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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."
If only those embryos had even a couple synaptic responses that it could use to tap out in Morse code whether it agreed to be used in such research.
I have been pwned because my
(Use a disposable account from a disposable IP before moderating this up. Editors generally watch and see who moderates controversial things like this up.)
When you are logged in,
Please *log out* AND use another browser before making your AC comments.
Your UID is being tracked, it's not Anonymous. Lots of people post lots of things to Slashdot as AC only because they believe it is really anonymous - it isn't. They hunt "trolls" (non-karma whores and non-group thinking bots) down.
This is true. I used to be a bit more freestyle and witty AC and be a nice guy logged in [basically a karma whore]. After a short while, I could no longer moderate. Slashdot does brand AC posts with IP and then map them back to users. They lie about AC, AC doesn't exist if you re-use ip addresses.
Big brother is watching. So while I might be a "troll" a lot of the AC things I said were to protect myself from Slash-bot groupthink. They punished me for voicing my opinion freestyle.
They also revoke moderation FOREVER - $rtbl it is called, for any moderations of any post that have been secretly flagged annoying [Slashcode has hidden flags viewable by editors]. If you *EVER* mod up something an editor secretly marked annoying you NEVER moderate again, ever - ever even if your karma is capped.
Also, Slashdot uses the friends system to track "trolls." Mark a troll you find funny as a friend *bang* $rtbl never to moderate ever again. My real account had many many good friends who had good karma, and a few funny trolls later, no more moderation for that account. Again, Slashdot is spying on its users to make the people who find certain things funny uneligible to moderate. You will never moderate again if you are a friend of a "foe or freak" of an editor.
FACT: This is in Slashcode CVS
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log more AC info
So AC is a scam here. Hitler-Malda screws AC posts in the caboose. So now all you can do is go 100% AC, or , as they expect you to, KARMA WHORE. And it is so lame and unfair and probably illegal as they lie about anonymity.
Also, sometimes when certain information becomes an active thread, they bitchslap the thread much later so that people think its "safe" to participate and the whole thing gets slapped.
There is a presumption anonymous means something. They lie like rugs to the posting public by using the word anonymous. It is not. They brazenly lie though and the un-assuming poster is having everything he says correlated with him and stored in a computer just waiting to be subpoenaed by the people that Slashdot claims to hate but works for. They work for the fascist forces and components of the US government. I like the US and other Western governments but they have good and bad components - there are things you need to do to protect yourself from the bad components. Basically "covering your ass" so to speak. At Slashdot, in lying about AC, un-protects its posting public (seeding a de-anonymizing privacy stripping pandemic in their own "little" way). This makes Slashdot a very dangerous target for you the posters to have your "anonymous" information subpoenaed and you to be chased down and persecuted for speaking your mind. I think that it is a joke Slashdot editors post about SCO, MSFT, RIAA, MPAA, TIA, FBI, etc. They do the same fascist big-brotherly things that those companies do the public at large as they do to the Slashdot posting public.
Protect yourself. Try and use proxies or a super good second browser with proxies that you never log into such as Opera (which makes it very easy to delete all private data). Thank you.
Lets just grow us some new organs and be done with it.
The White House says that enough stem cells from human embryos exist for research...
Which stem cells? The ones that are gathered at the abortion clinics? The abortion clinics that preform the abortions that YOU'RE TOTALLY OPPOSED TO AND WANT TO SEE MADE ILLEGAL? Those abortion clinics?
Stupid fucking government.
In the defense of our idiot-in-chief president, he is Texan, so some leeway must be given.
Suck it bitch. Suck it now. Suck it down.
My own personal opposition to cloning comes not from moral reasons, but because we have a population problem, and the last thing we need to do is make it worse.
#define DRM chmod 000
A UN vote would not make any difference. It would only affect countries who sign up to the resolution. I do not think the UK would, the government is very keen on getting the biotech industry up and running.
There are a TON of anti-cloning supporters out there, but seriously, what is the big deal? If there is a path of technology that might allow us to grow spare body parts, rid the world of cancer, and anything else, then I'm all for it. I think a large percentage of people object to cloning because of the moral (read religious) ideas of a soul and other such nonsense. I wish people would just grow up already.
It seems to me that the United States is against the cloning of embryos for stem cell research and as such I applaud them; this helps maintain the sacredness of human life - life is re-created by an act of God through the union of man and woman, and not by a scientist in a lab.
of oneself for the health benifit of that one person alone is good.
I for one welcome my own DNA and body being used to treat myself.
Clone my own cells to help myself, i would rather have my own than some Pig's cells anyway, money talks, not them. Just pay any doctor enough and you will get what you want.
As far as I know this is a result of not what the White House thinks but Mr Bush's personal (and possibly religiously grounded) opinion on the subject which from what I've read is extremely strong. (For the against.) I have no problem with this for medical advancement but I agree with controls and the idea that the system (if put in place) could change often to reflect social and technological achievements.
I ate your fish.
v 4.02.0
$YodaBSD: src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/yodanotes/9steppro cess.sgml,v 4.02.0 2003/12/05 14:15:45 tsarkon Exp $
All in a days work with a Yoda figurine rammed up your ass.
I HAVE A GREASED UP YODA DOLL SHOVED UP MY ASS!
GO LINUX!!
Tux is the result after trimming Yoda's ears off so that Lunix people don't rip themselves a n
Homosexuals and women who have abortions performed have brought terroristic judgement on New York, New York and its might towers.
We must stop humane cloning!
This is what hppanes when moderater of Slashodt lives in San FranSisco where men wear thongs.
so don't flame me
:\
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
All 191 United Nations members agree on a treaty
You mean the Arab and Muslim states voted with Israel? Amazing. Maybe there is hope in the world.
In a dark lab somewhere...
it is already happening.
so much for "policies"
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Well, that's what you get when you have a Christian Fundamentalist in the White House.
and then we will not need to worry as much about diseases, etc. If God is pleased to do so, He can give us cures for any diseases from whatever pleases Him.
bushy needs the religious right to keep the power and to hell with consequences. Just to keep the research alive for a cure for juvenile diabetes, the society had to fund their own research for 17 new stem cell lines of which none could be used in the US, the researcher has two kids with diabetes of his own and for the "SIN" of trying to keep his kids alives, has been hounded, threatened and abused. The research is moving overseas rapidly which is to be expected and in the end won't slow it down much. What doesn't get mentioned much, is that most of the approved stem cells are locked up in patents and too flawed for meanful research.
Science is an okay thing when used properly in the knowledge of God but if we place science above our Creator then the results shall be futile.
While I am morally opposed to cloning human beings, I see no real problem with experimenting with other sorts of animals. Even the Bible gives man the rights over the animals (Genesis 1:26). So, if it is limited to animals, then we can in essence "practice" on them and then use some of the benefits from the research.
Interesting to note also that Bush is pushing for complete ban, while the rest of the world seems to not care. Seems like the US isn't a bunch of heathens after all.
-Tukon
I think there would be allot to be learned from experimenting with cloning. We could even put it to good use with cloning organs and skin cells.
But I think this kind of thing should have the most stringent monitoring available, this is also the kind of thing which could do allot of damage to this world.
Imagine the repercussions if a world leader were cloned. Or worse yet what if we could speed up the process and steal other people's identities.
VENI, VIDI, VICI, DIXI
God designed the world so that cloning humans is possible. God knows what He's doing. Therefore God wants us to clone humans.
seems kind of lame no one noticed this vile garbage but took offense at your missive.
All Nations?
Last I recall, China was trying this shit.
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.
The White House says that enough stem cells from human embryos exist for research and that cloning an embryo for any reason is unethical.
Ah yes, I forgot that the Bush administration is a world reknowned authority on ethics.
We have a chance to end some of the most horrible debilitating deseases know and it largely comes down to semantics. When life starts. The attitude is better to flush the tissue down the toliet than find a cure to these deseases. It shouldn't come down to a religious issue of when life starts. People should be given the option of donating the unused tissue. I have major reservations about genetically modifying plants and animals but have no issue with stem cell research. Few of the same people show the same enthusiasm about banning nuclear weapons that can kill millions but become irrational when it cames to a line of research that can save millions. Cloning itself simply produces a twin. Deal with it. I oppose cloning of humans strictly because of the crude nature of the current techniques. Few it any would survive and any survivors would have severe genetic problems. There's enough genetic desease without creating more. Until there is a more reliable technique it's irresponsible to clone humans. Reproducing stem cell tissue is a completely different issue. A three or four day old cluster of cells lacks conciousness. There are no brainwaves. In fact no brain. Stem cells by definition lack defining characteristics. They are a blank slate waiting to be told what to become. It's why they are such a promising option for replacing damaged tissue.
/RANT For the last time cloning will not replicate people! No duplication of people is possible.
/RANT
No more than identical twins are the same person!
Doh!
This isn't very considerate to the Raeliens. I mean when you put the white jumpsuit on with shouderpads and tennis shoes, you expect respect.
The US wants to ban stem cell research internationally to ban competition for its pharma companies. They will do this research whether it is illegal or not, and the administration does not want to know about it, and it knows the competition won't break that rule.
When was the last time the US abided by a UN resolution it did not support, even if it was achieved by a 'vote'?
What if they were to clone CowboyNeal?
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
The present US administration has been attempting to bury stem cell research and therapeutic cloning - both fundamental technologies in regenerative medicine - since it came to power. Therapeutic cloning is essential to many stem cell therapies and much related research. Immense damage has been done. Christopher Reeve and many stem cell scientists (including the founders of the field) believe that the actions of this administration alone have set the field back by 5 years.
Some nasty math works out from here. There is currently an 80% effective stem cell therapy for heart disease that has been demonstrated in the US, Germany and Japan in human trials. It saves lives. 2000 people die EVERY DAY in the US from heart disease, yet the FDA is currently blocking any application of this working therapy. For more, see:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/protest_fda_ interference.cfm
A stem cell/therapeutic cloning cure for Parkinson's has been demonstrated in mice, as have stem cell cures for nerve damage, diabetes, cancer (yes, a cure for cancer based on stem cells has been demonstrated in mice:
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?article ID=2003-12-10-3
) and many other conditions. This isn't pie in the sky science! Real, working cures based on stem cell medicine are in the labs, only 5-10 years from being available for us. This is the science that the US administration is trying to drown. It's sickening that any group of human beings would try to enforce so much suffering...
