Saletan Watches the Bioethicists, Take 4

William Saletan, chief political correspondent for the on-line magazine Slate and well-known essayist, contrasts an undergraduate bioethics conference at Penn with a somber bioethics gathering in Rome, and makes various observations about the bankruptcy of "liberal bioethics" he saw in the former gathering, in a two-part [One,Two] commentary. The essays are odd, not particularly rigorous, and hilariously well written. Wayne Shelton points out that they read in fact very much like Hunter S. Thompson. On bioethics.

New Guest Blogger Sean Philpott Ph.D., Ph.D., MSBioethics, from Wadsworth institute in sunny Albany, rants thusly:

I won't say I enjoyed these articles. Saletan describes himself as a biotech liberal, but the tone of the two articles suggests that he is a self-loathing liberal at best. For example, he states that we liberals of bioethics (of which I am unabashedly proud to consider myself a junior member) believe that "[we] are the future". Well, we're not. Nor are we all utilitarians driven by doubt rather than faith.

There are clear distinctions between the two liberal and conservative camps of American bioethics. But for Saletan to suggest that all liberal bioethicists are for unfettered research and biomechanical or pharmacological enhancement is wrong. We're not all industry shills afraid to challenge the research and marketing practices of pharmaceutical companies like Merck. Anjan Chatterjee's presentation clearly refutes that assertion. I also doubt that a neo-conservative like Francis Fukuyama would consider himself a Luddite or absolutist, his book Our Posthuman Future notwithstanding.

What I find particularly interesting about these articles is the curious way that a self-described liberal like Saletan outlines his arguments. He chastises Amy Gutmann, President of the University of Pennsylvania, for her sound-bite laden speech, but he might want seriously consider her message about mass media and public discourse. I would go so far as to blame the media for "polluting" public discourse, but the media certainly helps frame bioethical debates (a tip of the hat to Susan Lederer). Consider Saletan's use of the phrase "embryo-destructive" instead of the more common "embryonic stem cell" research - a linguistic manipulation worthy of Karl Rove.

No matter what the problems with Saletan's commentary, I still cannot get the images in his piece out of my mind. It reads like People Magazine on acid, including ridiculous but amusing sketches of the persona of Greg Pence, Art Caplan, and particularly Paul Root Wolpe - our own - whom Saletan loves. Read these.