Making "Gay" Sheep "Straight:" The Coming Political Wars Over Genetic Engineering

This story about the fuss being raised over experiments to turn "gay" sheep "straight" is a preview of coming attractions of the bitter arguments that will be unleashed if parents gain the power to biotechnologically mold their progeny to suit their own desires or values. According to the story:"The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes. It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the 'straightening' procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

"The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned...

"Michael Bailey, a neurology professor at Northwestern University near Chicago, said: 'Allowing parents to select their children's sexual orientation would further a parent's freedom to raise the sort of children they want to raise.'"

The professor's quote is chilling because it indicates the way in which the tide is flowing. The right to have a child is mutating into the right to have the child we want. Children are to be manufactured to suit our needs more than we are to love them and fulfill their needs.

And I wonder if Navratilova will be branded as "anti science" because she worries that biotechnology could be used to eradicate homosexuality from the human condition? Probably not since such dismissive epithets are generally reserved for those seen as defending "traditional values." However, maybe her more politically correct complaint will open the eyes of would-be new eugenicists and transhumanists to the ethical chaos threatened by hubristically presuming the right to "seize control of human evolution."

Happy New Year!

I am not a believer in New Year's Resolutions. It seems to me that if something is worth doing, it should just be done: No announcements necessary. And indeed, if we don't have the will power, ability, or luck to accomplish the goal, having made a formal resolution won't have made it any more likely to be completed.

So, I have no resolutions to share with you. All I can say as we enter 2007 is that I intend to continue advocating on behalf of human exceptionalism and the intrinsic moral value of all human life. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this work is Secondhand Smoke. I find myself ever on the lookout for stories that I think will interest this community. I love our interplay of ideas and appreciate the respect for differences that I think we have achieved. And the brain power and depth of consideration you all bring to your comments! Sometimes, it takes my breath away.

The coming year should be "interesting" (as in the old curse, may you live in interesting times), and so I am sure we will have much to discuss and debate. But until then, please accept my best wishes to each and every one of you and yours for a joyful and safe New Year.

AP Gets It Wrong. Again

You would think that the MSM could at least get the simple facts about euthanasia correct. But no. In this AP piece, the wire service purports to summarize euthanasia laws around the world. And, true to type, it is mostly rubbish:

"NETHERLANDS--Euthanasia was legalized in 2001, but the practice was common for at least a decade before that. Under the law, patients must be terminally ill, in unbearable pain and two doctors must agree there is no prospect for recovery.

BELGIUM--Legalized euthanasia under similar conditions as the Netherlands in 2002.

SWITZERLAND--Allows passive assistance to terminally ill people who have expressed a wish to die."

The Netherlands has allowed euthanasia since 1973. It does not require that people asking for euthanasia be terminally ill, and it never has. Indeed, the Dutch Supreme Court has explicitly approved assisted suicide for people who are depressed, but not otherwise physically ill. Nor does Switzerland require that the lay groups assisting suicide restrict their activities to the dying. Belgium does, but it isn't enforced. Indeed, the very first euthanasia death was of a disabled man with MS--and of course, nothing was done about it. (For more on euthanasia/assisted suicide in these countries, see this piece I wrote for the NRO in 2003).

"Voters in Oregon went further and approved the first physician-assisted suicide law in the U.S. in 1994, but it is now under legal challenge."

Uh, no it isn't, and it hasn't been since the mid-1990s. The recent Supreme Court ruling did not involve a direct challenge to the law, and in any event, has been decided in Oregon's favor. There are no legal cases pending about Oregon assisted suicide.

Pathetic.

More Evidence That Embryo/Fetal Farming May Be in Our Biotech Future

Researchers seeking to use cellular treatments to relieve hemophilia have centered on tissues taken from rudimentary spleens of late stage pig embryos. The experimenters used the spleen cells to treat mice, and it appears to have worked. But note that this is not an embryonic stem cell experiment, but rather, research that used cells taken from gestated embryos: "Tissues taken too early, when they are still fairly undifferentiated, may form tumors, while those taken too late can be identified as foreign, causing the host to reject them. ...[T]he scientists fixed the ideal time for spleen transplantation at 42 days. Hemophiliac mice with spleen tissue transplanted from pig embryos at this time experienced completely normal blood clotting within a month or two of implantation."

While pig tissues into humans are a potential treatment modality from this research, which would present no moral issues, pig embryos may not be the only nascent life forms considered for such usage. "Although a number of problems would need to be surmounted before researchers could begin to think of applying the technique to humans, the Institute team's experiment is 'proof of principle'--evidence that transplanted embryonic tissue, whether human or pig, could one day help the body to overcome genetic diseases."

I am convinced that ESCR is merely the launching pad for a far wider use of human tissues and cells in medical experiments and therapies than scientists are currently letting on. Once (and if) artificial wombs are perfected, the same bioethicists and scientists who now tell us that an embryo in a Petri dish is not human life if it is not intended for implantation and birth, will tell us that an embryo gestated in an artificial environment for 6 weeks that is not intended for birth is also not really human. Or, personhood theory can be used to justify human sowing and reaping. Indeed, it seems to me that in the name of CURES! CURES! CURES! we will ultimately find ways to justify anything.

