Quotes By Leon Kass

We may simply not be wise enough to do some of the kinds of engineering things that people are talking about doing.

The neuroscience area - which is absolutely in its infancy - is much more important than genetics.

Limits have to be set on how far one can simply use the... cleverness that we have to make changes.

It seems to me that a kind of thinking which is not technocratic has an opportunity for a renaissance in this country.

I don't believe that efforts to prohibit only so-called reproductive cloning can be successful.

We should never rush into folly just because other nations are practicing it.

As bad as it might be to destroy a creature made in God's image, it might be very much worse to be creating them after images of one's own.

One could look over the past century and ask oneself, has the increased longevity been good, bad or indifferent?

Is it possible to covet a much longer life for one's self and be as devoted to the well-being of the next generation? It's a long argument.

In cloning, in contrast, reproduction is asexual - the cloned child is the product not of two but of one.

The technical is not just the machinery. The technical is a disposition to life.

We are enmeshed in a lineage that came from somewhere and is going to make way for the next generation.

Biology, meaning the science of all life, is a late notion.

Even if certain rogue countries do things we wish nobody did, it doesn't necessarily mean that their foolishness should justify our following suit.

The benefits of biomedical progress are obvious, clear, and powerful. The hazards are much less well appreciated.

We know next to nothing of what we're going to know in 20 or 50 years.

Nobody knew in advance that in vitro fertilization would be, by and large, safe.

I don't like being forced to reduce my thoughts to sound bites.

Almost everybody is enthusiastic about the promise of biotechnology to cure disease and to relieve suffering.