WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama has named 10 medical and legal experts — including a Franciscan friar– to a commission that will advise the White House on bioethical issues.
The appointees, announced Wednesday (April 7), include Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, a friar and medical ethicist at the University of Chicago’s medical department and divinity school. Others include Lonnie Ali, wife of boxing legend Muhammad Ali and advocate for awareness of Parkinson’s disease, hospital executives and law professors.
When the president announced the commission in November, his executive order noted that members “may examine issues linked to specific technologies, including but not limited to the creation of stem cells by novel means.” They also could look at broader issues such as “the intersection of science and human rights.”
At that time, Obama named University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann as the commission’s chair and Emory University President James W. Wagner as vice chair.