James Q. Wilson Resigns from President's Bioethics Council

Political scientist James Q. Wilson, who has been a voice of relative moderation on the President's Council on Bioethics, has resigned from the council. Two of the seven members of the Council who voted in favor of proceeding immediately with therapeutic cloning to produce human embryonic stem cells are already gone--Wilson's departure makes it a third.

Council Chairman Leon Kass replaced the two earlier dissenters with three tractable bioconservative intellectuals whose views on bioethics Kass finds less challenging. The question is will Wilson's replacement be yet another bioconservative clone?