WHAT HAPPENS IF GOD IS DEAD AND YOU'RE BUT A DIM REFLECTION OF HIM?

Has experimenting on human life lost its power to disgust? (Michael Cook, August 19 2003, The Age)

A US-trained scientist at Shanghai Second Medical University, Dr Huizhen Sheng, has published a peer-reviewed article in an international journal based in China describing how she created 400 embryos by injecting human DNA into the eggs of New Zealand rabbits. One hundred of these survived for several days.

Sheng says she won't be implanting these embryos in human surrogate mothers to create carrot-loving babies with floppy ears and big front teeth. Her interest is extracting embryonic stem cells - ultimately to work miracles such as getting Christopher Reeve to walk again, curing juvenile diabetes or reversing Parkinson's disease.

Her overseas colleagues were a tad sceptical about her work, but very interested. If her results are verified, they will mark a significant advance in cloning technology. [...]

None of the cloning experts interviewed by various newspapers overseas had ethical qualms about the hybrid embryos.

On the contrary, Robin Lovell-Badge, of Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, said he was impressed.

Harvard University cloning expert Douglas Melton said "I'm glad to see it published, as it will encourage others to try it." [...]

Not even two years ago, a tiny American biotech company, Advanced Cell Technology, set alarm bells ringing around the world when it claimed it had cloned a handful of human embryos. The ensuing controversy made front-page news, with abundant chatter about "standing on the threshold of a brave new world". [...]

It has taken less than two years to habituate ourselves to regarding human embryos as pharmaceutical fodder.

Now we've reached the point where scientists play at the ghastly fantasies of The Island of Dr Moreau and no one blinks.

The trouble with slippery slope is that we don't slip accidentally; we race down gleefully into the abyss. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 29, 2003 5:58 PM