Death Obsession of Euthanasia Activists

Derek Humphry, the suicide guru and founder of the aptly named Hemlock Society (now the euphemistically called Compassion and Choices), has a post on his blog that, I think, illustrates the death obsession of most euthanasia activists. Humphry got famous writing how-to-commit-suicide books and is fascinated with suicide machines. Now, reacting to news about an elderly man in India who apparently willed himself to die, Humphry seems to suggest that "self-willed death" be considered a form of euthanasia to prevent "a glorification of natural death." This would be a misnomer, since if the phenomenon is real, nobody "killed" anyone. Be that as it may, I find it remarkable how no story about death escapes the rapt attention of these folk.

Radio Lookback at 2006 in Bioethics

I was interviewed by Lifebeat, a radio program affiliated, I think, with Michigan Right to Life. It is a brief look back to 2006 in which we mainly discuss the pending release of Jack Kevorkian and the passage in Missouri of the human cloning Amendment 2. If you are of a mind, check it out.

"Ethic of Immortality " Sapping Our Humanity?

The January 07 issue of Christianity Today (no link available) has a fine editorial warning against what it calls an "ethic of immortality" that has "warped our culture's perspective" and that of the church. It quotes Leon Kass--always a good idea--as warning that a "new moral sensibility has developed...Anything is permitted if it saves life, cures disease, prevents death." (My emphasis.)

Can anyone deny it? CT notes that the ethic of immortality causes Christian and non Christian alike to support destroying nascent human life in ESCR. But it could just as easily have pointed out that many of the same arguments made on behalf of ESCR would justify exploiting living fetuses for their parts, and indeed, that New Jersey has already legalized cloned fetal farming. Moreover, many of our leading bioethicists support harvesting cognitively devastated patients or experimenting upon them before they are dead, while a thriving organ market exists in China--for those with the money to pay and the willingness to overlook from where and whom that quickly obtained liver or kidney may have come. And many transhumanists are even willing to cast their humanity aside in their quest for a corporeal near-immortality.

CT warns that our terror of death is distorting our ethics and moral values. Like the drowning man willing to push the lifeguard under the water to take one more breath, we are becoming increasingly willing to exploit the weak to benefit the strong.

Christianity Today is oriented to Christian perspectives, but I think this paragraph, aimed explicitly at church members is also applicable to the wider community: "We disparage the elderly when we let our media focus exclusively on the young, when visitation to nursing homes is replaced with more exciting mercy activities, when we fuss over young visitors with children but offer only polite handshakes to elderly couples, when we avoid the sick and dying. If the church learned to care for those on their final journey (rather than leaving it to the clergy), it would do much to reshape our attitudes toward the use of technology at the end of life."

Do I hear an, "Amen?"

Optimistic Update on Robert Schindler's Condition

Bobby Schindler reports some good news about his father: Bob has fully stabilized and he is being transferred today from the hospital to a rehabilitation center. Bob experienced no cognitive deficiencies from his strokes, but does need to work on regaining full physicality. The doctors are optimistic that he will do well.

Bobby wants everyone to know how much it has meant that so many people have sent cards and e-mails wishing Bob the best. They have made a real difference and lifted Bob's spirits tremendously. "Our family really appreciates the support and prayers we have received," Bobby told me. "It has all been very touching."

Bob still has a tough row to hoe, so keep those cards and letters coming. You can write a note of support to:

Robert Schindler, c/o
The Terri Schiavo Foundation
5562 Central Ave. # 2
St. Petersburg. FL
33707

Greenpeace Versus Science/Industrial Complex

Here's some interesting news: Greenpeace has come out forcefully against the growing Science/Industrial Complex in Germany (which, by the way, has a more "conservative" ESCR policy than the USA). It sued to prevent a German scientist from patenting a process for turning an embryonic stem cell into a nerve cell. The court ruled that anything made from human tissue cannot be patented.

The idea that big corporations should be able to "own" genes and patent human tissues is absurd--and in my view dangerous. But there are two schools of thought. Both are ably presented in this article.

The position against patents: "Greenpeace said that such patents aren't intended to help research, but only to help make research profitable. 'We believe there should be a clear separation between research and patenting products. And the court decision affirmed this.'...'When medical treatments can be patented, there is a chance that treatments will be delayed or will cost more,' said Otmar Kloiber, Chairman of the World Medical Association. He cited a case a few years ago when a breast cancer-suppressing gene was patented. 'As soon as the patent went through, the price for the treatment skyrocketed so that some insurance companies in the US were no longer able to cover the cost of treatment.'

The position in favor of patents: "Daniel Besser, a stem cell researcher at the Max Delbruck Center in Berlin, takes a different approach. 'It also costs a lot to develop this technology,' said Besser. 'Which branch of the industry can be expected to invest billions in their research and then make the information available for everyone to use for free?'"

