A New Perversion

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Lief_Erikson

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I had never even imagined anyone would consider doing something as perverted as this. It’s now legalized by the British government: the merging of human and animal cells to make hybrid human-animal embryos. I’m aghast. They are creating the * for stem cell research, and then they’ll kill them after fourteen days. Abortion. They’re essentially spawning mutated humans and then murdering them inside the womb for research purposes.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7193820.stm*
 
I think chimera is the appropriate term, although it usually means distinct populations of different cells. eg: non-identical twins which implant in the same place can grow together to form one person with two distinct genetic cells – which messes up DNA testing of paternity and materninty…

In the US, this is done with cow cells – although it is usually a mixture of two cows – not two dissimilar creatures as the page describes. However, the technical problems are (fortunately) likely to end this type of experimentation rather prematurely.

For example, stem cell research in the US had to grow those stem cell lines permitted by Bush on food – which came from Mice cell extracts / cultures. The result? Mice viruses contaminated every legal line of stem cells remaining in the US.
(ergo: the stem cell companies are whining for new sources of aborted fetus cells, etc. )

Going back to more benign research:
Original heart transplants also experimented with using Babboons (I think) as organ donors for humans – with the same problems.
Diseases will cross animal species barriers.

So:
I would be surprised if these new cell lines even implant – and I sure am looking forward to the lawsuits if someone decides to “keep” their child! Also, since I have noticed that articles like these are written often in advance of the actual ability to carry out the process – don’t believe everything you read.
 
I’m concerned about this as well. Sadly, it seems like it’s not even on the radar screens of a lot of Christians-but we need to be talking about this NOW- not when they come out with the first human-animal hybrid.
 
There have been a few threads on chimeras already in CAF. We are definitely entering into a Brave New World. I have no doubt that man/animal hybrids will be produced. It may be time to discuss the moral and theological implications of this in an appropriate forum I suggest that a new forum on bio-ethics may be needed.
 
PoliSciProf said:
There have been a few threads on chimeras already in CAF. We are definitely entering into a Brave New World. I have no doubt that man/animal hybrids will be produced. It may be time to discuss the moral and theological implications of this in an appropriate forum I suggest that a new forum on bio-ethics may be needed.
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Yep, when I read this kind of news I instantly think of Huxley’s Brave New World…it is sadly and horrifyingly coming to life with each passing day.
 
Lief_Erikson said:
I had never even imagined anyone would consider doing something as perverted as this. It’s now legalized by the British government: the merging of human and animal cells to make hybrid human-animal embryos. I’m aghast. They are creating the * for stem cell research, and then they’ll kill them after fourteen days. Abortion. They’re essentially spawning mutated humans and then murdering them inside the womb for research purposes.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7193820.stm*

A question:

What happens when the first one is brought to term? We all know that it will eventually happen.
Click to expand...
 
KathleenElsie said:
A question:

What happens when the first one is brought to term? We all know that it will eventually happen.
Click to expand...
I’m not fatalistic that such a thing will actually happen – there is a distinct possibility that a hybrid of one type of cell with human genes can’t function properly. A cell is after all more than just genes – it is the interplay between genes and the cell wall and cytoplasm based organelles.

For example:
The human body fights off infection in one way by fighting off foreign infection – the most common way of detecting the foreign item is by examining the surface molecular structure of the cell. Since, in the experiment proposed – the cell surface is definitely foreign (non-human) the likely result is that blood cells in the uterine lining will attack it as a foreign invader – the same problem (organ rejection) occurs in animal organ transplants – making them very difficult, if not impossible to achieve.

There is a distinct possibility that non-human oocytes will simply not implant. (The odds may be higher if implanted in the same animal from which the cell originally came from – but then the problem exists that the cell wall may mutate as the cell reproduces… and the animal will reject the human mutations…)
No one has yet made a synthetic uterus – which is one of the major reasons that un-ethical stem cell research has failed so far.

Assuming I’m wrong (a distinct possibility), hypothetically, I don’t even think anyone knows. The Bush administration, a year or two ago, had a web page considering the legal ramifications of such a contingency. I don’t recall the address of the page, but with respect to research already possible in the US, such options such as “forced abortion” are not likely to hold up in court – as I recall. Since Roe V. Wade has other implications. This was one of the main reasons that the ethics page discouraged ever making the implantation legal in the first place – but one of the questions asked is : if it WERE done illegally, what then? Could the court force an execution then? ( Probably not, but no one knows – it depends on the balance of privacy, vs. human – vs. not human – vs. all kinds of legally uncharted territory… )
 
Loony England has been on the forefront of all things immoral and perverted, just like the Netherlands.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these places were suddenly hit by an asteroid the size of Malta.
 
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