Bring Back the President’s Council on Bioethics
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From 1974–2016 the US had a series of official commissions or councils of scholars to study bioethical topics and advise Congress and presidential administrations on policy. Under President Bill Clinton it was called the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. President George W. Bush elevated the concept when he created the President’s Council on Bioethics and gave this body a strong mandate in his 2001 Executive Order 13237.
The Council shall advise the President on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedical science and technology. In connection with its advisory role, the mission of the Council includes the following functions:
to undertake fundamental inquiry into the human and moral significance of developments in biomedical and behavioral science and technology;
to explore specific ethical and policy questions related to these developments;
to provide a forum for a national discussion of bioethical issues;
to facilitate a greater understanding of bioethical issues; and
to explore possibilities for useful international collaboration on bioethical issues.
The Council and its publications stimulated a national discussion of bioethical problems that was and is sorely needed.
Most significantly, President Bush nominated Dr. Leon Kass (2001–2005) and then Dr. Edmund Pellegrino (2005–2008) chairmen of the Council. Dr. Pellegrino, in particular, was a remarkable bioethicist. During their tenure the President’s Council on Bioethics explored fundamental issues and reaffirmed that respect for human dignity is at the center of bioethics. The always insightful Colleen Carroll Campbell had this to say about the Council after it was unceremoniously disbanded shortly after the election of President Barack Obama.
While many politicians and pundits shout past each other when discussing such issues as cloning or end-of-life care, the council’s members engaged each other’s ideas with respect and offered an elevated model of debate for our sound-bite society. They raised profound questions about science and technology that too few Americans consider, much less discuss in depth with principled, thoughtful opponents. Gathering some of America’s brightest scholars from across disciplines, the council tackled everything from the ethics of genetic screening for newborns to the moral dilemmas posed by our struggle to care for aging loved ones.
It says something about President Obama that the reasons offered for terminating the President’s Council on Bioethics before its term had ended were that it seemed too philosophical, and that Obama wanted a body that would generate consensus around practical policy options. In actuality, it seems likely President Obama resented and feared criticism from Council members of his decision to lift restrictions on federal funding for research that kills human embryos under National Institutes of Health guidelines.
The need for a high-profile entity like the President’s Council on Bioethics has never been greater. We are undoubtedly living through an unprecedented biomedical and scientific revolution that is in desperate need of effective ethical guidelines and laws. Without these we could easily fall into the kinds of violations of human rights and human dignity that happened in the 20th century but on an even larger scale. Scientists and others today have the raw tools to germ-line gene edit human beings, create human/animal hybrids, engineer super viruses, surgically implant brain computer interfaces, apply Artificial Intelligence algorithms to medical diagnosis and treatment, etc. Many other ethically fraught biomedical projects are being explored or proposed whose financial backers and researchers are mainly concerned about technological feasibility rather than the basic question of ethical acceptability. Science does not regulate itself well, especially when future profits from breakthrough discoveries are at stake.
After President Obama created his Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues in 2010, largely to rubber stamp his policy decisions, both Presidents Trump and Biden simply dropped the idea. Even scholars mainly from a liberal orientation in the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine urged in 2022 that Biden see the wisdom of nearly every presidential administration in the last few decades in constituting “an expert group that is interdisciplinary and publicly accountable.” They added: “Across administrations of both major parties, bioethics commissions have modeled civil exchange of conflicting views, careful analysis, and well-considered advice.” The growing urgency of current and emerging bioethical challenges underscores the wisdom of reinstituting the tradition of presidential bioethics commissions.
President Biden not only did not want a presidential bioethics body, he took a large step in the wrong direction when he had the National Institutes of Health (NIH) disband their special Ethics Advisory Board in 2021. This ethics board was created in 2019 to review all research applications for NIH grants and contracts that called for the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions. I pointed out the following at the time. “Lack of meaningful ethics review of medical and scientific research in the past has led to terrible abuses. Bioethics exists in part as a discipline that puts a check on the very real dangers of science or medicine without conscience or ethical safeguards.”
Incoming President Donald Trump could do a major service to our government and national debate on bioethics by constituting a body modelled on President Bush’s Presidential Council on Bioethics. We need more rather than less sound bioethical reflection before making major government policy and funding decisions. I hope and pray this happens soon.
Joseph Meaney received his PhD in bioethics from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. His doctoral program was founded by the late Elio Cardinal Sgreccia and linked to the medical school and Gemelli teaching hospital. His dissertation topic was Conscience and Health Care: A Bioethical Analysis. Dr. Meaney earned his master’s in Latin American studies, focusing on health care in Guatemala, from the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from the University of Dallas with a BA in history and a concentration in international studies. The Benedict XVI Catholic University in Trujillo, Peru, awarded Dr. Meaney an honorary visiting professorship. The University of Dallas bestowed on him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in 2022.