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U.N. Delays Debate on Cloning
hedpe2003 writes "'The General Assembly on Tuesday ducked for a year a polarizing debate over human cloning that has set the Bush administration against some allies like Britain and much of the world's scientific community.
All 191 United Nations members agree on a treaty to prohibit cloning human beings, but they are divided over whether to extend such a ban to stem cell and other research known as therapeutic cloning.
Opponents say total prohibition would block research on cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and other conditions. The White House says that enough stem cells from human embryos exist for research and that cloning an embryo for any reason is unethical.
United States was happy to go along with the one-year consensus but would not alter its stance. 'We will continue to work for a total ban,' he said.'
I was just wondering what everyone thought about this. To tell the truth, I didn't know that the US was pushing so hard to ban stem cell research all together."
He may be an idiot but he supposedly has a pretty good team of advisers. But in many cases he overrules them based on his chrishtian beliefs. "Even the ones that contradict each other" --- Simpsons. So we can all see what probably happened here.
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i think one shouldn't prohibit cloning of humans. progress cannot be stopped, even though it is sometimes questionable whether progress in knowledge helps humans a step forward.
i personally think the the ethics are too human-centric in this debate. as if we are a more special breed of mammals or something. factors enter this debate that should be separate from science IMHO, and definetely from governmental decisions (religious arguments for example - don't mess with God's creation...).
the benefits can be many, and cloned humans will be a rare phenomenon, even if it happens. just like genetic engineering in general, cloning human cells or tissues can be a good thing if applied under very strong restricions. think of the (now very sci-fi) idea of growing new organs, or tissues from a patient. no more rejection of transplanted organs by the patient's immune system because they (the organs) are made up by his/her own cells.
regulations should be strict though, to prevent some mad scientist from running ahead of the facts and doing things that have unpredictable effects. although i doubt that regulations will stop a mad man anyway, but that's a different discussion alltogether, so i will not touch that subject
Too much of the objection over stem cell use is concerned with the origin of some stem cell cultures in aborted fetuses.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
well i am a scientist, and although i try to stay a neutral observer, it is quite difficult at times.
;)
i have seen many debates in scientific meetings. i can assure you that many scientists are *huge* bigots, religiously debating their point of view, whether it is based on fact or not. many people do not like to be told they are wrong
i'm lucky enough: i don't care. and good scientists should be like that, leave an idea when it's inviable and don't try to prove something because you believe it is true.
The US hangup is about non-reproductive cloning; none of those clones will ever contribute to population growth. The US could probably easily get a ban on reproductive cloning through the UN. But even reproductive cloning is so complex compared to the "natural" way that it just won't make any difference for population growth.
If reproductive cloning ever became widely available it would, if anything, probably lead to a reduction in growth rates: technologies that give people more reproductive freedom and choice tend to do that.
But in the civilised world (Western Europe, Japan) the birth rate is at or below replacement levels.
That's currently. Imagine if the death rate went to 0. You think the birth rate would also go to 0? Even if it did, this would effectively kill the evolutionary process, either way you weaken humanity as a whole.
sigs are a waste of space
Genetically, they [eggs, and embryos] are human beings. The big picture: they are the equivalent of brain-dead humans [until they are proven to be sentient]. They should have about the same rights as those.
Ethical or not - it will be greatly beneficial to be able to do research using cloning and stem cells. With cloning, you can do nature-nurture experiments more easily. With stem cells, you can eventually figure out how to grow organs instead of transplanting them.
The first country that legalises cloning and stem cell harvesting for research will have many medical researchers flocking to it. And get lots of insults along the line of 'unethical' and 'immoral'... I wonder, if that will ever happen?
Yes scientists are often wrong, and it is expected. In the scientific field, it should be perfectly okay to be wrong most of the time.
In either a religious or scientific context, your beliefs should be challenged regularly, and so having to rethink your ideas should not be threatening.
However, a successful scientific career (in terms of wealth) can hinge quite significantly on whether or not your peers (and therefore the world at large) think that you are right, or that your thinking is not antiquated. Einstein would still be repairing watches if others hadn't become convinced he was on to something. Worse still what if new facts suggest your data is wrong (suggesting what? fabrication? shoddy work?)? Get any good grants lately for cold fusion research? How about perpetual motion machine research? How about for Newtonian mechanics?
Faith, by definition, is something that cannot be threatened by facts, because it exists regardless of the facts. Sure, church dogma can be proven wrong; even holy texts could be proven to be wrong; but this should not effect faith.
Regardless, unless you are employed by the church itself, chances are facts which contradict various religious matters, while they might keep you up at night, aren't likely to cost you your job. In that context, once you know you are wrong, there isn't much point defending your position. Indeed, for many folks doing so would be a sin.
sigs are a waste of space
The US government commits this error all the time -- you can only get a permit to research illegal drugs to prove they are BAD for you. A conclusion (drugs are bad) in search of a hypothesis.
