Posted on 06/03/2010 11:28:30 AM PDT by TaraP
In what may seem more like a Hollywood science-fiction plot, as in the forthcoming movie "Splice," lawmakers are trying to prevent scientists from combining human and animal embryos to make "human-animal hybrids."
In "Splice," two scientists defy ethical boundaries and splice together human and animal DNA to create a new organism, also known as a chimera.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
While the idea of such an experiment may seem far-fetched, scientists around the world have been dabbling in creation of human-animal hybrids for years.
Today, Ohio’s Senate Health, Human Services and Aging Committee passed S.B. 243 – a ban on human-animal hybrids.
The bill prohibits “human cloning, the creation, transportation, or receipt of a human-animal hybrid, the transfer of a nonhuman embryo into a human womb, and the transfer of a human embryo into a nonhuman womb.”
Mark Harrington, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Midwest and president of the Pro-life Institute, presented expert testimony.
Will the elites control life itself? ‘The Emerging Brave New World’ documents the battle against the sanctity of life ethic.
“We all want to see treatments for sickness,” he said. “We all want to see cures for disease. But the question is at what price?”
He added, “I am becoming more and more convinced when it comes to emerging bio technologies like human-animal hybrids that many of these researchers do not believe in any limits on research as long as it has the possibility to produce an economic end that suits their agenda.”
The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform is urging citizens to call Ohio State senators and ask them to support S.B. 243 with a vote on the Senate floor.
(Story continues below)
Human-animal hybrid experimentation
Scientists have had some success with human-animal hybrid experiments. In 2003, Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University fused human cells with rabbit embryos, according to National Geographic News. The embryos were given several days to develop before the scientists destroyed them to harvest stem cells.
According to the report, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota were able to create pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies in 2004.
“Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing ‘spare parts,’ such as livers, to transplant into humans,” National Geographic reported. “Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.”
Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin told the magazine, “One doesn’t have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn’t make sense. It’s the scientists who want to do this. They’ve now gone over the edge into the pathological domain.”
We'll leave that interspecies love for other states.
They would be “subhuman” hybrids. As such, they would have fewer rights than a “full” human.
This is an unethical road to travel.
>create pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies in 2004.
*************************
Wow. No more blood shortages!
The bill prohibits “human cloning, the creation, transportation, or receipt of a human-animal hybrid, the transfer of a nonhuman embryo into a human womb, and the transfer of a human embryo into a nonhuman womb.”
Now a little less snarky, will this law interfere with the creation of other animals or bacteria which produce human hormones? Would it be illegal to splice in the DNA responsible for creating insulin into bacteria to create human insulin in a lab? How about animals creating other body parts like corneas which human bodies won't reject? I wouldn't want some half-human freaks wandering around (a planet where apes evolved from men... it's a madhouse!), but a lot of medical advances could be outlawed by this legislation.
Does sound a bit like the plot in The Island of Doctor Moreau.
Bull, what they’re trying to do is retard medical advancement. Imagine being able to grow a human heart or other organs in a pig, its not that far off if we don’t ban it first.
Really it would just mean that other countries can develop (and patent) said technology first.
England is already enaging in these human-hybrids. And why “aren’t” they subhuman?
Are they equal to humans? Superior?
Something else?
Or aren’t we supposed to raise that question?
When the first one is born and comes of age I’ll let you know :)
But I have not problem with my decendents having bits and pieces of animal DNA if it means they’re less prone to get cancer, infectious disease, have stronger muscles, bones, cardiovascular system, etc. Animals are ours to do with as we please, we’ve been using them as tools for all of human civilization and using them to improves ourselves biologically is just the next step...the husbandry luddites will lose this one in the end.
You have no problem with aborting these “things” for parts neither, after all, they aren’t “really” humans deserving of protection of life.
Uh, no. Where did you pull that idea from, your ass?
“Animals are ours to do with as we please”
Scientists at Newcastle University have created part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the UK, the BBC can reveal.The embryos survived for up to three days and are part of medical research into a range of illnesses.
It comes a month before MPs are to debate the future of such research.
The Catholic Church describes it as "monstrous". But medical bodies and patient groups say such research is vital for our understanding of disease.
They argue that the work could pave the way for new treatments for conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Why not create human embyros to test with if there is no moral quandary.
Look, if they’re animals with a little bit of human DNA, they’re animals. If they’re human with a little bit of animal DNA, they’re human. We’re not where near being about to create something like Splice and no ones even talking about that yet. And even if we were, if whatever comes out is sentient then it should be afforded all the rights a person has, reguardless of its genetics.
As for the UK, what abortions are you talking about? And the embryos they’re creating aren’t viable anyway. Those embryos were NEVER going to develop beyond a few cell divisions no matter their best efforts.
In china they were getting stem cells.
You can put a pig’s heart in a man and it is just an animal part. When you create a hybrid embryo to harvest parts, that is “ginning it up” to get beyond the issue of harvesting human organs from a human who is “wholly human”.
The first test tube babies didn’t live either.
Gotta admit it would be cool to have a talking pig (like Arnold on Green Acres with an Australian accent)
You take Arnold. I’ll take the Kitty Cat Girl from Monkeybone.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrg54_monkeybone-kitty-catgirl_fun
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