Vatican City — Prominent U.S. ethicists are among a number of international experts chosen by Pope Francis for his bioethics advisory board — a move that might temper the group's conservative views on sexual morality and life issues.

John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, and Ignatius John Keown, professor of Christian ethics at Washington's Georgetown University, are among 45 members appointed by the pope to the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Kathleen Foley, a neurologist in pain and palliative care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a professor of neurology at Cornell University, was appointed to the board. So was Carl Anderson, head of the Knights of Columbus.

Five honorary members were also appointed.

Francis has kept several previous members and added new members.

Anderson, for example, was appointed to the academy by then-Pope John Paul II in 1998. Anderson is the chief executive officer and chairman of the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest family fraternal organization, and a staunch opponent of abortion.

But some of the academy's more outspoken members who had protested a 2012 Vatican infertility conference when experts didn't support church teaching weren’t invited back.

The website Crux reported that among those absent on the task force are Christine de Marcellus Vollmer, president of the Alliance for Family and of the Latin American Alliance for Family; Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a Belgian and professor emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain; and Luke Gormally, a former research professor at Ave Maria School of Law.

While Francis has upheld church opposition to abortion, his choice of board members may reflect a desire for a less combative tone on the issue.

Last year, the pope reaffirmed the church's commitment to defend human life "from conception to natural death," which usually refers to the church's opposition to contraception, abortion and euthanasia.

He also condemned what he has described as the "culture of waste" in the medical sector, referring to human embryos, the sick and the elderly as disposable material.