This whole issue kicks in my Naderite reflexes. I am very uncomfortable with any corporation or private person "owning" a human body part. The process by which, say a gene can be isolated, yes. The gene itself, no.

This also points the way toward stopping human cloning. If they can't get patents, they won't try to clone human organisms. In this regard, I see another opportunity for a left/right strange bedfellow political coalition that might just be effective in preventing the worst abuses of the coming biotech century.

Voting Still Open in the Year End Poll

Hit this link and then vote for the likeliest bioethics outcome for 2007. Of the five choices, so far, 44% of you think "Futile Care Theory will be upheld by a court, which will rule that doctors should decide when the time has come to die." I am not that pessimistic. I actually think there is a fair chance to defeat futile care theory. I voted with 30% of you who believe "President Bush's ESCR funding policy will be overturned." And I agree with all of you that there is no way "The Netherlands will be condemned in the UN for legalizing infanticide." It should be, but "should" and six bits will buy you a cup of coffee. (Actually, today it is more like twelve bits, twenty-four bits at Starbuck's.)

Animal Rights to get Hot in 2007

Alas: This UPI analysis has it right, I think. Animal liberationists are likely to target biotechnology and research firms to force an end to the use of animals in research. That this would be disastrous to human health and welfare matters not a whit to these zealots.

Supposedly, the expected increase in "underground" activity will be a reaction to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act's passage into law, which supposedly stifles free speech. It explicitly does not do this, of course, as I have demonstrated here at Secondhand Smoke.

And here's a disturbing quote from always fanatical Jerry Valsak that shows the way the current is flowing: "There`s [sic] a lot of people willing to die for the cause."

Thanks to THE WEEK

The Week has named my piece in the Daily Standard on Jack Kevorkian to the "Best Columns: The U.S." in the December 29 edition. It includes a nice summary of what I wrote. (No link available.) My thanks and appreciation to The Week for the compliment.

Brave New Bioethics Podcast: The Truth About Kevorkian

Jack Kevorkian will soon be out of jail, and the current edition of Brave New Bioethics explores the infamous career of "Dr. Death," including his desire to open euthanasia clinics, his disdain for people with disabilities, and his desire to engage in human vivisection.

Not mentioned, but worth mentioning is that Kevorkian's preying on depressed, disabled people--to the general applause of society--led the disability rights movement to engage the issue with full vigor. They were like the cavalry riding to the rescue, effectively preventing assisted suicide from metastasizing beyond the borders of Oregon.

Cloning Opponent Denied Tenure at MIT

Dr. James Shirley, an adult stem cell scientist, has lost his appeal and will be denied tenure at MIT. Shirley, who is African-American, is charging racism. I can't comment about that, or whether Shirley's academic credentials would warrant tenure. But I can't help suspecting that his vocal opposition to all human cloning played a major part. You see, to oppose research cloning is deemed among the scientific intelligentsia and the adherents to philosophical scientism, to be "anti science."

We often hear scientists castigating the Catholic Church because of its stifling of Galileo all those years ago. The media often cluck-clucks about the Bush Administration's supposed suppression of scientific opinion on issues such as global warming. But there is mostly only silence about the intimidation mounted against scientists with heterodox views, who are threatened with denial of tenure, forced to teach "punishment" Freshman classes after years of teaching post graduates, not permitted to write book chapters, denied access to publishing in prestigious journals (one of the charges against Shirley is that he did not publish in the best journals), and otherwise discriminated against and marginalized for voicing minority views. This stifling of academic freedom is truly egregious--and it may be the unstated reason behind Shirley's ousting.

NHS Approaches Medical Discrimination

There is word out of the UK that obese people and smokers may be denied "priority" care in the UK under potential new NHS standards. The idea, of course, is to induce people into more healthy lifestyles, which in turn, will collectively ease the cost of health care.

This is rationing and it is purely political. And because it is overtly and explicitly political, you can bet that people with unhealthy life styles that are not disdained by the media and ruling classes--such as promiscuous people who may get HIV or another STD--won't be similarly punished for by denial of "priority" care (nor should they).

This gets to the heart of the unjustness of these kinds of schemes. Such political correctness can lead to people dying for want of medically appropriate treatment and it has absolutely no place in medicine or health care policy.

Merry Christmas to All!

Secondhand Smoke and Smokette have put up the Christmas lights and trimmed the tree. We look forward to a time of refreshment and the hope of the season with family and friends.

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, please accept my most heartfelt best wishes for a blessed and merry holiday to you and yours. For those who do not celebrate Christmas, please accept my most heartfelt best wishes to you and yours. And whether we celebrate the "reason for the season" or not, at least we can all agree that Scrooge found the key to the secret of life:

"Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

"He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!

"And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

Huntingdon Life Sciences Listed on NYSE

Fifteen months after being intimidated by animal rights/liberation thugs into not listing the parent company of Huntingdon Life Sciences, the New York Stock Exchange-Arca has done the right thing, and listed the company, permitting it to raise capital. Why the sudden show of backbone? Perhaps it was passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act that permitted greater law enforcement efforts against "tertiary targeting." The National Association for Biomedical Research is justifiably pleased, stating in a press release, that it "salutes the NYSE for standing on their convictions and supporting a legitimate business that is vital to the American research community."

