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Louisiana Rep. Preps State Bill Banning Human-Animal Hybrids
mikeljnola writes with an excerpt from NOLA.com that says state senator Danny Martiny (R-Kenner) will introduce a bill to the Louisiana legislature on April 27 to "'make it illegal to "create or attempt to create a human-animal hybrid, ... transfer or attempt to transfer a human embryo into a non-human womb ... (or) transfer or attempt to transfer a non-human embryo into a human womb."' With budget cuts all around, our struggling state is concerned with the eminent danger of human-animal hybrids. The upside is that the odds of the Louisiana becoming the Bayous of Dr. Boudreaux are now even slimmer."
So much for ever getting a real catgirl :/
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I recall an experiment involving a human-cow hybrid; specifically, human nuclear DNA and cow mitochondrial DNA. The embryo was allowed to grow to 16 cells before being destroyed, and there were a lot of cries about the ethics of such experiments.
Palm trees and 8
If you had sex with a human-animal hybrid, could you be prosecuted for bestiality? Of course *I* wouldn't have sex with a hybrid. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think.
It may sound dumb, but....
Directly combining cells from two species is one thing, and this bill is going after that, but the term "hybrid" makes me nervous. A mouse with a single human gene is technically a hybrid. Are they going to outlaw transgenic lab animals, therefore? That would be a huge blow to science.
Gotta love the Catholic Church, the bastions of innovation and human progress that they are. Not.
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are humans not animals?
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Usually Louisiana and Alabama are on the cutting edge of scientific advancement.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I live in New Orleans. from the article, this was filed "on behalf of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops". If you've never been here, Catholicism is huge in south Louisiana.
This bill has nothing to do with any sort of research or proposed research in the state. There are no biomedical companies here threatening to build mutant humans. Louisiana doesn't generally have the sort of biomedical research centers that would do work of that sort. We're happy if the Germans build a steel mill here.
This is just another one of those ideas based on a garbled sci-fi fear of Science, made by people who'd rather not have to learn anything before forming an opinion, and who have far too much access to lawmakers.
I have no doubt the law will pass, the religious community here will crow about it for a few days, and then absolutely nothing tangible will have changed. Except that a few hundred thousand more of my state tax dollars will have been spent on bullshit.
Ahem.. Aren't we supposed to ban government-religion hybrids?
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Bacteria are not technically classified as animals, so the new law would not affect them. Human/tree and human/mushroom hybrids would also still be legal.
Gotta love the Catholic Church, the bastions of innovation and human progress that they are. Not.
Hi, Orleron, we need to talk. It's me, the 1990s. judging by that last sentence fragment negating the previous sentence to it, you were sentient during my reign on earth. Unfortunately, there's a court order demanding I keep all of my belongings out of other decades. Yeah, I've got Vanilla Ice in my garage and all copies of Armageddon in my living room.
Frankly, you need to stop with all my phrases. I'd issue a DMCA take down notice if I wasn't ordered to keep those also relegated to the 90s. As it turns out, these jokes aren't funny, Ace of Base is not good music and having your own GeoCities page doesn't make you cool.
If the other decades are reading this, I'm sorry for screwing everything up and it's in your hands now, 00s.
As the day is fast approaching when we can create less-than-human intelligent creatures, it makes sense to be certain it is made illegal before anyone tries it. Might I remind you what history that very state has with beings once considered to be subhuman?
It is not silly for the legislature to be doing it during a recession, they're not out creating jobs, you know.
The latest Slashdot meme.
...then only the criminals will have human-animal hybrids.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
...House Bill 517 that would protect from being fired or demoted people who refuse to participate in any health care practice that violates their conscience...
Now way! You serve everybody without prejudice. If you can't/won't, then find another line of work. I don't want witch doctors in the operating room. I can go to the mountains for that.
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I am not a female, but I seem to notice that women do seem to be pretty able to handle their workforce chores quite well during the gestation period. It's the time they need after the little squirt comes out that makes them need to take a few extra days off.
You never expect irony, do you?
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Unless this prohibits ALL the numerous creative means of achieving genetic "intermingling", this bill is pretty much useless except to satisfy one particular faction's pseudo-moral obsession.