The US house of representatives passed a therapeutic cloning ban last year, but the US senate has been sitting on it. More on that here:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_the_t herapeutic_cloning_ban.cfm
The Bush administration basically went over their heads to try and get what they wanted now from the UN, and damn near succeeded. You can read more about that here:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_globa l_therapeutic_cloning_ban.cfm
This stopped being about human reproductive cloning a long time ago - there is a large, influential group of organizations, politicians and factions who stand opposed to any medical progress that will lead to longer, healthier lives. If cures for cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and other things get thrown away as well...well, too bad. You can see these views in their raw, ugly forms in the pronouncements of Leon Kass and the President's Council on Bioethics:
http://www.bioethics.gov
In their view, living healthily for longer is bad. Working to cure suffering is bad. Medical progress is bad.
Time to kick these people out of power - if we don't stand up for our right to develop and use better medicine, we're all going to be paying for it in years to come. See more at:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/
Speak out!
Reason
Senator Tom Harkin (D - Iowa) is a proponent of human cloning (not just stem cell research, mind you, but human cloning). He was in a public discussion a while ago with Doctor Ian Wilmut (the guy in charge of the Dolly sheep-cloning experiment). Wilmut said "it would be quite inhumane" to clone people. Harkin blasted him:
... It holds untold benefits for humankind in the future."
"Human cloning will take place and it will take place within my lifetime. I think it is right and proper.
Article about it
BIGOTRY!
And then he said: "I'll tell you the meaning of life. It is" and then realized 120 chars are definitely not enough...
The US blocking of clone research is pretty consistent with US denial of nanotechnology research funding.
A few weeks ago, the US effectively denied government funding of nanotechnology despite its public position of wishing to support it. The funding initiative (NNI) which was set up expressly to fund US research into nanotechnology was hijacked by US big business interests through a hilarious or appalling (depends on your point of view) technicality which resulted in nil dollars going to molecular nanotechnology. Yes, nil.
This sleight of hand was performed by first defining nanotechnology as being the application of nanoscience, and then positioning the huge US presence in chemical, biotech and materials sciences as already operating in nanoscience. As a result, 100% of NNI funds were allocated to those megacorps, and zero dollars to the small and powerless sector that currently does the real research into molecular nanotechnology.
It makes you wonder what the hell is happening in the US when such key research areas are blocked through government being concerned entirely with the protection of big business's current interests instead of being allowed to plan for the country's future.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Obviously George Warlord Bush isn't watching Star Wars, otherwise the Pentagon would be working closely with people like Chuck Norris or Sly Stallone to build a new Freedom Army...
Do it. Damn Bushes.
For all the people that don't take a religious stand on the issue I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people who object most of all don't know anything about stem cell research and cloning technology. I bet most of them have never had to take care of someone with Parkinsons or Alzeimers.
Most of these people just take 1 look at the idea and speak up about how abhorant this idea is, basically because their first instinct is to screw up their faces and say 'yuck'. It's the 'yuck' factor that stops people from looking further into an issue and understand the real issues.
This is just another example of people talking loudly without putting in any effort into understanding more.
As for people with religious objections, while have have respect for their views, there are a significant number who are making the debate very polarised. They will not allow any answers other than yes or no, leaving out all the important details in between. I don't like that style of argument, it generally sets my alarm bells ringing!
The current US administration acts as if they believe that the UN is an organization somewhere between the Three Stooges and the Devil Incarnate, and they usually ignore the UN's resolutions and dismiss its statements.
So, why are they taking this issue to the UN? Because they have been unable to get the Senate to agree to this ban. They hope that by using the UN, they can force through something that wouldn't be palatable to even US politicians.
...life is re-created by an act of God through the union of man and woman, and not by a scientist in a lab.
Guess what? You're about to be proven wrong. When? Well, as soon as life *is* recreated in a lab. In other words, any time now. You can just file your "act of god..union of man and woman" nonsense in the same folder as "the universe was created in seven days", "the sun rotates around the earth," and the countless other religious canards that have been disproven in the past few centuries.
Sustaining the misguided fiction of your 2,000-year-old cult is not the responsibility of science, and no matter how far deep you bury your head in the sand, reality will catch up with you.
In the meanwhile, enjoy your fantasy.
Can't we just clone the ones that voted 'yes'?
but why not just fix both the unreferenced "he" and the errant apostrophe after "said?" (in, "We will continue to work for a total ban,' he said.' I was just wondering what everyone thought about this.") Many /. posts require but half a moment to make readable.
Why not do so?
In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
Can't the UK just do what the US does, and veto any UN resolution it doesn't like?
we need to examine what constitutes a living human being and I am convinced that experiencing thought is not a prerequisite for life; there is much more to us than experiencing thoughts, far more.
thanks for making me laugh out oud in front of my computer! got some weird looks from passing-by colleagues :)
(quote)
Sadly, many scientists feel (correctly or otherwise) their careers can be threatened if word gets out their ideas are inviable. Something that is far less likely a risk for a Christian.
(end quote)
Cloning of complete human beings is experimentation on humans who didn't consent. Cloning has a very high failure rate, with the failed cases resulting in miscarriages or life-ending deformities. I can't see how anyone can claim that human cloning is ethical if it results in 200 or more severely deformed babies for every healthy birth.
Maybe the failure rate could eventually drop to being close to the rate experienced by normal conceptions. But how would we get there? It is almost certain they would have to refine the cloning techniques by repeatedly failing on humans, because the differences between species indicates that you can't automatically make a jump from one species to an equal or better success rate with another. For example, years after the cloning of Dolly the sheep which took 297 attempts, it took 800 attempts to clone a horse despite the advantage of all the knowledge gained since Dolly.
Cloning of isolated organs or stem cells is a different matter which I don't have a problem with.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
The last thing we want is even more religious nuts after all.
Once upon a time, there was a flood on a big river. Let's call it the Mississippi, for sake of argument. The flood waters approached a town, and as a family hurredly packed their car to get out of town, they noticed their neighbour wasn't doing anything. They offered to give her a place in the car, to get her out of harm's way.
"No need" she said "God will help me"
Not willing to endanger their children by staying to argue, the family drive off.
The flood waters arrive, and the woman is forced to the top floor of her house.
The local sherrif, patrolling in a boat, sees that the old woman is still in her house. He steers the boat up to the house, and shouts at her to climb out of the window, they'll take her to dry land.
"No need" she said "God will help me"
Unwilling to endanger the other people in the boat by staying to argue (the flood is flowing quite strongly, and they are running low on fuel), the sherrif heads off to dry land.
The floodwaters rise, and the woman is forced to the roof.
Overhead comes a helicopter, and a man is winched down. He urges the woman to grab on, the floodwaters are rising, but they can take her to safety. Once again, she replies
"No need" she said "God will help me"
Since the helicopter only has a limited amount of fuel, they aren't going to hang around to argue for too long, and forcibly grabbing old women from the tops of rooves isn't in the winch mans job description, so they fly off.
The flood waters rise. The woman is drowned.
She finds herself infront of St Peter at the gates. She is rather surprised that St Peter complains that she is early
"But God chose not to help me, surely that means it was my time?" she asks.
"Didn't help you?" hoots St Peter "We sent a car, a boat and a helicopter. What more did you want?"
I take it donations to the US president's campaign from the odder churches have exceeded those from biotech companies thus far.
Is there a plural for fetus? I dunno, anyways..
is a journal entry I did a few days before this article because I was thinking about this very subject.
I would LOVE stem cell research. To those that say the earth is overpopulated BOO HOO! Maybe the earth needs a few more superhumans and a few less troglodytes.
We have a ready waiting supply for stem cells. Say it with me now folks, ABORTED FETUSES. The fetus didn't make it to term? Tough luck, that's natural selection. What do you think dogs and other wild animals do with their stillborn? They eat them of course! No self respecting carnivoire on the food chain is going to let that tasty bit of protien go to waste. Why should we as humans, the smartest creatures on the planet allow perfectly good stem cells that could SAVE LIVES become ground up and flushed down the drain?
I see stem cell research leading to more than saving lives, I see a future with unimaginativable body modifications. As a side result I would imagine learning how to keep a fetus alive outisde the womb would be a major part of the research, which could lead to healthier babies being born.
To tell the truth, I didn't know that the US was pushing so hard to ban stem cell research all together
How the hell is it possible to be this non-political? So utterly ignorant of what is going on in your own country?
Who runs the US at present? Answer; the fundamental christian far right of the republican party. Now, I'm sure you knew this. So why does it surprise you that they push for banning of stem cell research?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Please do not equate moral viewpoints with religious viewpoints. It's quite possible to have morals without subscribing to any religion, and as has been seen over centuries it's equally possibly to subscribe to a religion without having any morals.
Cheers,
Ian
It's what happens when you get a religious zealot as President, he's as bad as the towelheads in that respect. For f**k's sake, the man doesn't consider atheists to be real Americans. Grow up as a bloody country, this is the 21st century not the 11th....
I am a Christian. Now before you start flaming me for believing in stuff, just hear me out. Another guy came off all rightous in response to this story, attracting some well-deserved flames for his views. I would like to offer the rational Christian view. I believe God created the universe, with all the physics that hold it together. However, I do not deem to tell God how He should do stuff. If He works through evolution, that's cool. It makes His design cooler for being self-modifying. If he works through subatomic particles that we haven't even discovered yet, that makes it evel cooler that He started it all.
Having said that, I think it's crazy how some fundamentalists still think they know that God is against science of any kind. They are OK with breeding dogs and horses to suit their needs -- even good with masturbating bulls to get their semen for artificial insemination. Some of them start to get squeemish when I mention these things, but we have been playing with genetics for the longest time, and have reaped the benifits. Now, I can't figure out how cloning or even forming living cells from nutrient-rich baths can be 'playing God' more than any other science.
In fact I can -- people use life as a 'proof' that God exists. Unfortunately, any proof of God's existance would negate the need for faith, so it is doubtful whether such will ever exist. In these people's lives, they need to be able to say: 'Look at that foal -- it is proof that God exists'. If we can create life, therefore, we will be like God. This is flawed, for God is so much more than just something that creates life.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
cloning each other/themselves?
