Interview With Wesley Smith on Cloning and Bioethics
National Review; March 28, 2001

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: The following is an interview with Wesley J.
Smith, author of The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in
America, to discuss cloning and other life-altering issues. The interview
is conducted by Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review. You can order Mr.
Smith's book by pointing your web browser to:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1893554066/roevwade26yearof]

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What is bioethics and why are you so alarmed by it_

Wesley J. Smith: Generally speaking, bioethics is a branch of philosophy
that seeks to work through the ethical dilemmas presented by high-tech
medicine and the intricacies of modern health-care public policy. But it
is actually much more. I believe it has become something of an ideology.

Bioethicists often claim that they are not a unified movement. To some
degree that is true, but in my view, their differences are not so much
about the direction in which they want to take us but how fast they want
to get there. I see the divisions in bioethics as akin to the divisions
between Baptists and Catholics. Underlying the divisions are some
generally agreed-upon premises.

What is so alarming is that the movers and shakers of the bioethics
movement generally reject Hippocratic medical values, the
sanctity/equality of human life, and believe that moral value is not based
on being a human being. Rather than accepting an "equality of life" ethic,
they propound a "quality of life" ethic. Thus, they have created a way to
divide life whether human or animal between those deemed as having
ultimate moral worth, generally called "persons," from those with less
value, generally called "non persons." Many bioethicists believe that some
animals are persons and some people generally, those with poor cognitive
capacity are non-persons. And even bioethicists who reject animals as
persons accept the premise of the human non-person who can be used as an
object rather than a subject. Thus, some look at non-persons as sources of
organs or as available for "us" to use in medical experiments. Some even
posit that non-persons can be killed morally. The most famous of these is
Princeton's Peter Singer, but he is certainly not alone.

What is really disturbing is that these folk are not fringe thinkers but
are at the heart of the elite: They serve on presidential bioethics
commissions, work with Congress to create public policy, testify in court,
teach the doctors and civic leaders of tomorrow in our most elite
universities, advise HMOs, etc. They are among our society's most
influential people.

Lopez: How widespread is the "what's-so-special-about-being-human"
mentality_

Smith: It strikes me that it is rampant within the elite bioethics
community, in the biological sciences, and in the "animal rights"
movement. But I am convinced that most of the rest of us thoroughly reject
the idea. It is a very dangerous concept, really. If humanity isn't
special, that is exactly how we will act.

Lopez: You're not the typical conservative, pro-life type. You are, for
instance, a Naderite, even co-authored some books with Ralph Nader. What
brought you to this topic_

Smith: I don't think you have to be conservative to oppose most of the
agendas promoted by the leading lights of the bioethics movement. For
example, members of the disability-rights movement are very potent
opponents, since they see themselves in the crosshairs, which of course
they are. Most disability-rights advocates tend to be secular, liberal,
and support the legality of abortion.

I came to oppose the bioethics movement out of my work against assisted
suicide, which I perceive is the proper liberal position, at least based
on what liberalism used to be when its leading lights were Martin Luther
King, John and Bobby Kennedy, and Ralph Nader. As I dealt with euthanasia,
I came to see that assisted suicide was merely the tip of the iceberg,
that people who reject the values I hold most dear are explicitly
advocating many policies that acutely endanger people who are disabled,
elderly, and ill. And once I really got into what the most influential
bioethicists really advocate and began to understand the bases of their
belief system and its awful consequences, I was appalled and alarmed. So,
being a good Naderite, I decided to see what I could do about it. I am
very happy to report that I have been accepted with open arms by
conservatives in this work despite my "suspect" pedigree. That has been
most gratifying. And I have come to realize that I no longer care so much
about left versus right, as I do about right versus wrong.

Lopez: Is cloning here to stay_

Smith: Not necessarily. Much of Europe has already outlawed human cloning,
which I hope strengthens the backbones of our state and national leaders,
who have been AWOL on this issue.

I think most people would support a legal ban of human cloning. Most find
the prospect of cloning human beings to be a truly nauseating proposition,
which brings to mind Leon Kass's profound concept of the "wisdom of
repugnance." Queasiness is an appropriate response to the prospect of
cloning. In many ways it is deeply misanthropic. Cloning is about
transforming the mystery and majesty of life into a mere malleable and
marketable commodity, which is not surprising since many cloning
supporters in the bioethics movement embrace a view of human life as
"merely biological," as essentially no different from the rest of life on
the planet. Moreover, cloning is the intended vehicle by which
neo-eugenicists hope to "control" human evolution.

What human attributes should be increased or eliminated to make for an
"improved" species_ Eugenicists and many bioethicists often wax ecstatic
about increasing intelligence, as if that were the end all and be all of
humanity. But what about the capacity to love, selflessness, gentleness,
empathy_ Somehow, they are rarely, if ever, mentioned. Ironically, these
essential human attributes are often present most profoundly in people who
are developmentally disabled the very humans who are to be eliminated by
the new eugenics.

I am also struck by the hubris of the entire cloning enterprise. Somehow
pro-cloners forget that we are the race that built the unsinkable ship,
Titanic. Our fallibility is part of who we are and it is the one human
attribute that the Brave New Worlders always seem to forget. But it won't
go away and that makes any attempt to mess with human evolution
tremendously dangerous.

