The field of bioethics was established to work through the proper parameters of medical ethics and to grapple with the vexing public health policy questions that arose in an increasingly technological age. The field’s primary (but not only) contribution to the public good (in my opinion) came early, through the work of the late theologian Paul Ramsey. In his seminal work, The Patient as a Person, Ramsey argued that forcing patients to be hooked up to “machines” against their will treated them as less than equals. The resulting bioethical discourse resulted in the legal right we all have to informed consent and to refuse unwanted medical treatment, even if that could lead to our deaths.

Alas, in the decades since Ramsey’s heyday, the mainstream bioethics movement took a hard turn into a crassly secular and utilitarianish direction that now widely rejects human exceptionalism, sees some patients as nonpersons, and is increasingly focused on political and cultural issues like acting as “ethics facilitators” in war zones and fighting climate change–issues well beyond the field’s original portfolio.

These days, the predominate ideology among bioethicists (except for those with a modifier in front of the term like “Catholic” or “pro-life”) is radically progressive about issues such as abortion, legalizing assisted suicide, imposing gender ideology, enabling radical reproductive technologies, and promoting DEI policies in medical school and hospitals.

Now, a new survey of bioethicists has just been published in the American Journal of Bioethics that illustrates how hard the movement has swung toward pushing woke “social justice” initiatives as its primary purpose:

Most participants endorsed positive attitudes toward survey items (a) Should those in bioethics incorporate social justice concerns and perspectives in their work (284, 80.22%) and (b) A key aim of bioethics scholarship should be to advance social justice and directly impact society (265, 74.85%). Fewer, though still a majority, endorsed positive attitudes that (c) Bioethics is too focused on autonomy and individual-level concerns and should move toward collective-level issues, including social justice (197, 57.26%).

So, what are the “social justice issues?”

In participant responses to the list of United Nations social justice-related topics, a majority indicated that they engaged in issues of health equity either sometimes (114, 32.38%) or frequently (226, m64.20%), while few (12, 3.40%) indicated that they never engaged in health equity at all. Topics that had 80% or more of participants reported engaging in Frequently” and “Sometimes” combined included racism, xenophobia, and tolerance (84.34%); minorities (86.78%); persons with disabilities (87.39%); poverty (83.62%), and gender equality and women’s rights (84.10%).

The respondents overwhelmingly want to redirect the field toward an even more monolithic approach to social justice through what could be argued as an indoctrinating approach to education:

A majority of respondents (74.85%) indicated that they believed a key aim of bioethics should be to advance social justice and directly impact society. This signals a shift from a characterization of bioethics that is largely analytical, and that the field is tasked foremost with neutral weighing of several different options and implications of a given situation. If bioethics were to begin including a direct impact on society in its remit, this would necessitate a rebalancing of priorities, potentially including a greater emphasis on community partnerships, policy engagement, and political involvement. Further, it would necessitate a metric or measurement of what “impact” means. In turn, this may compel bioethics to have conversations about priority setting, defining social justice objectives more clearly, as well as structural changes related to education, training, and metrics of success.

Despite being rather limited in its scope with only a few hundred respondents, this study illustrates how bioethics is not (and, indeed, never has been) an area of objective professional expertise. There is no such thing as a “licensed” bioethicist. Rather, bioethics is increasingly a field focused on cultural and ideological advocacy, mostly approached (with exceptions) from the woke side of the street. Or to put it more bluntly, bioethical advocacy is becoming mostly progressive politics, no more, no less.

So, the next time the media interviews a bioethicist about the “right” answer to a policy controversy or a Congressional panel asks for legislative advice from such a bioethical “expert,” consider the source and take it for precisely what it’s worth–just one, probably progressive, person’s ideological opinion.