.continually refresh the suppLIE of wannabe fraudulent phonIE monIE billyonerrors, as the # of those with felony grand larcenIE indictmeNTs pending, or already sentenced, & on 'probation', grows daily.
they need to
no matter, as the unprecedented evile execrable's clones are greed/fear/ego based also, they are no match for the creators' newclear power, & planet/population rescue mandates..
actually, this stuff is unbreakable, operates seamlessly on several (more than 3) dimensions, & offers unlimited energy to build on.
a real nightmare for the whoreabull payper liesense corepirate nazi softwar gangster stock markup fraud execrable/walking dead contingent.
for each of the creators' innocents harmed, there is a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US, as the greed/fear/ego based perpetraitors of the life0cide against the planet/population, will not be available to make reparations.
felonious softwar gangsters hoping to freeze time? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday December 11, @06:35AM (#7688518)
buy striking DOWn UN motion to promote gnu/free stuff to developing nations.
they
seem to have hit the eXPanding georgewellian fuddite corepirate nazi
execrable moretoll bullock. it's really just a sintax (t)error, whereas
the fuddites' infactdead process, keeps replacing the 'one' in one
wwworld, with won.
lookout bullow. continued pretending does not help/makes things worse?, if that's even possible.
united? nations? just won?
consult
with/trust in yOUR creators.... the light itself, is not frozen, but
does does function just as well in extremely low temperatures, all the
way down to mynuts won? see you there?
I believe that a human is a human from the moment of conception, making cloning (and other research on fertilised embryos) akin mutilating a fully-grown human -- i.e. illegal.
:-).
Is a child only to be considered human after birth? Or in the 23rd week of development? Such an arbitrary limit simply established by "the age required for medical science to help the embryo survive outside the womb" is unacceptable. The limits of science change, making younger embryos eligible for the title "human". But does the reality of the matter change with scientific achievement? No.
This is one of the few cases where we cannot allow science to dictate our definitions. In stead, we may turn to religion. The Baha'i Faith, the most recent complete message from the Almighty, teaches that humans are fundamentally spiritual in nature, and that the soul appears at the moment of conception. So it follows that the title of "human" must be conferred upon an embryo from day one -- or day 0 if you're a C programmer
To a baha'i such as me, there is no contradiction between true religion and science, so some of the answers to questions outside the scope of science may safely be found in Sacred writings.
Who?
Cloning is duplication! They just did it on Enterprise the other week! But seriously, it's true that cloning as we know it today is less like duplication than natural twinning, since even twins share the same mitochondrial DNA, whereas clones do not. Furthermore, all sorts of intrauterine conditions determine many aspects of the development of a fetus. Therefore a clone would be somewhere between a twin and a non-twin sibling.
I have to confess I am rather saddened by many of the responses/arguments made by many slashdotters.
They seem to boil down to either a) people are going to do it anyway so it's pointless outlawing it or b) it will inevitably provide a cure for (insert some unpleasant disease here).
The first argument is trivially despatched. Murder is against the law. People still committ murder ergo by the logic presented here, we should make murder legal.
To deal with the second point. Firstly I think I can make the assumption that everyone agrees with the general principle that the ends don't justify the means? Ie it is possible for the price for some benefit to be too high. Where that balance lies certainly can be and is debated.
Now I could make the theist point of view about life being sacred, procreation being a sacred act etc etc, and whilst I'm largely sympathetic to that view point, I'm not a theist and I realise it's too open to bigoted attacks. So I'll restrict my arguments to a more limited, humanist line.
I think I can safely say that if these much-touted claims for the benefits of experimenting on foetuses/clones (and there is no concrete evidence to support the claim that such experiements will result in these cures, but leaving that aside). If these cures instead required experimenting on hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands Mexicans/Jews/Muslims/Poor people then there we wouldn't even be having this debate. The people arguing for it would be ejected from their cosy academic posts and justly reviled.
So what's different about embryos/clones? In my opinion there is no difference - they're simply another group of powerless humans that can be exploited. The difference is that some people have convinced themselves that embryos are not humans. OK so, for the purposes of this argument let's assume that's the case.
However at some point the embryo becomes a human. No argument there I assume. But when is that ? Is it after the baby is born ? (As the the Chinese might argue - as they perform abortions on the baby as it is born by injecting the formaldehyde into the child's brain). Is it at 20 weeks ? (Despite late term abortions, where the doctor crushes the baby's skull with his hand and the baby is then delivered normally, but dead) ? Or is it sometime earlier? When does that vital spark appear ?
The bottom line is, no-one knows. And in any case, as everyone develops at different speeds, its likely that if it's not at the moment of conception (my own personal belief) then it's at some variable time over the next 9months (or so). Given all that uncertainty - when is the embryo not a human? The answer is nobody knows. Therefore the only safe assumption is to assume that it's from the moment of conception.
The ONLY reason that we're even considering the option of experimenting on powerless human beings (who differ from poor-people/Mexicans/Jews/Muslims etc only in the depth of their lack of power) is because it's easy to ignore the simple fact that either an embryo is a human being right from conception, or becomes a human being at some unknown (and in my opinion unknowable, see Prof Penrose's book 'The Emperors New Mind' for the arguments) moment in time.
Abortion at any time is wrong. Experimenting on humans without their informed and explicit consent - whether Jews in a concentration camp or babys in a lab - is wrong. In fact I would go further than that and state that they are both evil acts.
Edward
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
The gov is oz wanted to ban stem cell research on frozen embryoes from IVF treatment programs that were going to be THROWN AWAY. Stopping that is not defending life or anything. THey are NEVER going to be born.
Besides if we can play god why not.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Who needs more than one Linus? Why not just clone McBride, and have Linus duke it out with them. The fight could take place in a rainy street, and maybe Linus could beat the McBrides off with an iron pole or maybe just fight the chief McBride and.. oh, wait a minute. Been done.
As subject
Doesn't matter who is in the White House, they will always be unethical to someone. The only time anything can be done about it is when the election rolls around.
It is easiest to measure political, economical, military success not in terms of some abstract 'quality of life' measurement but in degree of difference between the leaders and the followers. The world leaders (The northern hemisphere, the western world, the USA, the business, political, religious leadership of the USA) are quite comfortable where they are right now and have little to gain and everything to lose from anything that changes the political environment.
In any situation those who think they are the leaders have nothing to gain from change even if the change would benefit all. So change is suppressed.
We, the scientists, the technical people, the geeks, the artists, now alter the environment in which our societies exist. Now we may watch how those unpredictable, nebulous things that are human societies respond to changes in their environments.
Is this a good thing?
O new art woe are we.
We have things all wrong and backwards. Cancer, Alzheimer's, and Diabetes will affect so many more Americans than terrorism ever could. Our funding needs to be diverted -- stem cells or not, our priorities here are all messed up.
Hey, what about the bigotted christian scientists, you insensitive clod?
We (americans that is) live in a republican regime that is about one thing: Of big business, by big business, for big business. NOTHING ELSE matters to the regime. Be it the war in Iraq, epidemic and non ending corruption, pandering to the religious right, the ultimate goal is to profit big business directly or indirectly. The pandering to the religious right serves big business's interest because a poorly educated religiously extreme public is predictable, and tend to vote consistantly republican (which of course consistantly votes tax breaks and other favors back to the very same big business).
Its all really a viscous cycle. Government decimates education, leading to more religous extremism, which leads to more republicans being elected, which leads to more laws favorable to the fortune 500, who then contribute even more money to the same politicians.
Sorry for rant, but thats why education and basic research and things like a trip to mars will never happen with this regime. It just doesnt suit their cronies.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
on anyone else...
If the US government has ethical issues and we don't why should we have to sacrifice our competitive edge? Should Europe and the UK care about American pharma companies profits? Does the US give a flying f*ck about our welfare? Nope. So why should WE care what they want...
The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains.
- Attibuted to the blind Syrian poet Abul'-Ala' al-Ma'arri (973-1057)
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
rephrasing an ac comment after 15 mins and whoring for karma? the ac (and your summary) do make a point though.
the matrix is just some funny sci-fi idea... or is it?
You know, the one where all the elitests hear the dreaded word 'God' and get just as blindly offended as the people they are calling insensitive and ignorant.
Ignorance works in two directions.
Suffering, disease, death. This is the stuff of life. Join the movement. Be PRO-LIFE.
eXPerimeNT(r)oll, version won, of course.
.controll just waved their 'magic' WAnD in front of lairIE/robbIE et AL, & 'stuff that matters' turned/weNT right into the nazis' payper liesense windows/gadgets, ala LeRegister.
the process has 'advanced' to transform bodIEs of regular folks into greed/fear/ego based puppets/ediots/droids. those slymebawls over at phonIE monIE
lookout bullow. there's nothing behind the ?pr? ?firm?/stock markup fraud 'curtain'. not even a little 'man'.
I can understand the cloning of a human (ie after birth) being controversial, just because no-one knows what could happen to the clone 20 or 50 years down the line. But being against the cloning of embryos is just crazy. That's exactly how identical twins are produced in nature. One embryo splits in two and forms two embryos that have identical DNA (and are therefore clones). The process of cloning an embryo in the lab is basically the same: A single embryo is opened up and the stem cells inside it are divided into two new ebryos. Viola, two new identical embryos (same as in nature). What is unethical about this? Cloning a living human (or animal) envolves something a little different: Cells are harvested from the human, and then, through a difficult (and at the moment highly unsuccesful, percentage wise) process stem cells are grown from these cells. These stem cells are then used to make a new embryo (Embryos only have stem cells in them in the early stages). So you have a new ebryo with the same DNA as the human the other cells were harvested from. Problem is, we don't know yet if that the clone's cells will act like the (say) 25 year old human it came from (ie live for another 50 years only) or do they start from anew?
The whole problem with the word "cloning" is that most people think of Frankenstein and Hitler when you say it. Not many people realise that animal embryos have been cloned for decades now, and humans quite a while.
Is the US government going to start a witch hunt against identical twins in the future then?
All of the therapeutic uses of stem cells use adult stem cells.