Oh! That's right... I went there!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Gotta love the Catholic Church, the bastions of innovation and human progress that they are. Not.
WTF does the Catholic Church have to do with this? Yes, the bill was suggested by a Catholic bishop, but given that the Catholic Church accepts Evolution and the Protestant faiths do not, I know which faith I'd rather have influencing law makers.
This law is at least based on ethics, as opposed to Protestant laws which are made to try and force their beliefs onto everyone. (Like, say, Prohibition, a law designed explicitly to attack Catholic Irish. Or any of the more recent laws demanding the teaching of "intelligent design.")
My point is that while the Catholic Church does do some anti-science things, they can't hold a candle to the anti-science that comes from Protestants. Calling them out and not calling out the even more anti-science Protestants simply isn't fair. After all, if the Protestants had their way, stem cell research would be banned completely.
Ever been to Mardi Gras? The human-animal hybrid ship sailed long, long ago.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
my Republican elephant and Democratic donkey hybrids...
"The Bayous of Dr. Boudreaux", my God that's funny. Give whoever first coined that phrase a cookie!
without using the term "human"
I am not a female, but I seem to notice that women do seem to be pretty able to handle their workforce chores quite well during the gestation period. It's the time they need after the little squirt comes out that makes them need to take a few extra days off.
As my wife is currently near 7 months and still working. I'll point out some of the observations of my wife:
1. She feels forgetful. Enough to notice that there is a difference.
2. She has to keep her feet elevated (not much of an issue)
3. She had to get a different vehicle as she was getting too close to the wheel. (Nissan Murano with adjustable pedals helped a lot)
4. Distractions, and there is a lot of extra work to do. Even though I pretty much take care of everything at home now, there are still things that take up time.
Then comes the risk of being ordered home from work. My mother was sent home a month early when I was born. Then if a C-section is required, you can expect to not return up to 12 weeks from the birth.
It's not so much of a hurt on your career, but it basically takes a 6 month chunk out of time where you could be performing (impressing the boss).
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Louisiana is a majority baptist area. If you're going to bash Christian sects, at least have the decency to pick the right one!
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I really hope there's an obscure reference that's setting me up for a 'whoosh' here, because if you're serious, you should look into a few names:
...to name just a few. The first pair and their connection to the second name were probably the longest knowledge setback in scientific history. The Catholic church has always opposed any knowledge that would allow common people to think freely and question its dogma.
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The Human Ecosystem, Posted 12/23/2008, Matthew Child; George Macfarlane
Genetic analysis shows that our gastrointestinal tracts are home to more than 100 000 billion (1014) individual micro-organisms of perhaps 36 000 different species. And more than 90% of the cells in our bodies are non-human.[1] These bacteria form a diverse and complex ecosystem with a total gene pool (microbiome) more than 100 times larger than the human genome -- in effect we are hybrid "superorganisms." The types and numbers of bacteria differ from the stomach to the distal colon, reflecting the changes in pH, concentration of oxygen, and availability of nutrients. Small numbers persist in the stomach (notably Helicobacter pylori, which causes ulcers) and the small intestine, but most of these organisms are found in the anaerobic environment of the large intestine ( Table ).
To see the full article you need some kind of login which I don't have, but SlashDot had a similar story a couple of days ago: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/15/0252219
So I think there's a lot of tough questions to ask before allowing legislation like this to pass. We can't even define "human" very well, and we already appear to be hybrids (mitochondrial DNA etc).
Humans are already animals, so would this mean that human to human mixing would be illegal? Jesting aside, this might be hard to legislate, as it would require a scientific description of exactly what genes are required to be human. While at first pass this might seem to be a no-brainer, it actually opens up some serious ethical concerns. If you get a child that has a genetic mutation that either has extra genetic material (or less) than the definition, that person could LEGALLY be considered not human. This is an enormous can of worms. What rights would a sentient non-human, who looks human, expect to have in society?
That would reduce the risk for the mother; I doubt it would reduce it for the child.
I couldn't disagree more. Machines have an excellent track record for accuracy, compared to humans. During the experimental stage, it might be dangerous for mother and child, but when the technology matures, it will be safer for both, and lots of people will be doing it. There will, of course, always be people who prefer the old fashioned way.
