Got the blog up and running in time to savour the sight of cloning advocates ducking for cover – pelted with the ‘Yuck factor’ of animal-human hybrids. Nobody wanted to own these little pets, at this politically sensitive time in their campaign.
"Hybrid and chimera sound terrible," says Megan Munsie, of the Melbourne based Stem Cell Sciences, in today’s Australian. (Hold on to your seat – we are in for some spin).
We are told these animal eggs contain only “traces of mitochondrial DNA”. Understandable attempt, Ms Munsie, at minimizing this little mess, but ‘traces’ is not true. The whole mitochondrial DNA of the rabbit or pig is present entire and functioning, and is incorporated into the animal-human hybrid embryo – in sufficient amounts, in animal cloning studies, to have the resultant ‘tailor-made’ stem cells suffer immune rejection as ‘foreign’. Says Muncie, "You're not talking about half animal, half human." Oh I see – only a teeny weeny bit of rabbit or pig-mother in that human embryo? Well I guess that’s OK then.
Let’s be honest about animal-human hybrid clones. Journalist Deborah Hope, in the above article, disingenuously points out that “Australian law prohibits animal-human hybrids” - but it is precisely that law which our Parliament is now being asked to overturn, along with the ban on cloning human embryos!
The Lockhart Review of our cloning laws itself recommends animal-human hybrid clones: “In order to reduce the need for human oocytes, transfer of human somatic cell nuclei into animal oocytes should be allowed”. See p.170 of the Report.
Likewise cloning advocate Prof Alan Trounson suggested using rabbit eggs to clone human embryos – a process which does indeed leave rabbit DNA in the embryo and makes the clone a human-animal hybrid.
Trounson said last year, “Since there are plenty of rabbit eggs around, if we could make that work it would remove the concern about accessing human eggs in any numbers”.
Accessing the thousands of human eggs needed for cloning risks the lives and wellbeing of women (through ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which killed one IVF patient last month in Britain), but the rabbit option Trounson pulled out of his hat is equally unthinkable.
Two options, then, for this wonderful new science of cloning: either commercialise women’s ovaries, putting at risk especially poorer women who will take money for their eggs – or settle for animal-human hybrid clones.
No human cloning! Cloning violates our humanity, not only in creating embryos who have no identifiable human mother – just an emptied out egg nearly devoid of her genetic identity – but in proposing the further dehumanisation of an animal egg where the mother’s egg should be.
The inhuman abuses of cloning are only just reaching public consciousness. Enough of the ducking and damage control by Muncie, ex-Premier Carr and others: let the truth of this filthy science be out.
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4 comments:
This is where the line MUST be drawn, my God how can science try and justify this? What has science done with it's experiments? have they ever cured anything they said they would? No, they haven't. Cloning will only lead to the end of humanity as God intended. This is wrong and should be stopped.
I agree with this solution!!!!!!!!!!
Sensationalist fear mongering. People object in the name of ethical behaviour but where is the ethical behaviour in allowing millions of people a year to suffer and die at the hands of diseases that this type of technology could eventually cure. All because the idea sounds a little strange. Mitochondrial DNA isn't going to make someone sprout ears and a tail. No-one worries about the use of pigs valves in humans anymore, isn't that an animal-human hybrid?
the world has had its fair share of racism, discrimination etc...are we going to see a new word soon to describe our fear for something different genecism etc well i would not want to be part man part rabbit or pig... its hard enough been a human of a different colour
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