This is simply a cloning issue with the people who support embryonic cloning saying it is for the good of man, in much the same way that a 5 year old says he will take care of a dog, if you will get him one.
Get a free ipod.
It happens. By design, we are mortal. I understand the want to be past things like genetic diseases, etc. But what happens when we fix everything? The earth will just collapse under the proverbial weight of billions of consumers, and we'll all die anyhow. Maybe if we can figure out how to be more symbiotic here, or expand across the universe, then there will be a point. But then what happens when the universe collapses back in on itself in a couple billion years? We die anyhow. No way to escape it...
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
their 'gaze' .continually shifts towards yOUR remaining assets/resources.
on first slith they are quite chameleon like, but their motives are obvious, so the infactdead behaviours must follow.
Thats a very smart move on their part, one year isn't long enough for anything too alarming to develop in this arena, but it is long enough for the issues to become less clouded, by holding off the decision the UN gives things time to develop closer to a point at which the issues are clear enough for some thing closer to consensus to emerge.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
3 guesses as to what books im reading at the moment?
I always though ending a human life was unethical. How can creating a new life be unethical?
the geneva convention for example napalm and certain types of bayonett are used by america, that contavene this, but america never signed, so who cares.
So what's different about embryos/clones? In my opinion there is no difference - they're simply another group of powerless humans that can be exploited.
To clarify, the embryos that are being discussed in relation to this issue are, I believe, all less than 14 days old. The embryos in question are a tiny cluster of a few dozen (or hundred) cells smaller that a pinhead. I think that it's fair to say that such a cell cluster posesses no fundamental quality of human-ness, beyond the merely genetic. Since we regularly dispose of other viable human genetic material in greater quantity (e.g blood, semen, etc), it is, from my viewpoint at least, hard to argue that these stem cells are somehow more morally considerable.
However at some point the embryo becomes a human. No argument there I assume. [snip] When does that vital spark appear ?
The bottom line is, no-one knows. [snip] Therefore the only safe assumption is to assume that it's from the moment of conception.
We have a sense of those qualities of human-ness we value. There is, for one, the human cognitive state that we value above that of other lifeforms. Human foetuses do not generally display uniquely human brainwave patterns until approximately the end of the second trimester (by lucky hap, also the point at which Roe vs. Wade determined that abortion on demand becomes unavailable). Before the end of the second trimester they certainly look human, but then again so do corpses.
I think you have emotionally loaded your argument using terms like 'human being' and 'baby'. I reiterate that the cell clusters we are discussing have no remotely 'human' quality to them - they do not look human, they are not conscious or aware in any meaningful way. All they have is potential, in the same way that an unfertilised egg and a sperm cell do. Simply because we can not say with mathematical certainty the precise instant that a developing embryo/foetus becomes 'human' in a significant way, does not mean that we should rereat right back into "it's human at conception" - common sense tells us, when we look at a 14-day old embryo, that this clump of cells is not significantly human.
I'm going to anticipate the "it's a potential human!" argument now. In the same way that you would not permit a first year medical student (i.e. potential surgeon) to perform complex neurosurgery on you, neither should a potential human (which is what these embryos are) be regarded as an actual human.
In closing, I consider that the needs of actual realised humans are far more morally considerable than the needs of potential humans. If real, live, talking, breathing humans can possibly be helped by this technology, then I think our humanism demands that we make the attempt.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
I accept that there are people (more than I'd like to admit) that see any comment from the 'God Squad' as beneath contempt. It boils down to the same thing:
People that try artificially simplify arguments into 'yes or no', no matter what their views, are being idiots.
It just so happens that it's the religious people doing it the loudest this time around. They are refusing to look at the facts or even worse trying to manipulate them to support their own views. It's this that I find offensive.
Personally my opposition to human cloning comes not so much from religious reasons as because I feel very very sorry for the clones. What would it be like knowing you are a clone? As stories I've read from people who were adopted show, people have very strong feelings about their origins eg. finding their birth parents. Where you come from is something that weighs heavily on people's minds. Think of how adopted children feel when they get told they aren't their parents' real kid. How would you feel being told you are a clone of your father? Or the clone of a dead brother or sister?
Also it is inevitable that clones will be stigmitised in human society. When they go to school they will be considered freaks of nature, their very existence deemed monstrous. They'd probably be turned down for jobs - essentially they will be marked from birth as societal outcasts. The only people likely to accept them will be the scientists who created them and even then only as experimental subjects.
But even that doesn't matter so much if they were loved, as guidance and acceptance and unconditional love from your parents can help people through the worse of things, but from what I read of the people who want clones as children, they don't seem to be entirely mentally stable. Many of the stories seem to involve a dead child who they literally want to bring back from the dead. Anyone grow up in a family and go to a school where you were continually expected to be as good as your older brother/sister? Same thing, except a million times worse. Your parents will be expecting you to *be* your dead brother or sister. Why else would they have spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars cloning them when they could just have had another child? Other reasons also seem bad - as an organ bank for someone. Human bodies put in storage to have organs taken out to be used for spares (I've actually read a manga about that where a doctor feeling sorry for the clone and hating the selfish brat who is the original secretly switches the two so the brat's organs are harvested and the clone 'becomes' the brat albeit with amnesia). And making the child the clone of one of the parents seems to be firstly somewhat egotistical and brings up all sorts of emotional complications and feelings. You'd also have to question the mentality and ego of someone who wants to spend a fortune on a clone of him/herself rather than using a sperm/egg bank or adoption. Essentially all of the people who want clones (with perhaps the exception of those who want a clone to harvest organs for a dying child though even that is morally dubious by any standards) seem to be some of the most selfish mentally unstable people who either seem to have an ego problem (too large) or are too obsessive about the past. There is no way any of them could guide a clone child through a hostile world where their very existence is seen as wrong.
The US will be slow to adopt it, on religious grounds. Meanwhile, far more pragmatic souls overseas will discover the lucrative market for creating legions of Pam Anderson lookalikes with four boobs...
A possible tinfoil hat explanation is that this technology is deemed of prime strategical importance. Get the UN to ban it and continue to toy with it with black defense budgets. *shrugs*
The problem with Bush's statement that there are enough stem cell lines to work with is this. Most are contaminated with the media they were grown on,, mouse cells.
Stem cells can be harvested form the umbilical cords after birth, as well as from embryos. This should not be banned, as there may be many cures which could be discovered, and there could be other methods of gathering stem cells, too.
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
The only thing that the US accomplishes by completely banning embryonic cloning for the purposes of stem cell research is to ensure it's own position behind the rest of the world. As much as the US likes to pretend they are not the world government and they will not be able to stop said research on a global scale. A "second-world" country will end up discovering the secrets and selling it back to the US at heavily inflated prices.
Remember, there was a time when research of the lightning rod was considered unethical because how dare humankind attempt to prevent God from smiting us. Stupid fundamentalist Christian bastards. Just stick yourselves into compounds and wear funny hats so that we can better recognize and ignore you.
Yep, that's precisely the bill that the parent was about. NNI was set up for the very purpose of funding nanotech research as described in the release you've mentioned.
:-)
Yet, not one cent of the money has been allocated to molecular nanotechnology, it's all gone to the megacorps like the chemical industry, which now define themselves as working in nanoscience because after all their molecules are small, LOL. See that reference to nanomaterials and biotechnology? One's got to admire them for their cheek at least.
The president probably doesn't know that he signed all the money over to the old industries instead of into MNT research. Or maybe he does, who knows.
Great. Now I'll have to go all the way to Hong Kong to purchase some flame throwing lungs.
"You have liberated me from thought."
Do you have any links to any NanoTech think tanks or anything which talks about your claims further? I couldn't find any critisms on any nanotech websites... (though I didn't look very long)
It's about letting them die.
The process of natural selection.
It's that simple. If we live longer, there will be more people on this planet. The better medicine becomes at preventing death, the bigger will the population problem become - especially if it is applied in nations with high birth rates and high mortality rates.
We have about five major threats to humankind:
- Lack of resources due to overpopulation
- Climate change
- A really bad pandemic
- Nuclear holocaust
- Meteor impact
(Also, note how terrorism is not part of that list, but it is the primary focus of the powerful nations right now)
Stop the brainwash
Is it just me that finds this stance on cloning at odds with the stance on DNA research and the patanting of genes and genetic sequences.
Now I know the current administration is conservatively christian and while I dont necessarily follow that train of thought I consider a general ban on human cloning a good thing. Note I say general. There should be circumstances where it must be permitted. The research oppertunities for the benefit of us all are too great for an outright ban. And is it so far a step away from the precedence of granting artificial fertility licenses to a couple in the UK for the sole purpose of providing matching tissue for an ill son or daughter?
I digress, sure, the current Bush administrations' stance on an outright ban is on moral grounds? The sanctity of the human body is gods creation and who are we to copy his work. Well I happen to think were just an odd accident that happened but surely by this argument, our genes, our very indivduality and specific beauty are our own? If it is moraly undesirable to clone a human being to the extent that there should be a global ban then does this not extend to the very thing that makes us human,our DNA? And by what right of law, what pious greed and what gauling arrogance does a commercial organisation have to claim patant rights over something so innate in all of us? Would you sell us the air we breath?
It's fucking disgusting
my other sig is written in brainfuck
Big difference.
IANAL(||geneticist||politician) but doesn't cloning humans really screw up the ability of DNA to prove certain crimes? The White House motivation is more likely Orwellian though, in that if you cannot positively identify and track every person, you lose power and control over them.
What is it about the oppression types that just love banning science that would better the lives of people all over the world. So, I'm confused by their stance on scientific research here. The White House clearly supports the research and manufacture of new and bigger weapons but says that cloning embryos is unethical?
Bush, 1984 called and wants its doublethink back.
Join Tor today!
That doesn't include the Raelian nation.
This post patent pending.
Don't forget that the Bush administration has a great reputation for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
just one more reason why U.S. science and technology has lost it's edge.
One would think the UN would actively pursue any attempts to mass manufacture terrorists, tyrants, slaves and soldiers.
Isn't that kind of what the UN does for a living? Well let's just flip through the Qoran and see what their benevolent insect overlords have to say about it?