Liberationists call Huntingdon "puppy killers" and have vowed to put the company out of business. If the lab has engaged in unlawful activities--and it has been cleared in investigations--it should be prosecuted or sued. But terrorism in the name of liberation is without any justification. Liberationists have every right to seek to persuade us to not use animals in research, which would cause tremendous human harm, but they have no right to resort to criminality to force society into agreeing with their radical views.

Adult Brain Stem Cells Help Regenerate Damaged Brains in Mice

This experiment determined that "adult stem cells in a specific region of the mouse brain have a built-in mechanism that allows the cells to participate in the repair and remodeling of damaged tissue in the region...'The results were very surprising,' says [Chay T.] Kuo. 'Our results show that neural stem cells in mice have the ability to sense damage in their environment that leads to their subsequent proliferation to help restore local tissue integrity. If we can figure out how this happens, and determine that it occurs in human neural stem cells, we may be able to increase the effect and harness it for therapeutic use.'"

Intriguingly, this is similar to the experiment conducted on Dennis Turner several years ago, which appeared to spark a remission from Parkinson's. A pea sized section of Turner's brain was removed, and neural stem cells isolated. They were proliferated in culture and returned to Turner's brain. Turner subsequently enjoyed an almost complete alleviation of symptoms and was able to dramatically reduce his level of medication. The effect--if that is what it was since one experimental success does not a cure make--lasted almost 4 years, after which symptoms began to return.

This much we know: There is great hope that a robust regenerative medicine sector can be developed for the alleviation of human suffering without having to resort to unethical means such as human cloning.

And this too: It demonstrates how utterly indispensible it is that animals continue to be used in medical research.

Elephant Ruled to be "On Par" With Humans

An Indian court has granted damages to the owner of an elephant killed in an auto accident because the pachyderm was "on par" with a human because it could obey commands and do tricks, etc.

Well, then the owner had better be charged with slavery, because you can't own humans but you can elephants.

I am not saying the owner should not have been compensated for his loss, but this gets awfully close to the idea of "wrongful death." Sure, it's India. But it is also a denial of human exceptionalism.

Wanted: Women Willing to Risk Death So Human Cloners Can do Research

Brave New Britain is at it again. Cloning researchers have been given the right to ask women to donate eggs for use in biotechnological experiments. Before now, egg procurement for research had to be done in association with fertility or other medical treatments.

Thousands of eggs will surely be needed, for, as one of the researchers admitted, it will probably take hundreds of eggs to obtain one cloned embryonic stem cell line. Of course, that is what Hwang Wu-suk said. But it turned out he used more than 2,000 eggs and got zero cloned embryos.

The thing is, egg donation is an onerous procedure that requires super ovulation, in which high doses of hormones are injected to stimulate the ovaries to release 10-15 eggs in a cycle, instead of just one. This can be dangerous. Side effects can include death, sterility, infection, pain, and illness.

But hey: It's all for a good cause. What's a few sick or perhaps the occasional dead woman when it's for the good of science (and a Nobel Prize might be at stake)?

Terri Schiavo's Father is Seriously Ill

Robert Schindler, Terri Schiavo's father, has had a stroke and is in a hospital intensive care unit. He is conscious. At present, the doctors are trying to stabilize his condition. Once that is done, he will be transferred to a rehabilitation center. His family, always a class act, is at his side and are hopeful for Bob's full recovery.

It's been a very tough couple of years for the Schindler family. Regardless of where one stands on the Terri Schiavo case, the Schindlers--Bob, Mary, Bobby, and Suzanne Vitadamo--deserve our best wishes and, for those of a mind, prayers, toward Bob's complete recovery and the family's well being in this difficult time.

Cards can be sent to:

Robert Schindler, c/o
The Terri Schiavo Foundation
5562 Central Ave. # 2
St. Petersburg. FL
33707

Crichton Warns of "New Body Snatchers"

Best selling author Michael Crichton warned in last Friday's Wall Street Journal (no link available) that people's cells and body substances are no longer necessarily their own, once removed from the body. Scientists can use your cells and blood to conduct research upon, and if they are fortunate, develop into medical products that will make them billions. And you have no right, apparently, to stop them or to share in the wealth that were, in part, generated by your body parts.

But what about the terms of consent agreements? Apparently, courts often refuse to enforce limiting terms put in to protect patients. This matter arose most recently in a case out of Washington University in Missouri. Prostate cancer patients had agreed to allow their tissues to be used in research. But, Crichton writes, a court refused to enforce the limitations in the consent forms they signed! "The decision surprised many. As a recipient of federal funds, Washington University was required to follow the federal regulations on informed consent for tissues received from patients. This included acknowledging in writing that the tissues would be used only for prostate research, that patients had the right to withdraw from the study at any time, and to have their tissue samples destroyed upon request.

