A notion of medical and scientific progress, particularly as invoked to support embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, drives professional and public debate with little or no reflection about underlying values implicit in the term. Jean Bethke Elshtain, referring to Christopher Lasch, describes how the 18th century ideology of Progress was based on belief that “indefinite growth of the productive forces of economic life [would] satisfy and continually fuel the restless cycle of the creation and satiation of needs [leading to] the unqualified and altogether unwarranted optimism that a way of life could persist untarnished, undamaged, and without terrible pressure to its own, most cherished principles” (Democracy on Trial). Without deconstructing appeals to progress we are becoming increasingly focused on questions that are secondary to the moral deliberation essential for responsible action. The safety of reproductive human cloning, for example, becomes the litmus test for whether it should occur, with virtually no serious consideration about whether the practice itself can be morally justified. As CS Lewis noted, “If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man” (Mere Christianity). In this presentation I call for a deeper notion of progress that is more than a form of quality control and includes explicit attendance to “the moral becoming of man” (Paul Ramsey, The Patient as Person).