The one thing that would quickly decrease the risks of pregnancy to absolutely zero is an artificial womb!
Hooray! Somebody finally found something in this universe that has absolutely zero risk! And it involves babies and surgery!
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Humulin ("Human Insulin") is produced by a recombinant DNA process which transferred the gene for human insulin production into a variety of e. coli, and was approved by the FDA in 1982 (http://www.biology.iupui.edu/biocourses/n100/goodfor5.html). The bottom line is that we've been making human-animal hybrids for decades, they already treat some diseases and hold great promise in treating more, and legislation such as this only reinforces the image of Louisiana as a Luddite backwater.
I mean, I'm pro-life, and yeah, mom's life is more valuable than the child. Mom can get pregnant again and has chores to do for Daddy, not to mention providing for the other children. If you had to make the terrible choice between mom and a child, I'd say the lose the child.
Now, when mom gets old, that role gets reversed. Like, once you retire, the kids become more important than you.
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While rational, your point does not coincide with the values of our society. So they won't be very receptive to those ideas
What do you mean? America is a society that really doesn't like children at all. It's only that Europeans and Japanese positively hate children that makes America seem child friendly.
Have you ever taken toddlers out with you and gotten a bunch of dirty looks from all the people? It's like, you shot someone. People should like to hear children laughing and stuff and instead everyone expects them to sit in silence in public places. What kind of a screwed up society is that!
Similarly, we have no problem blowing tons of money on old people, spending hundreds of billions on medicare and medicaid so grandma can get a new pacemaker on the public dime, but lets see what happens if you suggest that grandma just dies so that kids can get better schools.
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OK, so the summary already is a source of hilarity to me... "eminent danger"? Eminent means prominent, distinguished, or noteworthy. The correct phrase here is likely "imminent danger." Based on that, and the comments in TFA (most of which were riddled with similar typos and malapropisms, many of which were bemoaning the state of education in Louisiana, and some of which fell under both of the previous two categories), it seems to me that Louisiana should be working extra hard to try and funnel more money into education, not cut it. Yeah, comments in TFA brought up the topic of cutting funding for education in Louisiana.
It should also be noted that this bill is being promoted heavily by the Catholic Church. TFA takes pains to also talk about a medical conscience bill that would protect doctors, pharmacists, etc., from repercussions if they opt not to participate in any procedure that violates their conscience or faith. In other words, this would allow pharmacists to refuse to prescribe the morning-after pill if they oppose abortion. It's worth noting that TFA is a bit slanted in its coverage -- it does not, for example, discuss whether the claims of equivalence between the morning-after pill and abortion are in fact valid. (Other news sources have openly questioned the validity of this comparison, usually citing opposing viewpoints.)
I'm hoping there will be an intelligent discussion here about the dangers of setting up different classes of organisms for experimentation -- those who are fair game for genetic experiments and in-depth analysis of fundamental cellular mechanisms, and those who are not. Reasonable scientists might point out, for instance, all the benefits of using a hybrid approach to solve a vexing technical issue, even if that's just a stopgap measure. They might also warn of the dangers of missing out on crucial insights because we're not working with material sufficiently close to our own genes and cells. But instead, I fear this whole thing is going to degenerate into a bunch of jokes about furries...
That said, some of the comments in TFA about mermaids and "centars" were hilarious. :-)
As an attendee of one of the tea party events, I can assure you that the "movement" nor the individual event I attended was organized by the Republican party.
The one at my capitol was organized by a libertarian with no affiliation. He voted for Baldwin the last cycle.
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Why do so many posters keep conflating this with religion? Even IF this were submitted by an organization with religious ties, isn't this a common sense / human dignity issue?
We shouldn't be screwing around with the future of our own species. If we want to engineer devices that augment the human body to make it work better, I guess that's fine - but we should be respecting what nature evolved over millions of years. It's a finely tuned machine that we cannot fully understand, certainly not now, probably not ever.
I always think back to ST:TNG; despite the advanced technology, they left the human animal in it's natural state. Geordi had a visor, not artificial eyes. Picard had a mechanical heart, they didn't grow him a new one.
Now, obviously ST:TNG is just a show. However, I've always thought that vision of the future was more dignified than the direction we seem to be going with this biomechanical research.
So do I... none.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.