House passes bill to ban all cloning

The House, at this stage of the game, is the most reactionary branch of the gov't. A rubber stamp for the Executive Branch. The Senate still shows some backbone. Not a lot, but some...

Ya know what, if we can't do it here, someone will do it elsewhere. The science will happen, the benefits will happen. Some other country will just be getting the $ and the credit.

Grrr.

not only will we lose the money but we'll lose the brain power too. . . . scientists will go where the money is. . . .

Eeyep

I take it the Ethics of the situation is not a problem for you folks?

You see, there are some of us who are not willing to give science carte blanche to do whatever they think they can without realizing the ramifications of those actions.

Ends justification as a way of means testing has a very poor track record.

I see no difference here.

The ethics can be an enormous problem, but why does it have to be all or nothing?

It is despicable that anyone would deny potentially life-saving treatments to others for the sake of paradoxical religious beliefs. It doesn't seem to matter how much suffering might be alleviated by therapeutic cloning or that no human souls would be lost. The reason that they cannot admit that embryos start out as cells, not persons with rights and feelings, is that it would weaken their anti-abortion arguments. But lives are at stake here! How can they call themselves pro-life if they value DNA more than real people?

Terry: So now you are an expert on souls, eh?

What is truly dispicable is that some people feel the necessity to belittle others religious beliefs.

How nice for you.

what is truely dispicable is that some religions have a need to cram their self righteous dogma down the throats of everyone else.

Yeah, gee, dys, what a MUCH better world this would be if we were all athiests like yourself, don't you think?

yeah Ethics out ranks morals every time, ethics says you can have your religious mojo all you want, you just cant force me to play. whereas your morals tells you to enforce your mojo on me.

I think there are major ethics questions here regardless of whether one has a religious affiliation or not. . . . . in trying to clone a human to create another human there would be countless malformed and suffering humans created. But with therapuetic cloning there is no human created. The nucleus (all the genetic info) from an egg is taken and a nucleus from a patient's cell is removed and placed into the egg. The egg is then treated so that it will start to divide. After the blastocyst has formed the stem cells are removed. These stem cells are undifferentiated (ithese cells are capable of growing any tissue in the human body) so the patient could receive tissue that is his own tissue genetically speaking. He doesn't have to worry about rejecting it and he's not sitting around waiting for someone to die so that he can recieve foreign tissue.

The blastocyst is 30-150 cells. Contains a layer of specialized cells:the trophoblast. Inside the trophoblast layer is the inner cell mass. These cells remain undifferentiated. Embryonic Stem cells are derived from the inner cell mass (blastocyst, www.counterbalance.net (bioglossary))

Hey, midnight. Cool Signature. I substituted "humanism" for "most religions" and I agree with it 100%.

maxsdadeo, I know enough about souls to know that stem cells don't have one.

What is despicable about criticizing hypocritical religious beliefs that impose unnecessary suffering on others?

There are people who would rather die than receive a blood transfusion. I personally think that they are nuts, but they have a right to their beliefs. Now suppose that they lobbied Congress to pass a law banning all blood transfusions. Would you not agree that it is despicable for them to impose their beliefs on others when it would result in thousands of preventable deaths?

Therapeutic cloning could save thousands of lives. Cloning your own stem cells is morally no different than banking your own blood or growing skin grafts for burn patients. Why do you suppose that ANYONE would oppose research that could save countless lives, and hurts NO ONE?

Does the government have any legitimate interest in banning it?

Of course not. Congress is simply trying to win votes by appeasing the anti-abortion lobby, and none of them seem to care about the real people who are too sick to make it too the polls.

The operative word being could, it is, of course impossible to prove that any good would come from this research.


You, of course, can back this statement up with facts?

Of course not, your bald assertion that these cells have no soul is as silly as me claiming they do.

The fact remains that we don't know.

Far more than we do.

Before we start the 100 yard dash, I think we should learn to crawl.

Max
Based upon your reasoning all research should cease since we never know if success will be achieved. Worse than that if it is achieved what will it evolve into.
Look what the invention of steel lead to, tanks and guns. Or aircraft which lead to bombers. You get the picture.
Research leads to progress were it not for research we would still be living in caves .and sleeping on animal skins.
Seeing and knowing the devastation the illnesses such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson disease bring with them anything that may be of some relief should be pursued.
Of all the actions that our brilliant president has taken the restrictions placed on stem cell research are IMO is one of the worst. I will curse him for that till the day I die. He is a heartless SOB.

Goldie, I appreciate your heart felt response, however there is something that you and the rest of the respondents to this thread have apparently overlooked.

Stem cell research will still be allowed, it is only HUMAN STEM CELL research that is prohibited.

Now, I guess we will see who the real members of PETA are who stand up in defense of the animal stem cell but are curiously silent when it comes to humans.


What a world.

Max.
Embryonic stem cells afford the most promise. And Bush has thrown every obstacle he can in the way of that research.

Human stem cell research is what will benefit humans though. . . . . this country is in desperate need for another source of organs than human donors. This could also end the chance of another incident of a patient dying from receiving organs of the wrong blood type. I can't image waiting round for months or years for a donor and then in the end dying either from lack of a donor or from rejecting the organs.