Saturday, March 14, 2009

If harvesting embryos is OK, how about fetuses?

James Grant:

Is there a slippery slope from harvesting embryos to harvesting fetuses? In his article “Drill Babies, Drill: If harvesting embryos is OK, how about fetuses?” William Saletan explains:

Buckle up. We’re on our way. Last week, the Oxford International Biomedical Centre held a symposium on “New Body Parts for Old: Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine.” At the symposium, Oxford professor Richard Gardner delivered a talk titled “Stem Cells: What They Are and Why They Are Important.” According to London’s Daily Mail, Gardner told the audience that kidney and liver tissue from aborted fetuses offer “at least a temporary solution” to the shortage of available organs for people in need of transplants.

This is frightening, but it seems to be that we are on this slippery slope. What makes the ethical issues more problematic is that many Americans, including previous President Bill Clinton [see this, where Clinton repeatedly referred to human embryos as not being fertilized], do not even understand what an embryo is. This is what happens when education is divorced from ethics.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I bet this is already being done in China. They make the US almost look like a culture of LIFE... but for how long? At what point with the Obama-Reid-Pelosi "Kill babies or lose medical license" law, will physicians be required to PROMOTE abortion?

Of course, China also executes people for crimes almost as minimal as jay-walking (that interferes with the government, right?). They even have vans that drive around to give criminals lethal injections, rather than putting a bullet in the back of every condemned person's head. That helps with harvesting of some time-sensitive organs, I guess.