Bioconservatism (a portmanteau word combining "biology" and "conservatism"), is a stance of hesitancy about technological development especially if it is perceived to threaten a given social order or if it used to further consolidate political or economic power in the hands of the few. Strong bioconservative positions include opposition to genetic modification of food crops, the cloning and genetic engineering of farm and companion animals, and, most prominently, rejection of the genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification of human beings to overcome what are broadly perceived as current human and cultural limitations.

Bioconservatives range in political perspective from right-leaning religious and cultural conservatives to left-leaning environmentalists and technology critics. What unifies bioconservatives is skepticism about medical and other biotechnological transformations of the living world. Typically less sweeping as a critique of technological society than bioluddism, the bioconservative perspective is characterized by its defense of "the natural", deployed as a moral category.

Although bioconservatism is a stance that contrasts with techno-progressivism in the biopolitical spectrum, both bioconservatism and techno-progressivism, in their more moderate expressions, share an opposition to unsafe, unfair, undemocratic forms of technological development, and both recognize that such developmental modes can facilitate unacceptable recklessness and exploitation, exacerbate injustice and incubate dangerous social discontent.

List of notable bioconservatives

• Lori Andrews, Chicago-Kent College of Law
• George Annas, Health Law Program, Boston University
• Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight, Knights of Columbus
• Robert H. Bork, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
• Daniel Callahan, Director of International Programs, Hastings Center
• Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Council for Biotechnology Policy, Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future
• Ben Carson, Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital
• Eric Cohen, Director of the Biotechnology and American Democracy program, Ethics and Public Policy Center
• Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries
• Paige Comstock Cunningham, Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
• Ken Connor, President, Family Research Council
• Marcy Darnovsky, Center for Genetics and Society
• James Dobson, Focus on the Family
• Maxie D. Dunnam, Asbury Theological Seminary
• Joni Eareckson Tada, President, Joni and Friends
• Kevin Fitzgerald, Chair, Catholic Health Care Ethics, Georgetown University
• Francis Fukuyama, Professor of International Political Economy, SAIS
• Franco Furger, Executive Director, Human Biotechnology Governance Forum, SAIS
• Jürgen Habermas
• Jaydee Hanson, Director, Human Genetics Policy, International Center for Technology Assessment
• Richard Hayes, Center for Genetics and Society
• C. Christopher Hook, Director, Ethics Education, Mayo Clinic
• Deal W. Hudson, Publisher CRISIS magazine
• Douglas Hunt, Fellow, Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future
• Henk Jochemsen, Lindeboom Institute
• Leon Kass, Professor, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago
• Adam Keiper, Editor, New Atlantis magazine
• D. James Kennedy, Senior Pastor, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
• John Kilner, President, Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
• Andrew Kimbrell, President, International Center for Technology Assessment
• C. Everett Koop, C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College
• William Kristol, Chairman of the Project for the New American Century and editor of The Weekly Standard
• Jennifer Lahl, Center for Bioethics and Culture
• Richard D. Land, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention
• Bill McKibben, Environmental Studies, Middlebury College
• C. Ben Mitchell, Associate Professor of Bioethics, Trinity International University
• R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
• Richard John Neuhaus, Institute for Religion and Public Life
• Stuart A. Newman, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, New York Medical College
• Robert Orr, Director of Clinical Ethics, Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
• David A. Prentice, Professor of Life Sciences, Indiana State University
• Rayna Rapp, Professor of Anthropology, New York University
• Jesse Reynolds, Center for Genetics and Society
• Jeremy Rifkin, Foundation on Economic Trends
• Sandy Rios, President, Concerned Women for America
• Barbara Katz Rothman, Professor, City University of New York
• William Saunders, Center for Human Life and Bioethics, Family Research Council
• Wesley J. Smith, Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute
• Margaret A. Somerville, McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, McGill University
• Martin Teitel
• Paul Weyrich, Free Congress Foundation
• Langdon Winner, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Ravi Zacharias, President, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

References

• Carrico, Dale (2004) The Trouble with "Transhumanism": Part Two Betterhumans.com
• Carrico, Dale (2005) Technoprogressivism Beyond Technophilia and Technophobia. Amor Mundi
• Hughes, James (2006) "Human enhancement and the emergent technopolitics of the 21st century," Managing nano-bio-info-cogno innovations: Converging technologies in society. Edited by William Sims Bainbridge and Mihail Roco. Pp. 285-308.

See also

• Brave New World argument
• Bioethics
• Biopolitics
• Enough argument
• Gattaca argument
• History of science and technology
• Human dignity
• Human enhancement
• Liberal eugenics
• Master race argument

• Neuroethics
• Posthuman
• Playing God
• Regulation of science
• Reprogenetics
• Techno-progressivism
• Terminator argument
• The Abolition of Man
• Transhumanism
• Wisdom of repugnance

External links

• Hughes, James. Listmania! BioConservatism. amazon.com
• Lahl, Jennifer. Ebay and International Women's Day, March 7. Center for Bioethics and Culture Network

Bioethics | Conservatism | Political neologisms | Technology neologisms | Technology in society