This is hilarious. My 2001 book, Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, was castigated widely within the bioethics movement for arguing that field, which began as a discourse, had hardened into a sclerotic political orthodoxy — perhaps even an ideology.

Oh, the yelling and screaming! One bioethicist went so far as to argue that it shouldn’t have been allowed to be published.

Now, Jonathan Moreno, a prominent leftist bioethicist and political activist, has written an essay saying, “Wesley was right!”

That’s not a quote, but it might as well have been.

It is an odd piece. He claims that “conservative bioethics project” has failed, an implicit agreement that bioethics is liberal, and moreover, that those who engage these issues from a non-left-wing orthodoxy perspective require a modifier in front of the term “bioethicist,” as in “conservative bioethicist.”

What. I. Have. Been. Saying.

From, “How Bioethics Has Pushed America Left“ in the Huffington Post:

The recent controversy about Planned Parenthood and fetal tissue donation suggests that highly publicized bioethical issues generally benefit conservatives. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. Since 2000, when bioethics issues (apart from abortion) have come on on the radar, they have aided the country’s leftward move on social values.

Yes and no. Bush’s stem cell policy worked splendidly. Indeed, it ceased to be contentious because other technologies were developed and the false CURES! CURES! CURES! hype pushed by the likes of Moreno proved highly exaggerated.

Assisted suicide is still being effectively resisted. In fact, yesterday, a New Mexico appeals court reversed a claim that it was a state constitutional right.

The Terri Schiavo case did show that most people are willing to see helpless people slowly dehydrated to death based on the flimsiest of pretexts. I hardly find that worth celebrating, but at least now no one can say, “I didn’t know.”

But the success or failure of particular issues aside, Moreno’s piece illustrates that the default in bioethics is socially and economically liberal.

Remember that the next time an expert “bioethicist” (all bow) opines on an issue of public import and expects you to follow.

By the way, I have updated Culture of Death, with a new, and more pointed subtitle: “The Age of ‘Do Harm’ Medicine.” Because that is what the contemporary Bioethics Movement promotes.

It will be out next spring.