Science, Religion, Politics, and Stem Cell Research

In a new paper on SSRN, Ed Fallone explores one of the most contentious policy questions in the field of public bioethics: whether and under what constraints the federal government ought to fund stem cell research.  Ed provides a thorough overview of the history and competing viewpoints in the debate.  He also draws interesting parallels between the current controversy and the debates over funding AIDS research in the 1980s.

Because religious beliefs inform much of the stem-cell debate, Ed’s paper raises difficult and important questions regarding the proper role of religion in shaping federal science policy.  Ed argues that elected officials, not scientists, should ultimately make the decisions.  In order to guide the decisionmaking, he proposes two principles: “1) the federal government should be the preferred source of funding for basic medical research and 2) government funding decisions should not favor one religious perspective over another.”  Although not everyone will agree with the second principle, Ed argues that it is more consistent with the design of our constitutional system.  He writes:

The Madisonian separation of church and state is an integral part of the limited government created under the United States Constitution, and maintaining that separation is an ethical good that our elected officials must weigh along with other ethical goods such as the protection of vulnerable populations and the promotion of justice.

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The Unitary Governor

“The executive power shall be vested in a governor” proclaims Article V, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Over the course of the past two decades, there has been a tremendous amount of legal scholarship about the “unitary executive theory,” based on the executive vesting clause of Article 3, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Thus far, this scholarship and its accompanying cases (see especially Justice Scalia’s dissent in Morrison v. Olson) has focused entirely on the presidency, but the legal principles are virtually identical.

All of this bears on two recent news stories: first, regarding Governor Walker’s bill requiring executive review of administrative rulemaking, and second, the budget repair bill’s adjustment of several positions in the executive branch from civil service to gubernatorial appointment.  The February bill on administrative rules requires that all regulations from state agencies be reviewed by the governor’s office before entering into force. Democrats opposed this bill on the grounds that it violates the “separation of powers,” the proper relationship between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. State Senator Lena Taylor objected that the bill “breaks down the wall of independence around independent agencies.”  More recently, this week Democrats slammed the budget repair bill’s reclassification of several positions from civil service to gubernatorial appointment.

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The Morning After: Lessons From the Wisconsin Budget Battle

At last the end game has arrived for the budget bill, after more than three weeks of deadlock in Madison.  Indeed, it was obvious to everyone that the impasse could not persist, and that the only two options available were either a compromise (unlikely) or the eventual adoption of Governor Walker’s bill intact.

Wisconsin’s largest newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has largely failed to take a coherent editorial position on the budget debate.  In fact, the entire local media, both print and television, seem to have bent over backwards in order to appear sympathetic to the arguments of both sides.  In this regard, the local media seems to see its role as something akin to the role of an arms dealer during a civil war: issue statements generally supportive of both sides and hope to sell your product to the widest possible audience. 

However, I believe that there are larger lessons to be learned from the budget battle, and that the issues raised over the last three weeks transcend partisanship. 

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