"However, Judge Limbaugh ruled that patients had no such rights. In his view, the right to withdraw merely meant the right not to contribute more tissues. The right to have the tissues destroyed meant only that the samples would be used anonymously. The guarantee that tissues would only be used for prostate research could be ignored, and WU was free to use the tissues for any purpose whatever." So once again, words become meaningless as definitions are changed to suit desired ends.

Crichton's conclusion illustrates the growing power of the Science-Industrial Complex, in which universities are becoming almost despotic in their drive to make fortunes through biological research unfettered by societal-desired ethical constraints. He writes: "Research universities around the country greeted the ruling with unseemly enthusiasm, and hastily joined forces to prevent a successful legal appeal. Although the National Institutes of Health and other federal centers conduct research under the federal guidelines, universities now claim that these rules are impossibly onerous and impede research. Unless researchers are allowed to do whatever they want, they warn patients, the flow of life-saving miracles will dry up.

"...For universities, perhaps the most damaging outcome may be the loss of confidence that patients feel in major centers of research and healing. There was a time when physicians were ranked just below Supreme Court justices. Those days are long gone. Our university hospitals and major medical centers still command respect. But the perception that they are businesses like any other is growing stronger every day. Except, they're not--they're non-profits, exempt from most of the rules and disclosures that are required of American businesses. In short, caveat patiens, keep copies of everything you sign, bring a lawyer to every medical appointment, and always, always watch your back."

Meanwhile, these warnings are generally ignored by the cheer leader media and lost amidst the torch parades in which everyone yells, "CURES! CURES! CURES!"

American Public Health Association Goes Postmodern

Facts don't matter any more, only narratives. And now this deconstruction of reality is infecting biology and medicine.

I have previously described here and in my other writing about how the term human embryo has been redefined from a scientific understanding, meaning the human organism from day one through the eighth week, into a political one--meaning that "it" (whatever it is) only becomes an embryo after implantation. This was done, as pro cloner and ESCR Princeton biologist Lee Silver wrote on page 39 of Remaking Eden, with a specific purpose in mind:"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF parishioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what nonmedical biologists still call a six-day old embryo and what we and everyone else calls a sixteen-day-old embryo."

And it works. The media goes along and soon an embryo is no longer an embryo, meaning that it is no longer a human organism, meaning it isn't human life, meaning we can use it like a corn crop.

Now, the American Public Health Association has agreed to assisted suicide advocates' insistence to redefine the descriptive and accurate term "assisted suicide" into the euphemistic and politicized "aid in dying." LB-06-02 End-of-Life Choices--Urges health educators, policy-makers, journalists and health care providers to recognize that the choice of a mentally competent, terminally ill person to choose to self-administer medications to bring about a peaceful death is not 'suicide,' nor is the prescribing of such medication by a physician 'assisted suicide.' Urges terms such as 'aid in dying' or 'patient-directed dying' be used to describe such a choice."

This is pure politics, of course. It isn't medicine. And it isn't health.

We are entering a Salvatore Dali surreal world. Words mean nothing other than what we want them to at the moment, and this is changeable from moment to moment. Clocks run backwards. Up is down and east is west. The moon is made of blue cheese, if that serves our purposes. And the basic institutions of society are being steadily corrupted.

Take This End-of-Year Poll

Which of the following hypotheticals do you believe is most likely to happen in 2007?
	President Bush's ESCR funding policy will be overturned.
	California and/or Washington State will legalize assisted suicide.
	Adult stem cell therapies will restore mobility to paralyzed people.
	The Netherlands will be condemned in the UN for legalizing infanticide.
	Futile Care Theory will be upheld by a court, which will rule that doctors should decide when the time has come to die.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

"Cloning Benefits Oversold"

"Cloning research 'clearly upsets the general public' yet it has limited potential for treating disease and adds little to scientific understanding of human biology, according to Professor Austin Smith of the University of Cambridge...'Its prominence is out of proportion to the significance of what's being done, and there are real question marks about whether it has any utility at all."

Gee, really? I guess that is why this article in the London Times will never be published in the New York Times.

Transhumanism on the March

A report out of the UK envisions robots someday having rights. From the Financial Times: "'If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,' said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology...Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans' rights to be extended to them. It is also logical that such rights are meted out with citizens’ duties, including voting, paying tax and compulsory military service. Mr Christensen said: 'Would it be acceptable to kick a robotic dog even though we shouldn't kick a normal one? There will be people who can't distinguish that so we need to have ethical rules to make sure we as humans interact with robots in an ethical manner so we do not move our boundaries of what is acceptable.'...'If granted full rights, states will be obligated to provide full social benefits to them including income support, housing and possibly robo-healthcare to fix the machines over time,' it [the report] says."

First, it would be incredibly foolish to create "conscious" machines. (I sentence all would-be conscious machine makers to watch every episode of Battlestar Gallactica.)

Second, can a machine really be conscious? We could probably make machines that could learn. But even so, wouldn't they still just be following human programming? Besides, we don't even know what consciousness is in human beings yet.

Third, and most importantly, this is the kind of speculation that the transhumanists want us to pursue. Because if machines can have "human" rights, it means that there is nothing particularly exceptional about being human. It means we will have to earn our rights, along with machines, by possessing requisite capacities. And that means the end of universal human rights.

