Professor Ronald Green, the director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth, criticized the influence of the religious right on the U.S. government's policies concerning bioethics in a Wednesday evening lecture in Filene Auditorium.
"I wish to use this opportunity to think about how politicized things have become in the sphere that I work in," Green said. "Debates that were once confined to journals are now found in the halls of Congress."
Green discussed his concerns over what he thinks is a dangerous intersection of religion, politics and medical research within the policy-making sphere.
There are two interpretations of the religious right's mobilization against biomedical research, Green said. One interpretation is that biomedical advances such as stem cell research have disturbed many long-held religious views and provoked a previously silent group into action. A second interpretation is that this same group has used these biomedical advances to confront culture and provoke a response, according to Green.
"Both dynamics are present," Green said. "Conservatives are provoked and at the same time are using these issues to provoke others."
Green noted that much of the turmoil stemmed from the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which effectively legalized abortion.
"Abortion has stirred controversy over the role of women, the meaning of sexuality and the importance of the traditional family," Green said. "Abortion has come to symbolize the views of cultural elites over traditional values."
Green used the issue of stem cell research to highlight the intertwining of biomedical issues with politics. Advocates of stem cell research note that it has the potential to cure diabetes or grow replacement skin for burn victims. Stem cell research, however, has been so vehemently opposed by the religious right that federal funding for it has ground almost to a halt, Green said.
Many conservative Christians maintain that a human embryo must be discarded to produce stem cells, and they oppose stem cell research on the grounds that a life must be destroyed. An embryo, however, is not a fetus, and is incapable of thought or feeling, Green argued.
He believes that leaders of the campaign against stem cell research know this well, and are using the embryo as a tool for forwarding a larger agenda.
"Issues that have never generated publicity before are suddenly moved to the center of attention" Green said. "They are invented causes rather than anguished responses to values under challenge."
Green highlighted this hypocrisy with an example from his own life. When serving on the ethics advisory board for a small biotechnology company in Massachusetts, he presented to the Senate a breakthrough method of producing stem cells without having to discard the human embryo.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., used the presentation as an excuse to berate the group for misusing its research. Green called Specter's hostility and charges unjustified and politically motivated.
"These [anti-stem cell research] groups have learned how to use political power," Green said. "Values issues have become the currency of our political debates."
The stem cell issue has relatively shallow roots in American culture and will likely disappear if hard results are produced, he said. Opposition will not easily disappear, however, as anti-stem cell groups will have to give up a great amount of political leverage, he added.
College President James Wright introduced Green as the 20th presidential lecturer. The annual lecture is given by "a distinguished member of the faculty" chosen by the President of the College.
It was the pertinence and controversy surrounding the Green's research that led Wright to select him as this year's speaker, Wright said.
"We used to think we knew comfortably when life began and life ended," Wright said. "Today our thoughts often turn towards complex ethical issues."
