Rights and Wrongs: Liberals, progressives, and biotechnology
By Will Saletan,
Slate
| 07. 13. 2007
This week, some big thinkers about biotechnology came to Washington for a "progressive bioethics summit." They invited me to go and talk to them. I like these people, but I'm not a progressive. I don't even think the word makes sense. And that made me ask something else: After two and a half years of covering moral debates about stem cells and other technologies, what do I think of this stuff? What the hell am I?
I have problems with liberals. A lot of them talk about religion as though it's a communicable disease. Some are amazingly obtuse to other people's qualms. They show no more interest in an embryo than in a skin cell. It's like I'm picking up a radio signal and they're not. I'd think I was crazy, except that a few billion other people seem to be picking up the same signal. At most liberal bioethics conferences, the main question in dispute, in one form or another, is whether to be more afraid of capitalism or religion.
I also hate the word progressive. It...
Related Articles
By Peter Ward, Slate | 03.30.2026
I’m in a cramped examination room at a clinic in Panama City. The lights are dim, and calming classical music plays from built-in speakers. A nurse has injected a dose of stem cells into Kenneth Scott through an IV in...
By Carly Mallenbaum and Alex Golden, Axios | 04.08.2026
Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations that can determine everything from whether agreements are legally binding to who is recognized as a parent at birth.
Why it matters: More Americans...
By Miguel Muñoz, Cadena SER | 08.04.2026
"Para ellos, una familia numerosa no solo es una preferencia personal, sino que es una obligación. Creen que tener tantos hijos como sea posible es necesario para evitar un futuro apocalíptico", aseguraba Xavier Orri, periodista y cofundador de Página Internacional...
By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Emily Galpern] | 03.29.2026
More Americans are turning to surrogacy to build their families, as the practice becomes more common and more publicly discussed.
Why it matters: As surrogacy becomes more visible and accessible, ethical, legal and cultural tensions become harder to ignore...