Yuval Levin reports:
Ten members of the President’s Council on Bioethics published a statement
today at the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum expressing disappointment
with President Obama’s remarks and policies on the funding of embryonic
stem cell research. They take the president to task for
mischaracterizing the nature of his predecessor’s policy, they
highlight the emergence of alternative sources of pluripotent stem
cells, and they criticize Obama for leaving open the door to human
cloning even as he claims to close it. . .
What’s notable about this statement, though, is that rather than
just express disagreement with the ethical views underlying Obama’s
position on embryonic stem cell research, it criticizes Obama for
mischaracterizing the plain facts of the matter, which unfortunately
has been his consistent practice on this subject. On that front, too, last night offered a model of persistence. (more . .)