat controlled CA Legislature move to regulate the ESC funding and the independent agency and biotech research "industry" response.
More to the point of the title of my post, however, I say that bioethicists can do little to enforce their thoughts onto a society unless that society and government has an understanding of morality. Even the principles of autonomy, beneficience, non-maleficience, and distributive justice which are the basis of bioethics are based on the deeper morality of liberty, fairness, equality, the Golden Rule. The secular procedures will stand or fall on the absolute principles of philosophy and religion.