Consider Einstiens famous quote "God does not play dice!" Einstien refused to believe the universe could operate on chance, and now it is largely thought to do just that. Consider the folks who came up with string theory, they were *ignored* for a decade, and now they are considered to be some of the most brilliant minds ever.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Since the last 55 years of the U.N.'s existance, there have been between 100 and 200 wars. The UN Security Council has given consent to only two of them, the Korean Police Action and Gulf War [One].
Everyone blames the U.S. for the North Korea problem, and nearly every other human rights violation throughout the world. Why hasen't the U.N. done anything to curb these problems? I'm no right-wing conpsiracy theorist who believes the U.N. is trying to take over the U.S., but all the U.N. does is gather and whine about their own problems or opine on ways to control the Internet, suggestions to ban guns worldwide (That doesn't stop good-ol' Kofi and his bodyguards from carrying submachine guns to protect him around the dangerous streets of New York City!) and other idiotic things.
Seriously, the model U.N. I did in highschool was more relevant than this. The Bush administration works with the U.N. all the time, as it is now trying to make Iran disarm. Nobody made the U.N. irrelevant, they made themselves irrelevant.
Oh well, goodbye Karma.
Genetically, they [eggs, and embryos] are human beings. The big picture: they are the equivalent of brain-dead humans [until they are proven to be sentient]. They should have about the same rights as those.
So does that mean the "mother" can choose to "pull the plug" at any time, and then "donate" the eggs to this kind of research? Remember, the egg is braindead, it can't make decisions for itself...
> ...they are the equivalent of brain-dead humans
/. right?).
> [until they are proven to be sentient].
So, about those brain-dead humans...not to mention eggs, embryos, fetuses, (oh, my) etc.
I'm so curious why there has been so little discussion about when life/death happens. There's all sorts of funny stuff going on out there.
"Life happens at conception." - Ok...when the sperm goes in the egg. But a lot of eggs that this happens to gets flushed during a women's menstrual cycle (I can say menstruation on
"Death happens when your EEG shows no brain activity." - But...this is rooted entirely in the notion that your brain is the only place where thought comes from. Think of it as the modern soul. Your brain makes your "self."
There is all sorts of research out there about how our notions about life/death are all wrapped up in western philosophical notions, not to mention judeo-christian belief systems. Read up about cryonics and you get a very different notion of life/death than you do from other places.
So the question becomes, where is it most productive for life/death to happen? Because either way we're making it up. So lets make it up in a way that does the least amount of harm.
-CKO
- Sighuh?
The problem with all of that is that it flies in the face of Leon Kass. A lot of bioethics hate Leon Kass, though he is a university professor, philosopher, founding member of the Hastings Center, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute ... you name it. The main problem all those bioethicists despise about Kass is that he eloquently and forcefully believes that human life has intrinsic moral value simply because it is human. This flies in the face of the predominate ideology of contemporary bioethics that disdains human exceptionalism as arbitrary, irrational, human-centric, and indeed, an act of discrimination against animals known as "speciesism."
BTW, everyone dismisses Kass a "Southern Baptist" neo-con right-wing whacko, yet he's Jewish.
Neither Kass nor Bush has advocated outlawing embryonic-stem-cell research. (Both do wish to ban all human cloning, including for biomedical research. But cloning is not the same thing as embryonic-stem-cell research, although many cloning advocates strive mightily to blur the distinction.)
Also, a lot of those issues you cite are banned in a lot of Europe, so it's not like it's unique to the "evil Bush administration".
Interestingly, based on our current understanding of space, time, and matter/energy being interdependent, we can conclude that the cause of the universe:
a) Exists outside of time.
b) Exists outside of space.
c) Is not composed of matter or energy (at least in the forms that we understand).
d) (From a, b & c) Is unlikely to be based upon any of the known laws of physics/reality.
This is an argument that, at minimum, makes it reasonably likely that some supernatural something exists (ie. something that cannot be figured out by science, since it is outside of space/time, and not composed of matter/energy). Whether you believe this supernatural something to be God or not should be something decided by examining the evidence.
Alphanos
I once asked my ex-wife: "How many dead babies does it take to achieve clinical imortality?"
Her reply? "As many as necessary".
Let me point some of you "youngsters" to a SF story called "Bug Jack Barron", by Norman Spinrad. In it a 5 year old child had to die for every adult made imortal. The twist to the story is the Bad Guys make Our Hero imortal instead of killing him. It's quite chiling to see the co-opting process go to work when Our Hero finds out he now is one of the lucky few, and how easy it is to rationalize the procedure (now that it's been done).
My point? Don't underestimate human greed and the will to survive. I also believe, along with another poster, that this move by the US is 1) a sop to the religious right at election time, and 2) a somokescreen for the US Pharma industry.
Just call me cynical, I guess ("Well, sure, Mr. Senator, we continued with our research dispite the ban. We only experimented on non-Americans, outside of America. So, do you want us to extend your life so you can run for another term, or not? Remember, you made this an illegal procedure..."). More Life. More seductive than more money.