Of course on the down side, who are all the Islamonohilists going to STONE TO DEATH if the clone breeders aren't married?
Maybe the motto of the UN should be
"We used to have fire but we killed the inventor"
Oh for Pete's sake. To seek to ban this kind of thing, which could conceivably lead to significant medical breakthroughs, is wrong. It is bad enough that certain groups in the US try to inflict their idea of morality on other groups in the US, but to try to inflict that on the rest of the world as well is outrageous.
This isn't an issue like the GM food debate where the consequences of something going wrong might affect everyone - if a stem cell experiment goes wrong it's just a failed experiment, confined to a laboratory incinerator; whether or not to do that experiment should be up to the conscience of the individual researcher, and attempts to ban other people from pursuing such research are mere moral busybodying.
The embryos in question are goners anyway...
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
I have only two words:
Christopher Reeves
(Live one day in his shoes; remember that he was able to breath unassisted by a machine for the first time just this year.)
Yea... liberating 51 million people, using expensive satellite-guided missiles to reduce civilian casulaties... what monsters they are.
All the permanent Security Council members (USA, UK, France, Russia and China) have broken or ignored UN resolutions over the years, as have many other countries for good reasons and bad.
I think the UN is generally a good thing, but it does come up with questionable policies from time to time. This is one of those times. There is no reason for the UN to get involved in the cloning debate at this stage. If individual countries want to encourage or ban cloning, then it should be up to them. This is not really a global matter.
You think if someone's father is a rapist, the son should be killed because of the father's crimes, but the father shouldn't be killed?
That's some seriously twisted logic like you would find in Germany during the early 1940s.
the united nations... what me worry?
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
I should have hit preview.
sigs are a waste of space
If the US gets its way, the limited existing cell line(s) becomes a scarce resource and pricing and control becomes a US choice. Its all about power and money.
The stem cells that are under the most debate, are coming from fertilization centers, where they take several of the mother's eggs and father's sperm and create embryos to implant in the mother. After a certain time period, these are either destroyed, or used for research. And actually, there are significantly less chances of finding stem cells in a fetus. By the time it's developed that far, most of the stem cells will have become specialized.
Another interesting point is that stem cells are available from fully grown adults. There are large amoutns of adult stem cells in the fat tissues. If you were to donate your fat after a liposuction, would people get upset? (Of course adult stem cells are not AS useful as embryonic stem cells. But any stem cells are better than no stem cells. And what is to say with a little research we couldn't get them to be as useful?)
There seems to be a lot of hysteria and misinformation involved in stem cells and similar research. Politicians who are Christian tend to jump to conclusions based on what they've heard about how stem cell research kills babies, and that's just not true. Anyway, take a couple of minutes to look at some stem cell stuff. Educate yourself, and know what you're talking about.
Point in case: There are more than one source for stem cells. Christian ideals or not, it's not about killing babies, it's about extra embryos with no purpose. (Christians usually believe that it is not right to create these embryos in the first place... but people are going to do it anyway... so we might as well make the best of it) Disclaimer: I am a Catholic Christian, and a Genetics major.
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".
would you care to explain "the Sceintific Method" to me?
what you are describing (empirical science) is just one end of the spectrum of methodology.
for example: have you ever heard of philosophy? the dialectic method, introduced by plato? or are you one of those people who think that science should be deterministic by definition? if so, you're wrong.
whatever. i don't even feel like discussing this.
bah
Do you have any links to any NanoTech think tanks or anything which talks about your claims further? I couldn't find any critisms on any nanotech websites
The primary MNT websites (primary because the people who really invented nanotech work there) are those of the Foresight Institute and the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. Their people are the editors of the Slashdot-like MNT discussion site Nanodot. Here are a couple of news articles they've posted there about the NNI funding issue:
TNT Weekly: deletion of MNT study from nano bill is "a farce"
Nanobusiness Alliance spokesman attacks MNT
I think some of the opposition against cloning is because of the fear that dictators would misuse the tech to clone themselves. As in the film The boys from Brazil .
To understand why this notion is flawed, try to find the problem in:
Ein Volk
Ein Reich
321 Fuhrers
)9TSS
They are waiting for Bush to be out of office. I think it's that simple. It will be a cold day in Hell if Bush is re-elected.
It's undoubtedly going to happen or at least is happening somewhere in the world. There is too much to gain from human cloning, all legal issues aside, to stop it.
In human history, every time there has been some block or ban put on a technology it was continued forward anyway. It will be the same here.
When you consider that stem cells can be used to grow ANY OTHER BODY TISSUE, the use for them becomes clear. Currently there are scientists researching how to use stem cells to grow spcific body parts. This means that, if one day you loose an arm or need a kidney, that it will be a simple matter (okay, not so simple) to grow one from your existing cells.
The Bush administration is being blind on this and is taking the typical "We shouldn't play God" stance. it will only hold up for so long.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
DONUM VITAE
(translated "The Gospel of Life")
CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
INSTRUCTION ON RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE IN ITS ORIGINAND ON THE DIGNITY OF PROCREATIONREPLIES TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS OF THE DAY
FOREWORD
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been approached by various Episcopal Conferences or individual Bishops, by theologians, doctors and scientists, concerning biomedical techniques which make it possible to intervene in the initial phase of the life of a human being and in the very processes of procreation and their conformity with the principles of Catholic morality. The present Instruction, which is the result of wide consultation and in particular of a careful evaluation of the declarations made by Episcopates, does not intend to repeat all the Church's teaching on the dignity of human life as it originates and on procreation, but to offer, in the light of the previous teaching of the Magisterium, some specific replies to the main questions being asked in this regard. The exposition is arranged as follows: an introduction will recall the fundamental principles, of an anthropological and moral character, which are necessary for a proper evaluation of the problems and for working out replies to those questions; the first part will have as its subject respect for the human being from the first moment of his or her existence; the second part will deal with the moral questions raised by technical interventions on human procreation; the third part will offer some orientations on the relationships between moral law and civil law in terms of the respect due to human embryos and foetuses* and as regards the legitimacy of techniques of artificial procreation.
* The terms "zygote", "pre-embryo", "embryo" and "foetus" can indicate in the vocabulary of biology successive stages of the development of a human being. The present Instruction makes free use of these terms, attributing to them an identical ethical relevance, in order to designate the result (whether visible or not) of human generation, from the first moment of its existence until birth. The reason for this usage is clarified by the text (cf I, 1).
INTRODUCTION
1. BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH AND THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH
The gift of life which God the Creator and Father has entrusted to man calls him to appreciate the inestimable value of what he has been given and to take responsibility for it: this fundamental principle must be placed at the centre of one's reflection in order to clarify and solve the moral problems raised by artificial interventions on life as it originates and on the processes of procreation. Thanks to the progress of the biological and medical sciences, man has at his disposal ever more effective therapeutic resources; but he can also acquire new powers, with unforeseeable consequences, over human life at its very beginning and in its first stages. Various procedures now make it possible to intervene not only in order to assist but also to dominate the processes of procreation. These techniques can enable man to "take in hand his own destiny", but they also expose him "to the temptation to go beyond the limits of a reasonable dominion over nature".(1) They might constitute progress in the service of man, but they also involve serious risks. Many people are therefore expressing an urgent appeal that in interventions on procreation the values and rights of the human person be safeguarded. Requests for clarification and guidance are coming not only from the faithful but also from those who recognize the Church as "an expert in humanity " (2) with a mission to serve the "civilization of love" (3) and of life.
The Church's Magisterium does not intervene on the basis of a particular competence in the area of the experimental sciences; but having taken account of the data of research and technology, it intends to put forward, by virtue of its evangelical mission and apostolic duty, the moral teaching corresponding to the dignity of the person and to his or
IC XC NIKA
Who decides what that is? Goverments are trying to abrogue that right for themselves, unfrotunately the current US administration does so based in religious zealotry, which is a wonderful base for the advancement of science.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not all who are opposed to certain kinds of stem cell research are religious fanatics. I am an atheist (almost an anti-theist), and I, for one, cannot condone creating an embryo for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells from it. Read that previous sentence carefully, before you flame me. Sole purpose. Embryoes left over from attempted in vitro fertilization should be used for stem cell research. As I understand it, the "leftover" embryoes will continue to be created whether scientists use them for stem cell research or not. To destroy them would be wasted opportunity, and the benefits of stem cell research are too promising to waste. However, I do not believe that humans should have the hubris to create the beginnings of human life solely to harvest it for scientific research. That first step sets up a long slide down the slippery slope to genetically engineered "drone humans" and a caste system organized on the basis of genetic predetermination. This debate is not just about science and religion, but it is also about liberty and freedom, and how we can enjoy them.
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
Tasty fatpeople stem cellss....mmmm....
Blar.
...yet we have the ailments that make some of us think of doing that.
If we hold life sacred, the _we_ will treat each other better and be better off. Holding the life of a thinking, feeling, person who want to live in good health to be the equal of that of a gastrocyst is demeaning to the former, and idolatrous to the extent that it sets up a thing, living as it is, to be the equal to a being.
The United States oligarchy is reminding me more and more of a muscle-bound drunk at a birthday party. If you don't behave the way prescribed, you will be economically blockaded or physically invaded.
Now they would force ignorance on the rest of the world, when you know full-well that cloning and embryonic stem cell research will continue in cronies' laboratories.
One set of rules for you: another for us. What is that called again?
Oh...what's his name...oh yeah...Jebus!
Blar.
In that case, we'll use the scientific method, and conduct an experiment to test the hypothesis that this procedure is against GOd's Will. We'll try it, and if it helps a noticeable number of people, and it doesn't alter society to the extent that babies are being snatched from their cradles (or embryos or foeti from unwilling womens' wombs), I think we'll be able to safely conclude that these procedures have not in fact turned out to be futile, and therefore consonant with the Voluntas Dei.
Just like the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has really prevented all those non-superpower countries from figuring out how to build nuclear weapons...
By trying to ban cloning technology, we are just inviting the criminals and black-markets of the world to figure it out themselve and make lots of profit because it's illegal.