We are out of our minds to follow this course. And it is a very dangerous game. Remember what I have been saying lately: The most dangerous sentence in the history of the world may be, "It can't happen here."

Feed Me! 3--Missouri

Now that Amendment 2 has passed--which did not include public funding because that would have made it harder to win--we now get to the whipsawing. Business leaders are urging Missouri lawmakers to get with it and improve the atmosphere for Big Biotech. If MO doesn't, they warn, why all the business will go to Kansas. This, of course, means public funding of life science departments and perhaps grants to private companies. But one is like the other since the life science departments all have business deals with private concerns. This is what Neal Munro of the National Journal calls the "Scientific-Industrial complex."

In a related story, the Greater St. Louis Area Chamber of Commerce wants 25% of the state's tobacco settlement money put into life sciences. This will, no doubt, at least partly include human cloning.

Oh, those promises you heard during the campaign that A. 2 wasn't about public financing? If you really believed them, you really haven't been paying attention to what is going on.

Post Script: MO slashed its Medicaid funding so deeply last year that feeding tubes became "optional" services. Before the state gives taxpayer money to Big Biotech, shouldn't it at least restore the cuts that were made in Medicaid?

More Bias from the KANSAS CITY STAR

The bias in the reportage about human cloning and stem cells has been complained about so frequently to KC Star reporters and editors that there is no question they know precisely what they are doing when they publish scientifically inaccurate reports such as the this one, byline Kit Wager.

The story concerns a pending attempt to amend Amendment 2 by banning all human cloning in MO. It contains all of the junk biology and euphemisms that have come to mark the terribly biased reporting by the KC Star on this issue, to wit:

"Just six weeks after Missouri voters approved constitutional protection for medical research, two lawmakers plan to propose a ban on a cutting-edge method of creating early stem cells." Early stem cells is an euphemistic advocacy term for embryonic stem cells. It was coined by the Amendment 2 supporters to avoid having to deal with the reality that ESCR destroys human embryos. And of course, the KC Star immediately jumped to play along.

"The initiative narrowly approved by voters protects all stem cell research allowed by federal law. It will allow a technique that grows stem cells by cloning a patient’s cells to repair diseased or damaged tissue." Sigh. Cells are not cloned in SCNT, a new embryo is created asexually. No one objects to cloning cells, which is a different technique.

"But the amendment expressly prohibits any attempt to implant cloned cells into a woman’s uterus in an effort to create a cloned baby." You could implant "cloned cells" for the next 100,000 years and never have a baby. But if you implanted cloned embryos, you could.

"About five days after the zygote begins to divide, it forms a ball of cells known as a blastocyst, which includes a mass of stem cells, which have the potential to become any kind of tissue in the body. The ball of cells becomes an embryo if it attaches to the wall of the uterus." This is the myth of the "pre embryo." Embryology textbooks will tell you that biologically, there is no such thing, that an embryo is an embryo from the zygote stage onward.

Allow me to quote from Human Embryology and Teratology, embryology text book on this matter: "The term 'pre embryo' is not used here for the following reasons: (1) It is ill defined...; (2) It is inaccurate...(3) It is unjustified because the accepted meaning of the word embryo includes all of the first 8 weeks; (4) It is equivocal because it may convey the erroneous idea that a new human organism is formed at only some considerable time after fertilization; and (5) it was introduced in 1985 largely for public policy reasons [politics]."

Wager's story isn't journalism, it is advocacy. I am sure he will get a raise.

Health Care Rationing "Unraveling" in Oregon

One of my pet peeves about Oregon is that it rations health care to the poor in its Medicaid program. I believe that rationing is merely a polite term for discriminating against the people who need health care the most. Be that as it may, the way the program works is that a list of more than 700 treatments is listed with the number covered depending on available finances. Thus, if there are 740 possible treatments, one year the coverage might extend to the first 640.

In practice, this meant that politics become deeply enmeshed in the process (for example coverage of late stage AIDS but not some curative treatments for late stage cancers). And of course, assisted suicide was listed as palliative care and given such a low number that it would always be covered. This meant that a Medicaid patient who needed a double organ transplant a few years ago was not covered for the procedure, but if this had led to his wanting assisted suicide, it would have been paid for. (The man received private donations for the transplants, but died before he could have them.) Also, from the beginning the number of covered services has shrunk steadily.

This report claims that the great experiment in health care rationing is failing. From "the unraveling" in the abstract: "Only about 24,000 enrollees remain in the state's Medicaid-expansion program, and it has been closed to new enrollment since 2004. Oregon's uninsurance rate has climbed to 17 percent--virtually the same level that prevailed in Oregon before OHP began operation in 1994. Moreover, no state general funds are used to pay for OHP Standard (now financed entirely from provider taxes and beneficiary premiums), a staggering retreat for a state that had been a national leader in expanding coverage for the uninsured."

