Working with a cross-section of leading figures in the bioethics debate -- including academics, religious leaders, and policy experts -- the Bioethics and American Democracy program has been developing a proposed agenda to improve the governance of human biotechnologies. Many egregious biotechnological practices, like the use of genetic screening to try to pick children with "superior" genotypes, are unrestricted, unregulated, and even unmonitored in America, despite a growing consensus against them. And new advances suggest that even more radical practices may be in the offing -- like the creation of children with unborn parents. Our goal, in framing this agenda, is to encourage ethical avenues of research while advocating limits on the most dehumanizing uses of biotechnology.

ACTION ITEMS

Briefing Papers on Proposed Legislation
The following briefing papers examine four key areas where problems with the current law can be remedied by specific legislative action.

Briefing Paper 1: Embryo Creation for Research

Briefing Paper 2: Preserving Boundaries between Humans and Animals

Briefing Paper 3: Respect for Women and Human Pregnancy

Briefing Paper 4: Commodifying Human Life

FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

State of the Union Address, 2006
In his State of the Union address on January 31, 2006, President Bush spoke on his bioethics priorities: "A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale."

BIOETHICS AND THE POLITICAL MOMENT

The Bioethics Agenda and the Bush Second Term
By Eric Cohen
"The status quo remains a nation without limits, with human embryos destroyed daily in America's laboratories and radical new ways of making babies entirely legal if and when they become possible. Thus it seems time to reexamine and expand the Bush bioethics agenda, lest another four years pass by with no legislative success, especially with a president and a Congress as friendly to human dignity as we are likely to see in a very long time." [The New Atlantis, Number 7, Fall 2004/Winter 2005, pp. 11-18.]

The Politics of Bioethics
Playing Defense is Not Enough
By Eric Cohen
Ever since President Bush announced his stem cell policy, research advocates have attacked it as "not enough." They want more funding for more embryonic stem cell lines, without restrictions. The idea of limits strikes them as incomprehensible and indefensible. In this spirit, during the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry attacked the Bush administration, portraying the Democrats as the party of health and progress, the Republicans as the party of suffering, death, and religious zeal. The question is: Will President Bush respond? And what might a realistic bioethics offense look like in the months and years ahead? [The Weekly Standard, Volume 009, Issue 33, 10 May 2004.]

FROM THE PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL ON BIOETHICS

Recommendations from Reproduction and Responsibility
In March 2004, the President's Council on Bioethics released its fourth report, Reproduction and Responsibility, a consideration of how the United States could monitor, oversee, and regulate new biotechnologies. The report included a number of policy options, and concluded with more than a dozen unanimous recommendations.