Pseudo ethics

The problem with modern bioethics is that ethicists have essentially become apologists for deathmaking...you don't like the rules? well, hire a different ethicist to make up new ones.

We see this in the NYT article:

iting a lack of leadership by the federal government, the National Academy of Sciences proposed ethical guidelines yesterday for research with human embryonic stem cells.

Translation: There has been excellent leadership, with a good discussion of the morality. But we don' t like your rules.

Scientists have high hopes that research with those all-purpose cells, which develop into all the various tissues of the adult body, will lead to treatments for a wide variety of diseases by enabling them to grow new organs to replace damaged ones.

Translation: But maybe if we use these cells, we'll make money...why should ethics stand in the way?

But because of religious objections - human embryos shortly after fertilization are destroyed to derive the cells - Congress has long restricted federal financing of such research; President Bush has allowed it to proceed, but only with designated cells. As a result, the government has not played its usual role of promoting novel research and devising regulations accepted by all players.

Translation: You have to include the lowest ethical standard, buster. We want to do it, and you say it's wrong, so YOU have to let us make up the rules.

The academy, a self-elected group of scientists that advises the government, recommends setting up a system of local and national committees for reviewing stem cell research. It also tackles a new set of ethical problems raised by creating organisms composed of cells from two different species, and in this case animals that include human cells.

Translation: scientists not ethicists...they want to pretend they are ethical, so they make up their own rules..and are self elected.

The academy hopes its proposals, which are nonbinding, will be accepted in the private and public sectors, particularly in states like California that are creating ambitious stem cell programs. Its report is also likely to influence the debate in Congress, where some lawmakers wish to allow new human stem cell lines to be derived and other lawmakers are seeking tighter restrictions.

Translation: We want to make the rules...so we can do what we want to do...

Heightened and universal oversight "is essential to assure the public that such research is being conducted in an ethical manner," the academy's report says. The guidelines were drawn up by a committee led by Dr. Richard O. Hynes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dr. Jonathan D. Moreno of the University of Virginia.

Translation: we need to cover our actions by a paper saying what we are doing is okay, so the public doesn't get upset...and so that if another ethicist who relies on ethics says wait a second, we can say we did it in an ethical manner.

The entire article makes a mockery of what "ethics" is supposed to be: A fence around the rules so to prevent evil...but moral relativism allows anyone to make up it's own rules so that we no longer recognize that evil might exist.

Teresa Schiavo, call your office....