Now Here's a Foundation for Bioethics: I Saw it on Star Trek!

From the Baltimore Sun, a story you have to read to believe: Loyola College (MD) professor Diana Schaub, advisor to President Bush, argues that cloning and stem cell research are bad because she saw it on Star Trek.

The show has "left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least the necessary foundation of other very good things," she wrote in an article last year. "There is something misguided about the attempt to overcome mortality."

Her interest in mortality and Star Trek could be regarded as the quirks of an academic if not for her position on the President's Council on Bioethics, a 18-member panel that advises Bush on some of the most polarizing subjects in society.

Yes, the President digs deep for ethical advice.
- Art Caplan