Leon Kass Quotes
This [human cloning] is an unethical human experiment on the child to be. It is a major step in the conversion of procreation to manufacture.
Kass was appointed for his religious, anti abortion views and he is an excellent proponent of one perspective. There are others who do not necessarily see human cloning in such a dark light. Although, the process has to be developed, at some time it well might be a mode by which infertile people could have children. Kass’s criticisms were made by others when in vitro fertilization techniques were being developed.
Leon Kass, Chairman, President’s Council on Bioethics, C-SPAN, Washington Journal, January 1, 2003
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
As one of the few working scientists on the commission she provided much of the information on current science and unmasked some of the “junk science” that was presented by the committee staff. When the commission was asked to vote on a ban on all cloning including prohibiting stem cell research in conformity to President George W. Bush’s position, she led a majority voting against the ban. To salvage the situation, the Chairman then modified the proposed resolution to call for a 4 year moratorium on such research and get a narrow majority. Shortly thereafter Blackburn and two others who had had different views from the President were fired by the White House and replaced by three members whose views leaned in the opposite direction. See Commission Chairman Kass {611735} for the views that were acceptable to the White House.
This is a classic example of a legislator, concerned about the ethics and morality of certain types of scientific experiments, and not understanding the scientific meaning of the terms used, would also make illegal existing and important technologies and cures. In this case, he thinks of cloning as reproducing another exact human being, but we clone human cells every day to produce many of the beneficial medicines we use commonly. And the combination of animals and humans is common in many aspects of modern medicine. For burns the tissue of pigs is used to cover the wound and act as a scaffold on which human skin cells grow. There are millions of people in America and the rest of the world who are leading a normal life with a pig or a cow heart valve. There are ethical problems to be sure but most legislators have little clue as to what they are, and tend to want to outlaw whole areas of science out of their ignorance in in reaction to public pressure from others who do not understand what it is that they want to prohibit.
He prefaced his remarks by stating that he was speaking for himself and not the Commission.
Leon Richard Kass is an American physician, scientist, educator, and public intellectual. Kass is best known as a proponent of liberal education via the "Great Books," as a critic of human cloning, life extension, euthanasia and embryo research, and for his tenure as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005. Although Kass is often referred to as a bioethicist, he eschews the term and refers to himself as "an old-fashioned humanist. A humanist is concerned broadly with all aspects of human life, not just the ethical."
