Biopolitics, Mythic Science, and Progressive Values
By Marcy Darnovsky,
Progress in Bioethics
| 01. 29. 2010
From The MIT Press announcement:
Progress in Bioethics: Science, Policy, and Politics
Edited by Jonathan D. Moreno and Sam Berger
Foreword by Harold Shapiro
Table of Contents and Sample Chapters
Bioethics has become increasingly politicized over the past decade. Conservative voices dominated the debate at first, but the recent resurgence of progressivism and the application of its fundamental values (social justice, critical optimism, practical problem solving) to bioethical issues have helped correct this ideological imbalance. Progress in Bioethics is the first book to debate the meaning of progressive bioethics and to offer perspectives on the topic both from bioethicists who consider themselves progressive and from bioethicists who do not. It aims to begin a dialogue and to provide a foothold for readers interested in understanding the field.
The chapter authors--leading scholars in the field--discuss the meaning of progressive bioethics, the rise of conservative bioethics, the progressive stance toward biotechnology, the interplay of progressive bioethics and religion, and progressive approaches to such specific policy issues as bioethics commissions, stem cell research, and health-care reform.
The arrival of a new administration...
Related Articles
By Jennifer Denbow, Guest Contributor
| 10.29.2026
Almost every day I am reminded that we are in the midst of a fertility panic. Whether it’s the Vice President exhorting Americans to have more babies or The New York Times running yet another story about the fertility cliff, fear about falling fertility rates is everywhere. While centrally concerned with declining rates of childbearing, Anna Louie Sussman’s new book, Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty, is a welcome antidote to the panic.
Sussman has written...
By Anna Louie Sussman, The New Republic | 10.26.2026
There’s a certain kind of novel that’s not quite apocalyptic enough to be science fiction, but just far-fetched enough to be speculative. No one is from outer space; society has not yet been carved up into a hierarchy of groups...
By Jan Grue, The Guardian | 10.27.2026
For a very long time, I dreamed of being cured. I was born in 1981. I learned to walk early enough, but I stumbled and fell more easily than other children. My parents began to worry that something was wrong...
By staff, We Are Egg Donors | 10.21.2026
Michelle Lambrechts is a police officer and one-time egg donor in Belgium. She is also the founder of Ik Zit Met Een Ei, a Belgian nonprofit that advocates for egg donors. (The name is a Dutch play on words...