Group items tagged

"The president's call for a moratorium on human cloning has given us an important opportunity. In a truly unprecedented way, we can strike a blow for the human control of the technological project, for wisdom, prudence and human dignity. The prospect of human cloning, so repulsive to contemplate, is the occasion for deciding whether we shall be slaves of unregulated progress, and ultimately its artifacts, or whether we shall remain free human beings who guide our technique toward the enhancement of human dignity. " (Kass)

"The problem is that "dignity' is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. " (Steven Pinker)

"Conservative bioethics' latest, most dangerous ploy." (Pinker)

Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics, March 2008