"Dude, this is so not cool!"
Other than the fear of new infectious diseases, most of these experiments are not as troublesome to me as harvesting embryonic stem cells or the prospect of cloning for harvesting stem cells and organs. It is obvious that humans are not being destroyed or enslaved. However, the experiments could lead to the production of "animals" with human parentage and the techniques for producing germ cells, those for "reproduction" in other animals' wombs and for cloning using oocytes from other species (in order to by-pass the necessity for human oocytes) seem intended to advance the worst of science fiction's predictions.
The guide should be that all offspring of human parents are themselves human enough to receive societal and governmental protection from killing and enslavement. (Of course, at least 30 years too late for that) Require the experimenter to prove that he is not harming a human life.
We've gone down the line too far in redefining who is "human" until even our own children are not given that protection in this country, and in other countries such as the Netherlands, no one is protected once their life becomes a "burden."
I can't come up with an ethical argument for prohibiting these experiments that will stand up past the "human embryos aren't human beings" and "it's not human cloning unless you produce a human baby" crowd.
"Dude, this is so not cool!"
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"Get your stinking hands off me..!!!"
I am very disturbed to hear people referring to any part of this as "human".
"Pigs with human blood", "Mice with human brains"
God made man. NOTHING that comes out of any of these experiments are ANY part human. Humans are only made when a Human sperm joins up with a Human egg.
"Human"-animal chimeras are extraordinarily unlikely. The complexities of DNA chemistry and physiology and the myriad of different systems that would have to be melded are mind-boggingly daunting. This sort of stuff always sounds plausible but, upon closer inspection, implausable. Can you "fuse" DNA from two similar or dissimilar species? Yes, to a degree. Will that give you a living, sentinent being? Highly improbable. Having said that this is even abominable to think of. Madness.
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