We are frequently told that the states are the test tubes for the nation. That was why the Feds permitted Medicaid to be rationed in Oregon. The abstract tries mightily to avoid this aspect of the failure, but this facet was a primary reason why the rationing plan was allowed in the first place. I hope we learn the lesson and find other ways than health care rationing to expand access to health care.

Beyond the Hype: Some Scientific Facts About Embryonic Stem Cells

Maureen Condic is a sterling scientist at the University of Utah, who advocates on behalf of ethical approaches to biotechnology. She bases her points in evidence and science, and in this piece in the current First Things, demolishes most of the perceived wisdom about the benefits of ESCR. It is a long article worth reading in full. Here is a preview of coming attractions in which Condic takes on the mantra "embryonic stem cells can become any cell in the body," and points out that so far, researchers have been able to obtain little therapeutic benefit from ES cells even in mice:

"The assertion that embryonic stem cells in the laboratory can be induced to form all the cells comprising the mature human body has been repeated so often that it seems incontrovertibly true. What is missing from this assertion remains the simple fact that there is essentially no scientific evidence supporting it. Experiments have shown that embryonic stem cells are able to participate in normal embryonic development, an observation that is also true of cancerous embryonal carcinoma cells. When injected into early mouse embryos, both embryonic stem cells and embryonal carcinoma cells randomly contribute to every tissue of the developing body.

"Even more dramatically, when embryonic stem cells are injected into mouse embryos under specific experimental circumstances (a procedure known as tetraploid complementation), they can be induced to form all the cells of the postnatal body. These experiments prove that embryonic stem cells (and embryonal carcinoma cells) remain capable of responding appropriately to the developmental signals that regulate tissue formation in the embryo, and from these results we can conclude that if embryonic stem cells were intended to provide cell replacement therapies for embryos, they would represent a very promising therapeutic approach. The problem, of course, is that embryos are not the intended targets of stem cell therapies, and there is little reason to believe that the capabilities of embryonic stem cells in an embryonic environment are relevant to their therapeutic potential for non-embryonic patients.
...
When cells derived from embryonic stem cells are transplanted into adult animals, their most common fate is to die. Indeed, most such transplanted tissue does not survive beyond a few weeks in an adult environment (the only exception is blood cells, where small numbers of cells survive long term in mature animals). The rapid death of transplanted embryonic stem cell-derived cells stands in striking contrast to the robust survival of bona fide adult cells when transplanted to adult tissue. Typically, even the most promising experiments involving the transplant of embryonic stem cell derivatives have reported modest positive effects that persist for only a few weeks. In the few cases where tiny fractions of the transplanted cells survive for months (rather than weeks), this straggling band of survivors typically provides no therapeutic benefit."

You won't see any of that reported in the New York Times, which is why alternative media is so important.

David Duke Writes Cover Article for NYT MAGAZINE

Former KKK leader David Duke published a cover story in Sunday's NYT Magazine, in which he suggested that the hyper rich have a moral duty to alleviate the worst poverty in the world by giving away up to one-third of their fortunes. Despite Duke's motive of seeking to alleviate poverty, observers were outraged. "I don't care how worthwhile the ideas expressed in this article were," declared Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Racists do not deserve the respect that is accorded by having such a prominent article published in the nation's leading newspaper." The Times issued a quick apology and blamed the decision to publish Duke on "a distortion in the editorial process."

Wait a minute. I got the names mixed up. It wasn't David Duke. It was Peter Singer. And even though Singer advocates the right of parents to kill infants who are disabled by such conditions as Down syndrome or hemophilia (and in fact, under personhood theory, any infant who did not serve the interests of the family), there were no outraged press releases from Senator Clinton or any other major public figure decrying the Times, nor, needless to say, was there any Times apology.

This brings up a disturbing dichotomy within the Liberal Establishment, of which, I think it is fair to say, the Times is a leading member. Does anyone think the Times would have published the very same article if it were authored by Duke? Of course not because Duke is considered (properly, in my view) a racist who is beyond the pale of respectability. Yet, here is an irony: As far as I know, Duke has never suggested that it would be okay to kill minority babies. But Singer has, the minority category being disability, which makes his advocacy at least as pernicious as Duke's--just aimed at different victims.

Here is another example of this paradox involving Singer: I once spoke at Princeton and decried America's premier university giving Singer a tenured chair. A faculty member spoke up and stated that Singer had sterling credentials and having someone like Singer on campus provided a diversity of views. I asked the professor if Nobel Prize winner William Shockley--who clearly had sterling credentials but who was also a racist--would ever be allowed to teach at Princeton. No, the professor admitted, which means I guess, that being racist is not an acceptable diverse view at Princeton, but advocating eugenic infanticide is.

Here is what I think: Liberalism used to be about protecting the equal worth of all human beings. No longer. The respect for and acceptance of Peter Singer by such Capital-E Establishment institutions as Princeton University and the New York Times offers disturbing evidence of this proposition.

It Looks Like Ukrainian Leaders Don't Want to Know the Truth About Infant Harvesting Scandal

This isn't good: Irina Bogomolova, the head investigator seeking to track down whether newborn infants were really killed and harvested for their stem cells and organs, was removed from the case after demanding that the investigation be expanded.

