Previewing its January issue, Commentary has posted an essay by Jay Lefkowitz -- the Bush administration's point man on stem cells -- offering an inside account of how Bush made the 2001 decision in light of the world-changing news last month on stem cells. This passage caught my attention at a crucial point in the story:

I brought into the Oval Office my copy of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s 1932 anti-utopian novel, and as I read passages aloud imagining a future in which humans would be bred in hatcheries, a chill came over the room. “We’re tinkering with the boundaries of life here,” Bush said when I finished. “We’re on the edge of a cliff. And if we take a step off the cliff, there’s no going back. Perhaps we should only take one step at a time.”

Lefkowitz's interesting essay is "Stem cells and the president--An inside account."