Bioethics and Journalistic Integrity

The Obama Administration has a number of very interesting moral decisions. Abortions are OK as usual even when it comes to partial birth, but when it comes to nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, slaps on the wrist are doled out. Promises are broken, taxes are raised, lies are told and we are asked kindly by our Vice President to remain naïve. Then I read this from Citizenlink:

Obama Disbands Bush Bioethics Panel

The remnants of President George W. Bush's pro-life policies are fading quickly now that the Obama administration is in office. The latest casualty? The President's Council on Bioethics.

The irony in Obama's dismantling of the group is that it was actually filled with experts from both sides of the life issue. Topics covered included embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and organ donation.

The council was created in 2002 and was one of the first groups to tackle some of today's hotly debated issues at the intersection of science and morality, according to former member Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.

"The president, as a strong pro-life person, was opposed to killing embryos," George said. "But he wanted a full account of the facts and of the ethical arguments being put forward by people of different points of view on the fundamental question."

David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council, said the council may not be dead for long.

"I'm afraid what we're going to see from President Obama is a much-stacked ideological bioethics council," he explained.

Such a council could likely support destructive embryonic-stem research, human cloning and experiments that might include animal-human hybrids.

George added that the council was working on two reports when the announcement was made. One was on organ donation – including when it is legitimate to take organs for transplants. Another was on the ethics of health care reform.

"Those reports are now in limbo. I don't know if anything will ever come of them since we've been disbanded," he said. "We're not in a position to officially approve them."

The council's charter was set to expire in September.

They have a few more months or so I think before they are completely disbanded. Being rather concerned that a labeled bioethics panel is being disbanded by a lacking in ethics administration, I decided to crosspost this article to Facebook to see what other people thought. I put it under the title “Moral or Amoral?” There’s only one response so far, but I thought it was interesting enough to write about.

Note: I do not wish to post the name of the poster out of respect for the individual. I will however tell you that their profile picture contains a picture of them with a piece of duct tape over their mouth. Very strange indeed, but at least it doesn’t impede his ability to type:

Moral. This article is on citizenlink which is organized by Focus on the Family, which is a distinctly partisan, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-rational thinking organization. George Bush never had an ethically-balanced group, regardless of what it says in the biased article, and the disbandment of this partisan council is a good thing.

I don’t expect a thesis paper from anyone posting comments on Facebook. That’s what blogging is for. But let’s take a look at a few points made by the author of this comment. Yes, it is from Citizenlink, which is owned by Focus on the Family, which is distinctly partisan. The rest of the comment I find worthy of talking about though.

I. Anti-Gay

Yes, they are anti-gay. And considering recent events regarding homosexuals in the United States, I hardly blame them. See, when given the option of marriage, homosexuals will demand that churches not be biased against them and wed them, despite the religious views of the church and their first amendment rights. Then, when California votes against having same sex marriages, the homosexuals become radicalized and form angry mobs. And when Miss California speaks out against gay marriage, efforts are organized to bash her and take away her crown.

In short, the homosexual community would probably gain a lot more respect from the rest of us if they stopped acting like a bunch of fascists.

II. Anti-woman

I would love to hear an argument to try and make “Focus on the Family” look anti-woman. Particularly because each time I’ve seen a video from them, they very clearly seem to have women working for them. Unless they’re not really women. Then I would be forced to question their stance on being anti-gay.

III. Anti-rational thought

Again, I’ve watched plenty of their videos. Like everything else, sometimes I can follow their train of thought, sometimes I can’t. But just because someone doesn’t agree with you on particular issues does not necessarily make them against rational thought or even lacking thereof.

IV. No ethically balanced group

You know, it’s not too hard to look up these guys on Wikipedia. They also have a list on their full of names of people on the council. And given that it’s Wikipedia, you can also look up information on them as well. It would appear that most of them are Christian, Catholic or at the very least leaning in a Judeo-Christian spiritual direction. And given that I myself am a Christian, I consider that ethically balanced. Perhaps you could argue that it’s one-sided, but come on. It’s not like Obama’s not completely ignoring the Republican Party.

V. Off-Topic

I believe we were discussing the disbanding of a council, not the journalistic integrity of Citizenlink. So far, it looks to me that there was no argument made on the behalf of the poster except to distract from the topic at hand. I also couldn’t help but notice their usage of the word “biased.” That’s one of those words I put in the same category as “propaganda” and “loaded.” These words are commonly used when describing an opposing viewpoint, and while they are technically true, they have a negative connotation that I’m supposed to be persuaded by. If the commenter frequently read DailyKos, Media Matters and the Huffington Post, they would surely not think of that as being “intelligent and thought-provoking opinions” and not “loaded, biased, propaganda.”

Case in point, don’t jump on the messenger. It’s pointless to bash a political opponent for what they read instead of actually having an argument and it makes you look desperate and stupid for doing so.

Where were we? Ah yes, Bioethics. What do YOU think of the disbandment?