The Telegraph reported her as saying: "A trade in stem cells exists here... I suspect there is a lot of bribery going on, right up to highest levels. Pregnant women, especially from rural areas, are very vulnerable targets as they will obviously believe whatever the doctors tell them. It's easy to take their babies from them and tell them they died or were born dead due to complications."

Obviously this has many profound human rights implications. If the UN is capable, it needs to begin to gear up an inquiry. And while they are at it, why not investigate the issue of human organ selling worldwide, including whether China kills Falun Gong for their organs?

Never mind: That would require action and true concern for the intrinsic value of all human life and not just talk. What was I thinking?

Slavery is Also an Affront to Human Exceptionalism

Slavery is evil because it treats human beings as if they were mere objects to be used for work, sex, or other purposes of the slave "holder." In doing so, the slave holder shatters the intrinsic human worth of both the slave and the "master," since treating humans this way is, in fact, anti human. Thus slavery is also a relevant concern for Secondhand Smoke. Apparently human trafficking is getting out of hand in the Ukraine (along, apparently, with everything else).

Take the Great Stem Cell Quiz

Take the stem cell quiz. Impress your friends! Embarrass those who think they are smarter than you! Readers of Secondhand Smoke will pass with flying colors. Readers of the MSM will have to go to stem cell remedial education classes. (One caveat: The test blurs the distinction between ESCR and SCNT when discussing the egg issue. Hit the teacher's knuckles with a ruler!) (If the YouTube is slow, hit this link.) HT James Kelly

Human Exceptionalism: The Issue That Won't Go Away

As readers of Secondhand Smoke know, I disagree with the mainstream bioethics movement, animal liberationists, the philosophical beliefs of Darwinist materialism, transhumanists, and deep ecologists, and disagree with them profoundly. But there is one thing that I think it is fair to say that we do agree upon: The moral issue of the 21st Century is going to be whether being human, in and of itself, is sufficient to convey significant moral value. They say no. I say yes. And the policies and beliefs about which we vociferously disagree flow from our differences about this fundamental question.

It is no surprise, then, that the issue of human exceptionalism is coming quickly to the fore of intellectual discourse. Ryan T. Anderson, a junior fellow at First Things and assistant director of the Program on Bioethics and Human Dignity at the Witherspoon Institute, is on the case. Writing over at the First Things blog, Anderson discusses the recent Peter Singer contretemps about permitting research on monkeys (which I have also written about), and eventually gets to the important question of human exceptionalism, on behalf of which he makes a rational argument, writing: "Human experience itself reveals that human beings differ from other animals, not only in degree, but in kind. Some people may root this experience in religious belief, but the point does not depend on divine revelation.

The ability to search for and deliberate about truth, to express conclusions in propositional language, and to act freely on the basis of reason: Human beings possess these rational, personal capacities in virtue of the type of animal they are. These capacities do not belong to spirits that inhabit animals, centers of consciousness that are somehow associated with material bodies, nor 'ghosts in machines.' Rather, they belong to the human person--a rational, bodily, animal organism. And the basic human capacity for personal life--a capacity we possess from the moment we come into existence until the moment we pass away--provides the basis for our intrinsic dignity and profound worth. It's also what sets us apart from other animals."

Ryan also notes the disaster that would follow from society hearkening to Peter Singer's utilitarian siren song: "Singer's failure to recognize this common experience of the human difference--combined with his utilitarian mode of moral reasoning--means, finally, that he cannot defend the idea of human rights."

I am convinced that the future morality of society rests squarely on this issue. Thanks to Ryan T. Anderson for weighing in on this most important subject.

"Peaceful Pill" Suicide Pill Making Party

This is an article from Exit International's news letter, a very pro euthanasia group from Down Under. It describes the making of the so-called "peaceful pill" suicide concoction.

For those who don't know: Philip Nitschke was in charge of this little project. He was paid thousands of dollars by the Hemlock Society (now merged into the new organization Compassion and Choices) to research on and develop the suicide concoction.

Nitschke has advocated making the peaceful pill available to troubled teens and in supermarkets. Some assisted suicide promoters will claim that Nitschke is on the fringe. Baloney. He is a big star in the international euthanasia movement, and indeed, was a major presenter at the recent bi-annual Convention of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies in Toronto.

There are two major strains of assisted suicide advocacy, although they often merge and blend. There are the ultra sophisticated types (Barbara Coombs Lee, head of Compassion and Choices), who speak in soothing tones of compassion and promote a "medical model" in which doctors would be allowed to assist suicides or euthanize patients, and pretend it will be limited to the already dying. Then there are those interested in hyper control (Derek Humphry, Nitchke), who are fascinated by suicide machines and concoctions, and more candidly espouse a more widely accessible "death with dignity." But remember, these apparently different approaches are just the right and left arms of the same movement.

As a side note: I was once approached by a very nice lady who was in the Hemlock Society. She knew of my work and asked, "Mr. Smith, how do you envision your death?"

I responded: "I don't know ma'am. I'm still trying to envision my life."