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European Court of Justice Rejects Stem-Cell Patents
ianare writes "The European Court of Justice Friday issued a preliminary opinion that procedures involving human embryonic stem cells are not patentable — even if the process in question does not involve the direct destruction of embryos — because they are tantamount to making industrial use of human embryos, which 'would be contrary to ethics and public policy.'"
1) at what point does it legally become "human"? You have to draw a line somewhere for legal purposes. It'll be arbitrary and silly, but it's still necessary.
Most of what makes a human a human is a functioning neo-cortex. The very first cells that can be traced to the neo-cortex form at around 8 weeks. That's the absolute earliest that it would make sense to define a human, and in reality it's probably much later than that that the neo cortex becomes functional. Suffice it to say that there is no scientific argument for treating a 0 to 8 week old embryo as anything but a lump of tissue.
They are treating humans and human embryos as a special case. This is a good thing (for humans anyway). You don't want the usual sociopathic CEOs to consider the use/abuse of human embryos lightly, all in the purpose of profit.
Why would I care what CEOs do to a lump of tissue in culture, when there are CEOs out there victimizing actual human beings?
If you think that allowing industrial use of human embroys is necessary to provide those treatments you probably believe Monsanto and friends GM plans will cure world hunger or something.
I'm definitely no fan of Monsanto, or any other corporation. I would not hesitate to describe them as evil. Nor do I think that GM crops are necessary to solve world hunger. World hunger is a political problem. That said, I'm not afraid of GM plants in the slightest. They should definitely not be patentable, that's for sure.
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