Drugs are another example. Drugs are bad (m'key...), but many have postulated that legalizing the most common drugs would destroy the drug market (and most of the abusers as well), since the price would drop tremendously, and there wouldn't be a need to "push" them (no profit in doing so). But, our moralistic big-brother instinct tells us that if something is bad, we should step in and remove the choice from people instead of letting nature deal with it. Hence, people kill one another to buy that one more dose, because it's expensive, and because money is to be made by selling it.
I'm not looking forward to the farms of milk-fed human-clone-cattle with toe-tags for "liver" and "heart". Nor do I really relish the idea of wandering around and seeing myself (if they ever find a way to accelerate growth, people will buy clones to do crimes for them!). BUT, if we don't do it, others will, and we'll be left behind and surrounded by foreign-grown clones sold to us under high tarrifs (or on the black market).
No matter how you want to spin it. If you follow that logic then every time a man masturbates he commits mass murder.
Even a very young fetus is not fully human since it has no capacity for abstract thought.
Once that capacity exists (with the formation of the neocrotex in the brain) then we could grant a fetus all the same rights as a fully formed human, as longs as those rights do not enter in conflict with the mother.
This is clearly a moral dilemma, and as such, it should be left to individuals to decide what to do according to their own values.
A goverment in a democratic society should not be dictating values in an issue in which there is patent disagreement.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
But cloning is not the same thing as embryonic-stem-cell research, although many cloning advocates strive mightily to blur the distinction.)
True, you can produce stem cells without cloning. However, as far as I know of the research, there are no known means for making general-purpose stem cells (IE, that could become either nerve, heart, or any other kind of cells) identical to Person X without making a clone of person X and harvesting it at around 1000 cells.
And while Bush has not outlawed embryonic stem cell research, he has banned the production of new stem cell lines. Furthermore, last I heard the extant cell lines have a major problem with them.
Now, mind you, I think cloning a human and bring the clone to term at this point would be a BAD thing to attempt. I also think that messing with embyonic-only cloning is something not to undertake lightly. But the blind bans are a Bad Idea.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
This comment is defnitely going to be troll-bait... but what the hell
Oh no... the "I'm a Cristian so you're gonna burn in hell" argument again
Did you euthanize your brain when you (a) became a Krist-Yin and (b) became a comp-ASS-you-n-ate Can-serve-a-tiff
How anyone can truly look at the mess that the US is in, and still think that you have an effective Government is simply astounding!
I expect a better quality of thought from my (admittedly bright) eight year old son... So if you refer to this good ol' kristyin guv'mint as anything but a laughing stock on the world stage... then you, my friend, are hugely delusional
but we knew that already... since you're still Christian & Conservative in the face of all evidence...
For a good article on people trying to save their sick kids, see the Atlantic Monthly's 2001 article Cloning Trevor. It provides a good overview of the intricacies of emotions surrounding the debate, and exactly how misunderstood cloning is; for example, how hard it is to work with and propagate cloned stem cell lines, and how this will eventually force the research overseas.
What bothers me every time this comes up is 100's of people saying "the bush administration says to hell with all the alzheimer's patients." The simple fact is that ADULT stem cell research has yeilded MANY beneficial results, like this one piece of recent news. Or this about bone marrow derived stem cells. Or this about turning SKIN cells into BRAIN CELLS for alzheimers patients! Why does the news media at large ignore this huge potential and only focus on how the pro-life movement "want's to end stem cell research altogether" ?
I Do C++
none could be used in the US
No. None of which could get FEDERAL FUNDING in the U.S. Not none of which could be used.
Get the facts right....and beyond that, I read a German article recently about them fearing a brain drain as so many biotech workers are coming to the U.S. for the better money etc. You'll never see that if all you read is lefty gibberish like Slashdot, unfortunately.
parts: the clonus horror
George & company must have seen this in the theatre and believe it would come true. So give them some credit - even if they are rich, white men they don't seem to want a clone farm for parts after all.
Unless that's what the want us to think. Maybe they've remodeled Area 51 and it's now a secret clone farm! The horror!
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
The "we have to have abortions / avoid reproductive cloning to control population growth" argument is specious. Because people in modern cities tend to both have and use birth control for economic as well as personal reasons (children are too much trouble), the populuations growth rate is negative in every modernized country in the world except for America. America's being barely over the sustainability threshold is the effect of our huge inflow of immagrants. Europe is, in fact, facing a population imbalance crisis over the next 20 years that makes the fiscal crush the US is facing with the retiring baby boomers look like easy streets. It is the case that people in undeveloped countries will not use birth control because their personal wealth is correlated to the number of children they have to work the farm, and the only largely undeveloped nations to stem the tide are those that, like China, are practicing essentially involuntary abortions and involuntary sterilizations. The only both viable and tolerable path I have ever heard of toward stemming the population explosion is modernization, which is not a problem in North America or Europe. It, on the surface at least, appears that even the UN has even essentially acknowledged that Malthus was wrong, in that their recently released supposed estimate of world population in the year 2300 says world population will be on the order of 9-10B, which is where previous estimates said we should be right now.
Most of the existing stem lines are either a) Extremely hard to get b) Of inferior quality once gotten. Apparently the rights of a single cell are more important than the rights of an adult with say Cystic Fibrosis to Mr Bush and his right wing mafia.
Why should everybody know one is a clone?
It would not be more than a curiosity regarding your birth, like saying I was born by caesarean section or by in-vitro fertilization. Who will fscking care when it becomes common practice?
How do adopted children feel? I do not know, some great and greatful, some sad, some do not care. So your point is? Cloned individuals certainly would show as amny different responses.
Now you are entering the realms of trolling. By claiming that people wanting clones are mentaly unstable. Who are you? A psychologyst?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... that a fetus that can't feel or think, is not a human (i.e. during early stages, and certainly an embryo is not a human at all in my book).
So what is it sonny, do I impose my views on you or do you impose yours on me?
Or do we agree to disagree and trust that the goverment will facilitate that both do our own choices without being criminalized in an issue that is far from clear?
You don't want scisnce to dictate the issues, well, I don't want religion to dictate them neither, so once again sonnt, do I opress you or do you opress me?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Let's face it, their beliefs are based up a book written anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years after the events occurred. Add to that the knowledge that they have a hard time looking beyond what a priest tells them the bible means or says (and that priests livelihood is based upon keeping them paying tithes) without checking for themselves.
Great observers. Uh-huh. Right.
Who is more partial to bias, the Christian zealot or the scientific zealot?
Didn't think that was possible.
People fear what they do not understand. Sadly, in this case, it is the leaders of our government who do not understand.
Any time I see debate over anything like this, I see the fear in the "eyes" of one side. For the many who are against this because they fear mankind will play god, I can only extend my deep sadness. They fear for the validity of thier faith by the actions of mankind. Mankind will always strive for perfection and it always seems to create the fear in some that we may succeed. What then of our faith? This is sad, for these people will never know true peace.
Perhaps what they should really fear is the loss of the scientists who do any of this research. If we have a ban in the United States that the rest of the UN does not support, then the research will move to other countries. This is good for the other countries, but bad for the US. How long before other industries and researches follow? If the ban is lifted later, do we really think the scientists will return to our country to continue the research?
Bans on anything have historically been bad ideas (prohibition springs immediately to mind but history is riddled with other, better examples). But bans on scientific research seems to be particularly bad. When that happens, we loose a resource more precious than any metal or gem - the human mind!
Seppuku: Your solution to my problems!
Here's an upcoming movie that looks pretty good! It's called godsend. Rebbeca Stamos(mmmmm) and Greg Kinnear loose their son, Robert Deniro helps them clone him illegally.
LINK
WURD!!
Leftist editors don't want to think that this could even happen.
Enjoy
As we all know...everyone is smarter than the Mericans! Especially the Bush administration. Now repeat (bleat) the mantra with me...Haliburton! Haliburton! Haliburton!
Religion would be so much more respectable if 2 things happened. First: people would have to realize that Religion and Spirituality are most definitely not mutually exclusive. Second: Science is fully capable of acting morally without people placing pseudo-Christian laws on its' actions. People often forget that they have a choice in using knowledge from scientific research. If a good Christian has a spinal injury and the only cure comes from stem cell research, he should naturally turn it down for prayer instead. A good Christian, however, should not use legislature to force his principals on others.
I'm just amazed at the number of people who hold such a strong opinion yet have next to no idea of what it involves. They hear stem cells and they think aborted fetuses. They hear cloning and they see cloning a whole human to harvest a liver. Intelligence is like a river, the deeper it runs, the quieter it is. Nobody ever stops to think that further research can tells us how to turn almost any cell into a stem cell, or the ability to clone just an organ or organ group instead of a whole person.
I'm all for using stem cell research for curing diseases...but it's all just a bandaid. Instead of spending millions of dollars figuring out how to fix the diseases, how about studying the causes and dealing with those?
Well with a little luck in the election (or a sniper's bullet...) Bush's rein of terror should soon be over.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
This UN document has only one purpose and one purpose only. To swing the balance of power in favour of the US and other sly world governments. If anyone thinks for one moment that such a treaty will stop the US military from carrying out secret cloning experiments, they are completely misguided. This treaty will only apply to non-government entities, and will be fought for in an attempt to give the US governemnt the upper-hand in the technology war with other countries. An agreement in the duplicitous world of world politics means absolutely nothing.
Both the Umbilical Cord and and the Placenta are filled with Stem Cells. They are also both temporary organs ejected from the body after labor (afterbirth). Both are also essentially medical waste.
So, when having our child recently, we said, "Sure, why not donate them to medical science?" and checked the box on her medical forms asking us just that.
Without attaching ANY other arguements, you can reasonably say that if every woman engaging in hospital birth in the US checked that box, there would be more stem cells going around than researchers could use.
I'm mildly curious why I never hear about this tidbit of info in any stem cell debates, since it's the perfect human solution: Group A gets what they want without being in moral opposition to Group B.
The longer I'm a member of the Human Race, the more I believe Apocalypse is a valid solution.
I think it's illogical to fault conservatives for standing by their guns on this. I mean if you believe that an embryo is human, and if you believe killing that human is wrong, then it is only logical to oppose abortion in all forms- even if there are potential benefits from it. Think about it- there are many potential benefits from say, killing all elderly and genetically inferior people. Less world hunger, better gene pool, etc. We could even do research on their bodies and learn alot that could save lives. But most people, for one reason or another, realize that this would be still be wrong.
