Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics

Born again ethics
I wouldn’t trust that report any more than I would trust unsubstantiated rumours of business dealings. Especially in light of the Bush administration’s ultra-conservatism. I’ll simply assume that this so called bioethics report is a load of self-righteous claptrap, until I decide otherwise, thank you very much.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18259

The Christian Taliban
By Stephen Pizzo, AlterNet
March 28, 2004

During the Taliban rule of Afghanistan the world got a good look at what
happens when religious zealots gain control of a government. Television
images of women being beaten forced to wear burkas and banned from schools
and the workplace helped build strong public support for the President’s
decision to invade Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11.

But even as President George W. Bush denounced the brutal Islamic
fundamentalist regime in Kabul, he was quietly laying the foundations for
his own fundamentalist regime at home. For the first time far right
Christian fundamentalists had one of their own in the White House and the
opportunity to begin rolling back decades of health and family planning
programs they saw as un-Christian, if not downright sinful.

Since 2001 dozens of far-right Christian fundamentalists have been quietly
installed in key positions within the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Federal Drug Administration and on commissions and advisory
committees where they have made serious progress. Three years later this
administration has established one of the most rigid sexual health agendas
in the Western world.

It began immediately. One of George W. Bush’s first acts as president was
to issue an executive memorandum reinstating a global abortion “gag rule.”
The rule was first implemented under Ronald Reagan but revoked during the
two Clinton administrations. The rule prohibited federally funded family
planning providers from even discussing abortion with their clients.
Bush’s order reflected the views of those at farthest reaches of the
Christian right, zealots who saw any means by which women controlled
reproduction as unbiblical:

“I would like to outlaw contraception…contraception is disgusting –
people using each other for pleasure.” -Joseph Scheidler, Pro-Life Action
League

“I don’t think Christians should use birth control. You consummate your
marriage as often as you like – and if you have babies, you have babies.”
Randall Terry, Operation Rescue

Over the next twelve months the administration moved quickly to install
similarly-minded Christian fundamentalists to positions of authority and
influence over all matters relating to reproductive and sexual health.
Dr. Alma Golden: appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Population
Affairs. A Texas pediatrician, she is a longtime proponent of abstinence
as the only acceptable means of birth control. Dr. Golden declared that
henceforth the department would stress “abstinence-only” as the solution
to unwanted pregnancies, not just for teens, but unmarried adults as well.

Tom Coburn: Former Republican congressman and anti-condom crusader.
Appointed co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS.
While in congress Coburn tried to force condom manufacturers to label
condoms as “ineffective” against the spread of sexually transmitted
infections. “I will challenge the national focus on condom use to prevent
the spread of HIV,” Coburn said upon his appointment.

Dr. Joseph McIlhaney, Jr.: Appointed to Coburn on the HIV and AIDS
advisory council. McIlhaney has a long and well-documented history of
disseminating misleading data on condom failure rates. He was appointed in
spite of the fact that in 1995 Governor George W. Bush’s own Texas
Commissioner of Health openly denounced McIhaney’s anti-condom propaganda
and his professional credibility.

Dr. W. David Hager: Appointed to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs
Advisory Committee. Dr. Hager served as spokesperson for the Christian
Medical Association. He authored the book, As Jesus Cared for Women:
Restoring Women Then and Now, and co-authored a book that recommended
scripture readings and prayers to relieve the symptoms of PMS. Dr. Hager
opposes prescribing contraceptives to unmarried women and spearheaded a
petition drive by the Christian Medical Association to revoke the FDA’s
approval of mifepristone, the so-called “morning after pill.”

Dr. Joseph B. Stanford: Also appointed to the Reproductive Health Drugs
Advisory Committee. Dr. Stanford is on record for his belief that the only
acceptable form of contraception, besides abstinence, is the all-natural
“rhythm method.” Dr. Stanford refuses to prescribe contraceptives, stating
that “(modern) medicine is permeated with attitudes toward sexuality and
fertility that are incompatible with Christian values of the sanctity of
life, marriage, and procreation, attitudes that both reflect and
perpetuate the recreational approach to sexuality found in our secular
culture.”

Susan A. Crockett: The third Christian fundamentalist appointed to the
same FDA committee. Crockett served as a board member of the American
Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She co-authored,
“Using Hormone Contraceptives is a Decision Involving Science, Scripture,
and Conscience” in the book, The Reproductive Revolution: A Christian
Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies and the Family. The book
was edited by Dr. Hager.

When the hot issue of stem-cell research came up, President Bush dismissed
two members of his Council on Bioethics who had each strongly supported
the use of embryonic stem cells in research. They were replaced by three
new members who, as the pro-life Family Research Council reported, “fall
more in line with the President’s pro-life views.”

