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To: Mrs. Don-o

I wasn’t familiar with the organization, but I went to the web site and did some reading. The only thing that I could find was cytoplasmic hybrid embryos, which are part human and part something else. As reprehensible as that is, it still requires an egg.

As far as I know, There is still no way to create an embryo without an egg. (I am close to 100% sure about this) If there is no embryo, then life is not being destroyed. This process sounds like it has tremendous potential, and I am encouraged by the attention it is generating. Basically, these stem cells are as beneficial as they can be, without being true embryonic stem cells. Nothing is really lost, because the benefit of embryonic stem cells has nothing to do with them coming from an embryo.


38 posted on 11/20/2007 2:41:05 PM PST by ga medic
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To: ga medic
Does it make any difference, in your view, whether the egg (with mitochondria) is human and the nucleus animal -- or vice-versa, the nucleus human and the egg animal? Or the nucleus part human, part-animal, part synthetic, while the egg is ---

Ah.... what am I getting at? It becomes hard to draw a line between a human zygote and a zygote deliberately damaged or altered to be so abnormal that we call it something else.

The more permutations and combinations they make of different nuclear, cytoplasmic, and mitochondrial materials, the more the distinction between a human being, an animal, and a gobbet of lab material is blown to smithereens.

One would think somebody would see that in itself as an ethical problem.

40 posted on 11/20/2007 3:00:01 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (The HMMMM factor.)
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