Sargent Shriver: Bioethics Pioneer

Among the many reasons to remember Sargent Shriver–war hero, presidential adviser, Peace Corps founder, vice presidential candidate–there is one that few may know about: pioneer of bioethics.

In 1970 the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation was considering support for a dream of Dr. Andre Hellegers of Georgetown University, to establish an institute for the study of ethical problems that were emerging in the rapidly-changing life sciences.  But what to call the field that the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute would study?  Shriver later recalled a meeting he and his wife Eunice had in their Bethesda, Maryland home with Dr. Hellegers and several others:

“Because of the need to bring biology and ethics together, I thought of ‘bioethics.’  And the people in the room latched onto it as the name of the Institute.  Our idea was that we were starting an ethics institute regarding this new science, with primary emphasis on biology with ethics…. I know full well I proposed the word.  But I don’t think it was a stroke of genius.  It was as easy to come up with the word ‘bioethics’ as falling off a log.”

The retired Georgetown professor Warren Reich reported Shriver’s recollection in a paper he published in 1994.  Although Shriver’s claim is hotly disputed among scholars, the very fact that a progressive, idealistic and engaged person like Shriver was so attached to the idea attests to the importance of these issues in our public life.

–Jonathan Moreno

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