So, any talk about weighing potential benefits is really a smokescreen for the only real issue: When does human life begin? I'm not saying that's an easy question, but I think it's really illogical and unfair for people to bash those of us who believe it begins at conception and stand by the logical conclusions of that belief.
Yeah, well, there are other sources of stem cells, such as from adult spinal fluid and from umbilical cords.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Well, you ignored the possibility that there is no cause, and the entire Universe is just a random quantum fluctuation that got carried away.
Does anybody have bush's 1\2 & 1/2 stem cell speech in quicktime? Audio or video... the video preferred. The white house has taken the file off the web site... It was Bush's first year I think.
Sorry to twang the subject, but as a stage 4 cancer tweak, I don't really give a shit about dying, I just hate hanging around 'til I resemble nuked shadow on a wall. Your point is valid.
As a nation we completely suck at making any sense of death or aborting babies. I mean hell, you've already whacked the aborted, what the hell? Respect for the carcass seems a bit tin headed after that.
The reason for T cell research is so we can hypothetically cure some of these screwed up diseases, rather than just keep people chronically alive. We're unintentionally screwing up the whole genome through the use of medication anyway. At some point in the near future, we're going to need to reverse the trend through a genetic annealing processes, or get really used to widespread pandemics.
I know of more than a few Type I diabetic genetic researchers who have taken the understandable step of completely ignoring the law in hopes of developing probable cures. I doubt we can realistically control any researcher with a terminal disease without becoming proactive advocates for their cures rather than being demagogic obstructionists. At least I'd like to hear the guy who has to take 1000 injections a year explain the slow, safe, and save the dead babies idealogy clearly.
Human cloning, gene splicing. It's all gonna happen. I do have one question: Can we patent our own clone?
(sung to the tune Home on the Range)
Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y-chromosome changed to X
And when it is grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
(Chorus)
Clone, clone of my own,
With your Y-Chromosome changed to X
And when I'm alone
With my own little clone
We will both think of nothing but sex.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
its easy to see the bad in ANY type of cloning, for example; there are more horses asses in the white house than horses!
when these mighty decesion makers are on their collective death beds because there is NO organ donor, alive or dead, for them; AND NO CHANCE for tissue regeneration; because we don't know how. i think they'll consider more constructive uses for cloning...
Stem cell research is going to be the most important research this century and to limit it for idealogical (religion) is about about as stupid as thinking the earth is flat. One of the biggest problems with health (as you get older), is the problem of certain cells to have the ability to regerate. Once we have mastered the technology to generate stem cells on demand, then things like spinal-cord injuries will be easy to repair, or when you lose a limb to an accident, you could get a new one make and attached or grown-in-place. A bunch if idealogical zellots are not going to derail this technological advancement.
So the liberals cannot easily reverse his present internal policies.
Just want to second the thought that there is a lot of damage to existing stem cell lines - here at (unnamed medical school with lots of NIH dollars), I had a class on therapeutic stem cell research, and according to the professor, most of the existing human stem cell lines have divided so many times by now that they have serious mutations, making them virtually unusable in some cases - good thing we can't ever make any more and still get government money...
Let us think for a moment what we are saying: If I am in a hospital for 10 years waiting for a liver and there are no tissue matches and they would be able to clone a liver and give me a normal life. I would not have to live in a hospital under terrible pain and terrible conditions, what is unethical about that. I don't think they are talking about cloning entire humans. They are talking about cloaning organs, and tissues. I think the argument that people are using would make blood transfusions, growing skin in vats for burn victoms, and almost all other medical procedures unethical as well. Of course they use human cells and we can't have that! Why don't we just go back to the 16th and 17th century and throw medical science out the door. After all, prollonging death is playing god. After all, is ever sperm that is spilt and every egg lost on the menstral cycle a human; give me a break. Are we going to start counting every skin cell as a life. This is not a Moral or Ethical question. There should of course be guidlines, as with any scientific studies.
I would highly, highly recommend a read of Michael West's The Immortal Cell , especially if you're curious as to where some of the research in therapeutic cloning is going.
Replacement of the egg nucleus with an adult nucleus and spurring on the growth with hormones (to replace the signals the sperm would give) has the potential to give us grown tissue that wouldn't be rejected by the body. What they're finding is that it's tough to coax this zygote to multiply, but findings are that, unlike Dolly's mature cells, the cellular "fuse" (telomeres) are re-extended.
It's a fascinating read.
P.S. If you want to be grossed out by some mutant things the human body does when it decides to re-specialize a bunch of cells in one area, take a Google search for teratomas :)
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
I'm glad you mentioned this in your post. It seems that many people are completely ignorant of how sexual reproduction works. Both the "life starts at birth" and "life begins at conception" camps are completely wrong. Life began millions (billions?) of years ago. The lifeforms present today are simply extensions of the original lifeforms.
Couldn't they be harvested from miscarried fetuses as well?
The Bush Administration policy is just a throwback to the Middle Ages, when the Church prohibited the dissection of cadavers for medical research. Anyone remember that one? Damn near a millennium and a half of such wretched conditions that the population of cities had to be maintained by constant migration from rural areas because chronic disease and filth caused urbanites to die faster than they were being born.
Do we really have to repeat this? Isn't it time to demystify the whole reproductive process and stop attributing some special religious status to the act of ejaculating inside a vagina? Do we really need our scientific and medical priorities hobbled by lunatics who believe in the literal truth of Genesis? Sheesh.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
If it is viable without life support AND it will be able to develop sentience, you can't kill it. Otherwise, it's fair game.
People need to realize we are rapidly approaching a point where we realize what can and cannot be done with medicine and medical care. Certain damage is simply not fixable with drugs - replacements have to be made somehow. Either we do it with stem cells/growing tissues up in culture/etc. or we do it with cybernetic type prosthesis. Either way, many people are going to get pissed, say things aren't natural, etc.
My subject line sums it up though - someone will do this. Period. It's an incredible way to improve medicine and resolve a ton of current treatment issues (i.e. skin grafts, organ replacement, etc.). It has the potential to cure neurological diseases or at the least allow for their treatment.
The really unfortunate thing is that the Bush administration might actually believe that the stem cells we now have are really 'good enough'. If you work in science, you know...it's never 'good enough'. Everything has problems - without the ability to make new stem cell lines with the knowledge you gain from these 'original' lines, nothing will get done anytime soon.
they are the equivalent of brain-dead humans [until they are proven to be sentient]. They should have about the same rights as those.
#include "GeorgeBushJoke.h"
Fruit from a poisoned tree? Fruit from a posisoned tree?
Gee, that's real sweet of you. Conceptualizing a person as an inert plant, existing solely to produce fodder for someone/something else to eat. Oh, and if they get an abortion---and manage not to get blown up in a clinic bombing or murdered by the enraged ex-father---they're now a poisoned tree!
Mmm. Can you smell the Christian love and fellowship up in here?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
By making cloning illegal, the money and number of people doing research will be greatly reduced. The advances that allow you or me to live 200 years instead of 80 may be delayed until 100 years after our births.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
"Anna Imroth"
Cross the hands over the breast here - so.
Straighten the legs a little more - so.
And call for the wagon to comes and takes her home.
Her mother will cry some and so will her sisters and brothers.
But all of the others got down and they are safe and this is the only
one of the factory girls who wasn't lucky in making the jump
when the fire broke.
It is the hand of God and the lack of fire escapes.
~Carl Sandburg
Leon Kass is actually a considerably more
t ml
repugnant than Reason describes.
I've read as many of Kass's positions as I've
been able to find, and I've found that he is
consistently the enemy of freedom.
Kass doesn't like anything that gives people
the ability to decide what they are going to
do with their own bodies. Not only does he
not like cloning; Kass doesn't like people to
have choices in reproduction (not only cloning,
but he was an early opponent of in-vitro
fertilization and many other infertility
treatments - even of contraception - he explicitly
doesn't like couples planning wanted children).
Kass doesn't like _either_ life extension _or_
physician assisted suicide. He would give us no
choice to either use technology to extend our
lives nor even to avoid lingering deaths.
Kass dislikes cosmetic surgery, organ
transplantation, gender change surgery...
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/17/mooney-c.h
As nearly as I can tell, Kass hungers to clamp
chains around us, to thwart every effort we make
to take charge of our own lives.
So go to Germany, go to medical school in Germany, become a researcher in Germany, and stop worrying about what the Bush Administration or the US does.
-It seems unreasonable to automatically assume that quantum fluctuations can occur without space, time, or matter/energy existing.
I didn't provide enough detail in the grandparent post I guess. With our current understanding of the universe, space, time, and matter/energy are interdependent, which means that the only two possibilities in terms of existance are that none of the three exist or all of the three exist. In other words, there was no time when matter/energy did not exist, because prior to that there was no _time_. However, the universe must have had a beginning, because if it did not then according to the laws of thermodynamics (entropy), there would be no remaining energy in the universe right now. Therefore we know that space, time, and matter/energy simultaneously began at some point.
Since nothing can cause itself, it seems reasonable to conclude that a cause outside of the universe was responsible. Sure, we can consider the possibility that there was no cause, if we deny cause and effect. However, if we do deny cause and effect we are forced to question whether there is a universe. At this point we're into philosophy rather than science. Bear in mind that the grandparent post points out that the argument can only prove that it is reasonably likely that the supernatural exists; that's about as good as you can get. You can doubt anything you want.
Alphanos
The fundamental christian groups, have probably the strongest influence on the current presidency. Yes one could say that there is a lot of corporate interests there as well (actually there is more then have ever been), but these are not random corporate interests. Rather, most of the corporate interests have strong connections to the fundamental christian movement, as well.
Hmm... if we allow direct cloning, it might possibly result in a few thousand extra people on the planet in the next generation. Meanwhile, if we prevent people from having access to contraception, it is known to result in millions of extra people every year.
Priorities?Call this flame bait if you want.
All of the therapeutic uses of stem cells to date use adult stem cells.
Moreover this is simply a cloning issue with the people who will make profit from embryonic cloning saying it is for the good of man, in much the same way that a 5 year old says he will take care of a dog, if you will get him one.