Information became a prime target of the Christian Taliban. President Bush
says he respects “good science,” when making public policy. But, the crux
of the matter apparently hinges on the definition of “good,” especially
when it comes to family-planning issues. When good science clashes with
Biblical fundamentalist beliefs in this administration, science loses
every time.

Early in 2001 Bush’s Christian Taliban began scrubbing federal information
sources of offending materials. The censorship campaign prompted
Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) to send a letter to o HHS Secretary
Thompson demanding an explanation for the removal of information from HHS
Web of scientific findings by the National Cancer Institute that, contrary
to anti-choice propaganda, abortions do not increase the risk of breast
cancer. Thompson never responded but the “cleansing” continued.
    -Scientific data on condom use, long available on government health Web
    sites, was removed and replaced by sermons on abstinence and alarmist
    propaganda that exaggerated the risks of condom use.
    -The phrase “reproductive health” was expunged and replaced with the
    vague terms “related clinical preventive health services” and “related
    preventive health services.”
    -Links to non-governmental family planning resources were deleted.
    -Web sites at the Centers of Disease Control and National Institute of
    Health were cleared of scientific studies and materials relating to
    abortion and condom use.
    -At the CDC results from a peer-reviewed study showing that education
    about condom use did not result in increased sexual activity or sex at
    younger age, were deleted from the Web site.
    -The NIH’s Web site was cleaned of FAQ’s on condom effectiveness and a
    sexuality education curriculum called “Programs that Work.”

Good science was disappearing from government publications and Web sites
at such a pace that the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report in
early 2004 documenting and condemning the Bush administration.

    There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the
    manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of science by the Bush
    administration is unprecedented… There is a well-established pattern
    of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking
    Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal
    agencies. These actions have consequences for human health, public
    safety, and community well-being.” (Union of Concerned Scientists,
    report, Scientific Integrity in Policymaking. 2004.)

So, even as the Bush administration denounced and battled Islamic
religious zealotry abroad it was and is nurturing a fundamentalist
Christian version here at home, much to the delight of radical right-wing
Christians.

“Contrary to popular opinion, the Bible is not neutral about what kind of
government we should have,” states Dr. Mark Allen Ludwig, author of True
Christian Government.

“God gave governments responsibility only for infrastructure and defense,”
according to an article by Rev. Bob Enyart, pastor of Denver Bible Church.
“If government limited itself to its two just functions, thereby getting
out of education, health care, farming, etc., it could better defend
America. … Christians who carefully study the Bible are best qualified
to teach the world how it should be governed.”

One of the oldest and best-established forces in the Christian Taliban
attack on secular government has been the Christian Coalition. Recently
the group threw its full weight behind the President’s push for a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The Christian Coalition has
been conducting a “Let’s Take America Back” national petition drive over
the last several months, which now also includes support for the so-called
Federal Marriage Amendment. The Christian Coalition mission statement
states:

    We are driven by the belief that people of faith have a right and a
    responsibility to be involved in the world around them. That involvement
    includes community, social and political action. Whether on a stump, in
    print, over the airways the Christian Coalition is dedicated to
    equipping and educating God’s people with the resources and information
    to battle against anti-family legislation.

What is remarkable is that this was accomplished without significant
public outcry. The reason is that America’s Christian Taliban are more
public relations savvy than their Islamic counterparts. No American women
are being forced to cover up, beaten for appearing in public wearing make
up, or barred from the workplace. The changes being made are more subtle
and less visibly shocking. They are incremental, technical, administrative
– but far-reaching.

They have also gotten away with it because we Americans like to consider
ourselves tolerant and respectful of religious beliefs. Openly criticizing
someone’s religious beliefs ranks right up there with racism and bigotry –
a fact the Christian Right has used to stifle opposition to its agenda.
Mainstream Christians share secularists’ concern over workings of Bush’s
Christian Taliban. Speaking at the National Press Club last year,
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice President Rev. Carlton W.
Veazey condemned the “back-door attempts by the Bush Administration to
radically alter policies and practices concerning abortion, family
planning, and sexuality education to conform to extreme views.”

So, it may be time admit that our tolerance of Christian fundamentalists
is turning us into a nation of chumps. By claiming it is they who are
being persecuted, the Christian Taliban have cowed mainstream Christians
and secularists into silence, even as they impose their own faith-based
governance upon us.

We need to reconnect with a fundamental ingredient of America’s strength:
the separation of church and state. That wall of separation has for over
two centuries spared Americans ftom the kind of religious strife witnessed
in Bosnia, the Middle East, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.
Mixing religious dogma and public policy always creates an explosive
compound – and it always blows.