Chimera embryos have right to life, say bishops (Part animal part human children)

Telegraph, UK ^ | 6-26-07 | Jonathan Petre

[Bladerunnuh]

But the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, in a submission to the Parliamentary joint committee scrutinising the draft legislation, said that the genetic mothers of “chimeras” should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished.

The bishops said that they did not see why these “interspecies” embryos should be treated any differently than others.

The wide-ranging draft Human Tissue and Embryo Bill, which aims to overhaul the laws on fertility treatment, will include

[Bladerunnuh]

You know what? With the way things are going--- why not?... (okay, the Amnesty vote has me very discouraged, so sue me)

[martin_fierro]

Can't we just all get along?

[blam]

"You know what? With the way things are going--- why not?... (okay, the Amnesty vote has me very discouraged, so sue me)

Heck, I'm going to bed I'm so depressed. Maybe I'll wake up and it was a bad dream.

[Bladerunnuh]

I hope our new Chimera Overlords are conservative at least. Maybe they’ll build a border wall out of Kryptonite. Sweet dreams

[Experiment 6-2-6]

C’mon...

Just think of it as like the island of Dr. Moreau....

[HereInTheHeartland]

5 posts and no Helen Thomas?
This site is slipping...

[Antoninus]

I hope the bishops were at least sober enough to point out that it is immoral in the extreme to create such “chimeras” in the first place.

[TheSarce]

Personhood ping....

[Experiment 6-2-6]

Everyone is too much in a bother about the Senate Vote..

No time for levity....

[Clock King]

I say, Only if they are sentient.

[KarlInOhio]

This is a tricky problem because I really can't come up with a point at which I can say "This far but no further". If we put a human gene in a pig so it produces human insulin instead of pig insulin (if there is a difference), then it is still a pig and should be treated as such. If we take a baboon and put enough human genes in it so it produces a kidney that is close enough to a human one to be transplanted, I would still say it is an animal.

If we were to take a human embryo and put some animal gene in it so that it is immune to some disease, then I would say that it is still human. I don't quite know where along that line I would split human vs. non-human. Morally I have no problems with any of the three examples I have given.

I don't know if I would agree with sentience as a test because I could see scientists producing human beings with only brain stems but none of the higher parts of the brain to use for parts. That would be immoral.

[BlazingArizona]

Uh-oh...and I thought that “pit bull lawyer” was just an advertising slogan.

[Clock King]

I like that at least you are thinking about it. I wish more people would. I’m afraid our politicians will just pick arbitrary “guidelines” that may sound good in theory, but in practice...? Add to the mixing of genetic material, cybernetic implants, and we have real problems. Ghost in the Shell 2 and some of the other works by the same artist/author deal very very heavily with the idea of “what is the boundary line between human and non-human?” The future will by very chaotic for a while.

[Calvin Locke]

Frankly, I'm more worried about diseases jumping species, thanks to this "innovation".

Heck, I'm concerned about use of other than human body parts in people maybe doing the same thing.

There's lots of science fiction that has various views on the chimera-like and/or clone "problem".

Ethics, really, but ethics went out the door on July 18, 1969 in this country.