Slashdot Mirror
Green Light for Human/Animal Hybrids
Henneshoe writes "BBC News is reporting that two research facilities have been given the green light to create part human, part animal embryos. According the the report, 'Scientists want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs in a bid to extract stem cells. The embryos would then be destroyed within 14 days.' The decision to allow the embryos was made after research showed that people in large are OK with the idea."
I am glad that we are trusting the unwashed masses to make important technical decisions that they know nothing about. If Britney says it's safe, then it must be. God bless Democracy.
I, for one, welcome our species hopping virus overlords.
The embryos would then be destroyed within 14 days.
So, anyone else consider that the single most dissapointing part of this?
They'd almost certainly not live long enough to ever call them infants, but even in the steps they do last through, we could learn so much by watching how they develop differently from either human or other-half embryos.
And if they actually lived to term, well, I would consider their cognitive develpment nothing short of fascinating to observe.
This is animal cruelty, plain and simple.
Because 14-day-old embryos have such well-developed nervous systems that they can appreciate (nevermind even "experience") pain?
Do you know how many embryos are going to be destroyed
No. Do you?
More importantly - So what? At that stage of life, you have organic scum in a tube. What it could someday turn into has no relevance to its status at that developmental level.
There are better ways to get stem cells people.
Yes - Yes, we do indeed have better ways. But the goddamned fundies don't seem inclined to let us use the numerous extra embryos from human fertility therapies (nevermind abortions), so we need to find new, even more absurd, ways to get them.
Remember how everyone said "Aww shucks! We're just going to use cloning for stem cell research! We'd NEVER do anything funky like crossing humans and animals!" in response to cloning critics?
Well now those critics have been validated, and the Religious Right has more ammunition with which they can stall actual valid medical research.
This is what unrestrained morbid curiosity gets you. Too bad productive science as a whole has to suffer.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Maybe because the peasants are helping to pay for it?
Public money spent on things the public wants is what charity organizations are for. Spending money on things for the good of the people, but that is something the average person wouldnt want to pay for himself, is what the government is for.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
As a student of theology I might be able to shed some light on this.
In the eyes of religion, the human egg and the human sperm are considered potential humans, even more so when joined. Hence the reason it is considered sinful when a man "spills his seed".
Except for the reproductive cells, any other human cell cannot be considered a potential human, therefore using some skin cells and implanting them in a cow egg and aborting the fetus after 14 days would not be considered human abortion.
Basically this is a loophole around the whole ethics thing as long as the fetus is terminated. A whole new bag of worms is waiting to be opened if one of those embryos goes to term and a 8lb 10oz bouncing blue eyed huvine (boman?) is born.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated