Classic Dystopian Sci-Fi Book Influenced Bush Stem Cell Policy
It's hard to understand Bush's stubbornness on embryonic stem cell research. I guess he just likes it when people get cancer! I know I do. But maybe there's a deeper issue at stake for Bush, one that us peons can't understand. In fact, there... isn't. It's because his early stem cell policy shaper, Jay Lefkowitz -- who has written a tell-all account in the new issue of Commentary -- read Bush passages from Aldous Huxley's dystopian sci-fi novel Brave New World . And Bush got scared.
Clearly this was the one and only reason Bush restricted stem cell research:
A few days later, I brought into the Oval Office my copy of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's 1932 anti-utopian novel, and as I read passages aloud imagining a future in which humans would be bred in hatcheries, a chill came over the room.
"We're tinkering with the boundaries of life here," Bush said when I finished. "We're on the edge of a cliff. And if we take a step off the cliff, there's no going back. Perhaps we should only take one step at a time."
Word. Also, maybe we should set up a space missile defense system in case the Tralfamadorians ever show up.
Stem Cells and the President -- An Inside Account [Commentary]