When academic words become political ammunition ... �As a world renowned bioethicist,� says a White House official, �Zeke Emanuel has written scores of articles about many different issues many of which are some of the toughest issues that our society faces.� The official says Emanuel�s words from academic discussions of theoretical constructs are now being unfairly taken as his beliefs and applied to the current health care debate.
The official says that Emanuel in that article was clearly advocating against what McCaughey says he�s supporting.
�After a long review of the pluses and minuses of using various schools of philosophical thought to being able to lead a theory of how to allocate health care, he describes the pluses and minuses of the civic republican/deliberative democracy school of thought,� says the official.
The sentence that follows in Emanuel�s article, the official notes, is: �Clearly, more needs to be done to elucidate what specific services are basic; however, the overlap between liberalism and communitarianism points to a way of introducing the good back into medical ethics and devising a principled way of distinguishing basic from discretionary health care services.�
�By the sentence that follows the one McCaughey quoted,� the official says, �it�s obvious that Zeke sees this as a fault in this approach that needs to be addressed in further discussion.�
Those to whom this happens often find themselves arguing that their quotes are not only being twisted and taken out of context, but they are being portrayed as believing the very opposite of what they were stating. Anyone who enters public life is subject to sentences being taken out of context. But for academics it may be an even more dangerous situation. ...
