Could this happen to human cloning experiments?
Dolly creators begin mass slaughter
SHARON WARD
"THE Scottish company involved in the creation of Dolly the sheep will today begin a mass slaughter of its flock in an effort to cut costs in the face of mounting financial problems."
I find it rather odd that scientists would cremate an experimental animal, regardless of state of decomposition.
Mystery shrouds cloned sheep death
"Australia's first cloned sheep, Matilda, has died unexpectedly of unknown causes, scientists said. An autopsy failed to find any reason for the merino ewe's abrupt death last Saturday, Rob Lewis, director of the South Australian Research and Development institute, said. The cremation of the carcass triggered criticism among opponents of cloning, who said that there would be no further opportunity to determine what killed Matilda."
Embryonic stem cell researchers and supporters, take note.
Stem Cells May Treat Blindness
"WASHINGTON — Stem cells taken from bone marrow can grow new blood vessels in the eyes of mice, a development researchers say raises the possibility of treating some diseases that often lead to blindness in humans."
What?!? How is letting them be born stranger than chopping them up for science???
A Home for Their Embryos
By Ellen S. Glazer
Carla has both a close friend and a close family member who are struggling with infertility and she acknowledges that she thought about donating the embryos to one of them. As an infertile person with close friends who had adopted, Carla had many positive feelings about adoption. How wonderful, it briefly seemed, to have someone close to her “adopt†her embryos. However, like most others who give some thought to embryo adoption, Carla realized that giving her embryos to someone else was fundamentally different from adoption: adoption is a loving solution to a social problem. This, by contrast, would mean bringing children into the world whose fate had been sealed in an embryology lab. It was simply too strange — the idea that their full biological children would be raised in another family. The fact that that family would be close to them did not make the option any more appealing.
[Today, I welcome the guest commentary of my roommate Jerry Nora. He finished his baccalaureate work this week with three degrees: physics, philosophy, and molecular biology. He is highly devoted to the study of bioethics, which he will pursue as a MD/PhD student next year. He is former president of the University of Pittsburgh's Students for Life group and has participated in efforts to bring a chapter of Do No Harm to Pitt. – Funky]
This is a reply to "Too Close to Call?" posted Wednesday, April 17
The chief objections to Casey's gubernatorial race that Funky Dung raised are that (1) he's not as experienced as Rendell or would be as effective in getting the commonwealth's economy moving, and that (2) even though Rendell is pro-choice, a governor has little sway in bioethics. I'll take on these two objections in turn.