Lopez: Is assisted suicide simply compassionate in most people's minds_

Smith: I don't think most people give a lot of thought to assisted
suicide, one way, or the other. If you force them to comment upon it, off
the top of their heads they would probably see it as a way of being
compassionate as a last resort when nothing can be done to alleviate
suffering. After all, that is how the subject is almost always presented
in the media, and more importantly, in popular entertainment. But when
they are forced to look the issue squarely in the eye, they see that
assisted suicide is actually a way of abandoning the most weak and
vulnerable among us and still get a good night's sleep. Think about it.
You have a serious disability or illness and you go to your doctor and
say, I want assisted suicide: if the doctor says, "Okay, it's your
choice," what is the physician actually doing_ Confirming your worst fears
about your future life that it will be agonizing or that you no longer
have a life worth living, or that you are now a burden to everyone around
you. What is needed at these times is unconditional acceptance, not the
false compassion of killing.

And we also must grapple with the economics of the whole thing. It only
costs about $40 for the drugs used in an assisted suicide. It may cost
$40,000 or more provide the kind of appropriate care that patients need in
these circumstances. In the context of HMOs, many people come to realize
that assisted suicide could easily become a way of controlling costs
should killing ever be deemed widely to be an acceptable medical practice.

These are just a few of the reasons why we have been able to prevent the
assisted-suicide movement from sweeping the country once the act was
legalized in Oregon in 1994. Many people are not aware that voters in
Michigan rejected assisted suicide by 71-29 percent in 1998 and Maine
voters rejected it narrowly in 2000. At this moment, at least, assisted
suicide is going nowhere fast.

Lopez: You mention in your book that polls suggest that people are
actually opposed to "futile-care theory." What accounts for that, given
its pervasiveness_

Smith: Futile Care Theory states that if a doctor believes that the
"quality" of a patient's life is unacceptable to the doctor, he or she can
refuse to provide the patient with WANTED life-extending medical
treatment. If the patient refuses to go along, some futile-care hospital
protocols empower institutional ethics committees to become quasi-judicial
decision makers, turning thumbs up or thumbs down to extending life
medically. If the verdict is that the treatment should cease, these
protocols refuse the patient the right to receive the care in the
institution even if another doctor is found who is willing to provide it.
The whole idea is akin to a hospital putting up a sign that you might see
on the door of a restaurant we reserve the right to refuse service. These
protocols are quietly being put into place in hospitals all around the
country. They are the foot in the door to medical rationing.

Most people don't know about futile care. But when they find out, they are
appalled. It is a whole new game of "Doctor Knows Best," kind of like the
bad old days when doctors hooked people up to machines against their will.
Only this time, instead of the impetus being to extending life, it is to
cutting off treatment, other than comfort care. So of course people oppose
it. They want to make these important decisions themselves.

The good news is that futile care is not yet pervasive. But I fear unless
people wake up to the threat, it will be imposed from on high by the
so-called experts of bioethics and then ratified by courts, as it has been
in England. That is why I am trying so diligently to be Paul Revere on the
subject.

Lopez: Are there any politicians who understand this stuff_

Smith: A few but not enough. But they are learning. I am noticing a
heightened interest in the halls of power over these issues because they
are going to have to grapple with bioethics, like it or not. Once they
truly understand where the expert bioethicists who are testifying before
their committees are coming from and that their constituents do not share
bioethics' values, I trust that the movement's influence will begin to
wane.

Lopez: You suggest a policy of containment on these issues. Who can best
spearhead the containment movement_

Smith: I have one word: coalitions. I believe that conservatives who
believe in the sanctity of human life and liberals who passionately
espouse equality, share a commitment to protecting vulnerable people and
thus, can find common ground in opposing many bioethical issues: cloning,
futile-care theory, health-care rationing, personhood theory, redefining
death to include a diagnosis of persistent unconsciousness a proposal
that, believe it or not, is under intense discussion at the highest levels
of the organ transplant community.

The key to this, I believe, is not to get sidetracked by disagreements
over abortion certainly no easy task. That is not to say that pro-lifers
should stop being pro-lifers or pro-choicers, pro-choicers. But it is to
say that their strong and principled disagreement over that volatile issue
cannot be allowed to prevent good people from working together to counter
the bioethics movement.

We know it works. This is precisely the potent coalition that has stopped
the advance of assisted suicide. Liberals and conservatives, pro-choicers
and pro-lifers, decided not to allow abortion or other controversial
issues such as gay rights or impeachment to prevent their coming together
to contain assisted suicide.

We also need to move the center of the discussion out of the ivory tower
and into the public square. The wisdom of the American people may be the
great-untapped resource in this entire debate. We have to demonstrate to
the popular media that people care about these issues and will not be
turned off by a frank discussion of bioethics.

Finally, we need funding. The bioethics movement is rolling in dough. If a
few enlightened foundations can see their way through to adequately
financing a counter movement, I know we can more than hold our own in the
marketplace of ideas.