There are lots of people who have bought this line and are too wrapped up in thinking of all the cool possibilities, to completely look at the entire picture.
Science has moved beyond the need of these particular stem cells, we can get all the stem cells we need from adult fat tissue. Now tell me there is a shortage of that.
I really do not care for being made into a disposable commodity.
All the real research is using adult stem cells. Let me say that again, all of the real research is using adult stem cells.
Get a free ipod.
Most people who want restrictions in place are opposed to using _embrios_ or _fetuses_ as the source of the cells; getting stem cells from other sources is OK with most people.
If scientists can change the way they do experiments on animals because of groups like PETA, why can't they just choose a less controversial source of stem cells?
Note the problems with embrionic cells vs adult cells here
science is a religion
The Bush admin. doesn't mistreat the UN - it ignores it. Instances - Kyoto, International Court (which it kicked up a huge stink about). And yes, Kyoto is flawed, but it's a step forward, even if a little one.
As for Iraq round 2, the US refused to compromise. Ditto with the French. Shame on both of them. In any case the lack of WMD certainly proved the gist of the Iraqi action was somewhat effectual, if overly hard on the populace.
And this of course leads to the whole issue with the United Nations - it is about compromise. Look at the amount of disagreement in politics in your own country - now imagine it with different cultures, different races, many of whom have been fighting for centuries. Is it any surprise that the UN is often ineffectual?
And just how should the UN 'curb these problems'? It has no teeth - which sovereign nation is going to give the UN any power which could result in violation of sovereignty? Further, let us not forget all the resolutions against Israel the US has vetoed - how just is this? Nor the US human rights violations in Guantanamo.
Finally, who blames the US for North Korea? Certainly everyone's favourite idiot Bush did not help with his 'Axis of Evil' rhetoric, but I certainly cannot see how it's the fault of the US. Any rational person would conceed the US has done a lot of good in that region and in the world and continues to work against human rights violations. It just a shame the current administration seems to be more worried with showpieces like Iraq and giving the religious right a hand at the UN than preserving freedom in the US. PATRIOT act indeed....
As I recall, Hawking concluded in _A Brief History of Time_ that the universe didn't have a beginning per se. I don't remember the details, but he didn't seem to think that the existance of the universe implied a creator.
The post above gives a mistaken impression.
The first work cited above refers to the use of adult stem cells to help cure heart disease. This work was not done with embryonic stem cells. There is no ethical objection that I know of to using adult stem cells. In fact, the Bush administration has argued in favor of research using adult stem cells. Further, they have channeled research funds toward researchers using adult stem cells and that has caused irritation amongst some other researchers. (I disagree with many things done by politicians of every stripe, but prefer to criticize with accuracy.)
The second work cited refers to the use of "mesenchymal stem cells". These stem cells can also be harvested from adults. These cells do not require the use of embryos. The work cited does involve genetic modification and that can be dangerous. Sadly, multiple individuals have died in experiments in the US and France that utilized genetically modified cells, hence great care must be taken in testing these therapies.
Research in adult stem cells is exciting and is progressing rapidly. These stem cells can be taken from individuals cultured and them reinjected and there is no danger of immune rejection. Cells taken from existing embryonic cell lines can cause rejection. Patients receiving these cells may be required to take immune-suppressive medicines for the remainder of their lives ( as kidney transplant patients do now.)
The FDA has stated that new adult stem cell procedures require approval before they can be used in humans. Approvals have always been required for new drugs. Stem cell therapy is new and unfortunately some types of stem cells may become cancerous when injected into humans. The FDA position according to a Detroit News article is "extensive animal experimentation and human dosage trials would be needed before Beaumont's procedure would be considered for FDA approval." (Beaumont is the heart researcher.)
I think that the FDA is afraid of another metaphorical "thalidomide". The FDA under any administration would, I suspect, be cautious. The FDA medical panels can and do take into account research done outside the US. Also, adult stem cell research can proceed through human dosage trials and continue forward. Let's all hope for great success!
Anyway, if you find this interesting I highly recommend that you look into the matter further. I find it astonishing how many people assume that no scientific evidence exists to support Christianity, especially on Slashdot. There is actually tons of evidence to support it. This is a topic that I personnally find fascinating, and I've thought about starting a website on the topic, although there are others already:). The most comprehensive site on this topic that I currently know of is this one.
Alphanos
as a student and soon to be part of next generation of gentic researchers I just wanted to contribute what I've seen.
There's been concern about the future of genetic research even before Bush was elected. Most of us knew there would be some repercussions to the research, we just had differing opinions on the severity of such. Now though, things are begining to look tough and no sign of getting better. Many excellent researchers have already left to continue their research in Europe (England in particular) and it looks like more will leave as the bans get tougher. Now, one of the major decisions we, the next wave of researchers, have to make is whether or not to try to continue our studies in Europe or risk oppression in the US. Many of us will soon have to make this choice and it's not an easy one.
If they ban Cloning in their area,
.
the cloning tech, and the money, and the huge profits will simply move to another country.
Push some 'bad cloning' out of the USA - down south it will go, or across the oceans -
I don't understand why any one would want to miss out on the discoveries of the next 100 years...
That's not good business, that's not good capitalism...
The problem with outlawing human cloning is that, religious nuts aside, the legislation is obliqulely targetting the actual concern.
Identical twins are not bad (although they can be kind of spooky), therefore clones are not bad. However, people believe that clones are the first step towards genetic modification of humans, forced organ donation, armies of bounty hunters, etc. Therefore, we should outlaw cloning on a slippery-slope basis.
But if clones are the first step to at least one beneficial thing, wouldn't it make more sense to outlaw what we're actually trying to avoid? Otherwise the mad scientists of the world can go right on modifying genetically unique zygotes, crazy parents can go on forcing siblings to donate organs, and George Lucas can go on making his shitty movies while the world confidently sleeps underneith its anti-cloning laws.
Just about the only significant cost to society of straight cloning that I've heard of is the risk of monoculture. Well why not require that only n humans can be produced using the same DNA or have a rising tax or something?
I'm getting really tired of legislators that paint over liberties with a thick, sloppy brush because they don't have the cognitive powers to figure out what they're actually trying to accomplish.
It's not so much that he needs the religious right. It's more that he knows that God put him in the White House, and he intends to do right by God, and to hell with the consequences (or rather, the consequences will not include Hell). Bush has got Religion.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Is the 'War on Cloning' going to be the US' new 'War on Drugs'?
/sarcasm OFF
Cuz that was hella succesful!
-Nano.
Human cloning and other genetic manipulations are inevitable. They're also modern man's Tower of Babel.
With every major dicovery/invention, there's always been the fear factor. It makes even the smartest humans act in the most irrational ways. Granted, rationality has never been man's halmark. However, ingenuity, using our skull muscle to put things together and create new things, is. Man, the creator on Earth, is getting ready to graduate to the next level. And this scares people.
Some people are scared because of the potentional harm we may do to ourselves or the environment. Others are scared because they don't think man should create life, or at least human life.
If we're banning human cloning because of the large risk involved, fine (btw, I haven't read any study that can show a significant risk to the overall population as a result of human stem cell manipulations). But to criminalize scientists because of ethical/moral hangups is a tragedy. Kinda like the tragedy in the Bible where God malevolently strikes down the inspired worshippers of Babylon for trying to build a tower to heaven.
Huh?
That's right. God deliberately punished and confused man for trying to get a peak past the pearly gates. I can't help but think that's exactly what some people are trying to do today: confuse and punish man for trying to be more than he is and reach past his limitations.
I remember reading an article on this a year ago wherein a U.S. researcher was quoted as saying he will simply move to a country that does not prohibit cloning if it comes to that. Also, he said his colleagues will do the same.
If human cloning is relatively harmful, then ban. If not, move over small minds, it's time for the big boys to play.
damaged by dogma
They all voted against reproductive human cloning? That position makes no sense! What the hell is going on here?
I wouldn't mind being a clone one bit. I wouldn't tell anyone about it, because people are stupid in this field. But I am not my mother, I am not my father either. I'm my own person and clones will be too.
This is the first sensible argument against cloning I've heard in my entire life.
Yeah, lots of regions have significantly more people than food. We're eating the earth bare, like a collection of locusts, yet the flood continues.
Natural means is making enough children, why ask for more?
The US isn't the bush administration is. A seed is not a rose people, and a blob of unspecialized cells is not a person. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel, it doesn't have dreams or aspirations, it doesn't even have a central nervous system. GET OVER IT.
Actually, he concluded that either the universe always was (didn't begin) or was created by a supernatural agency. He didn't like that alternative, so he did not choose to pursue it. It wasn't a question of proof, it was a question of preference. Which he actually says in the book. He is an honest atheist, at least :)
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
upon learning of the atrocities of world war II as a youth, I was presented with the moral dilemna question... would I use a medicine that was harvested from the "scientific exploration" of jewish prisoners if it would save my life? I will stop bringing this analogy to the table within the context of this thread when anyone can scientifically and conclusively prove that human beings do not become human beings at the moment of conception. If i could engineer a means to create stem cells from my own embodiment for my own self-centered tissue repair needs, I'd probably do it. after all, my "twin" after my first cell division as a youngster was absorbed into my single consciousness, so he never really was his own individual, he was me. but to cancel another being's potential of life, one that was NOT derived from one of my own cellular divisions, one that has brain wave POTENTIAL genetically coded into its own self-being before cell division #1 and introduced into the world for the purpose of being harvested, is opening the door towards a world where full sized humans are grown with neural tissue growth inhibited for organ transplation, that is until they realize they'll need the brain tissues as well. So then who will be the next Abraham Lincoln? George W.? Probably not, this battle will occur far from now. It is the liberal that believes the definition of a human is that which suits their econonmic or personal needs of the time, just as Roe changed her mind.
Adding to my post above...
this link has a good collection of of facts in the Bible that were considered fiction, but were then backed up by archeological discoveries.
Moderator on crack.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
If he were worried about infection, he could instead, design some kind of centipede-bot to house the electronic brain. Then, instead of sawing open the skulls of his victims, there could be a scene where he shoves a coat hanger hook up their nose to scoop the brains out. Then the centipede bot could just crawl up their nose and take up residence.
Eat at Joe's.