Human Egg Donations to be Banned in S. Korea

Well, here's something good that came out of the Hwang cloning fraud. South Korea, apparently, is on the verge of outlawing egg donations for use in biomedical research. Good. No woman should risk her life so that cloning researchers can do their work. This is also the agenda of Hands Off Our Ovaries.

I would be happy if we just had a ban on buying and selling eggs here in the USA and as part of international protocols. Already the cloners are complaining that they don't have enough human eggs with which to clone embryos. Poor babies. But their "work" isn't as important as protecting the wellbeing and health of women. Preventing companies from taking advantage of poor women, exposing them to the potential of sterility, infection, and even death, is an endeavor that should cut cross the usual ideological rifts.

"Choice" Gone Mad: Amputee Wannabes

We are witnessing the beginning of the public normalization of the profound mental illness known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID)--also known as "amputee wannabe" because its sufferers become obsessed with losing one or more limbs. This column published in The Guardian is an example: Susan Smith (not her real name) writes about wanting to have both legs amputated because "the image I have of myself has always been one without legs."

To achieve these ends, Susan harmed herself so that one leg would have to be removed. And now, she plans to do it again: "Removing the next leg will not be any easier than the first; the pain will be horrendous. But I have no regrets about the path I have chosen. In fact, if I regret anything, it is that I didn't do this sooner. For the first time in my life, I can get on with being the real me."

And here's the normalizing part: "I think BIID will stay taboo until people get together and bring it out. A hundred years ago, it was taboo to be gay in many societies, and 50 years ago the idea of transsexuals was abhorrent to most. I have tried to make the condition more understood but it is difficult to get a case out in the open by yourself. My psychiatrist went to a meeting last year in Paris, and many doctors there told her that they had operated on people who needed an amputation under mysterious circumstances, and how happy the person was when they woke up. It led them to believe that perhaps BIID is more prevalent than people think."

Something has gone terribly wrong with us at a profound and fundamental level. And deeper minds than mine need to figure out precisely what it is. Because, in the name of "being myself" we are moving toward normalizing mutilating surgery. Indeed, I have already attended a transhumanist conference where two Ph.Ds advocated that doctors be allowed to remove healthy limbs. And it has been suggested as worth considering in a professional journal article, as I wrote here. (And here is an exchange between the authors of the article and me, after they took me to task for my comments in the earlier linked article.) What next? Help people who want to cut themselves slice themselves repeatedly? Or burn themselves, do it safely? Or what about kill themselves? Oh, that's right. It is already explicitly legal to help do that in Oregon, the Netherlands, Belgium,and Switzerland.

People like Susan is need to be protected from harming themselves. We used to have the basic humanity and decency to understand that. But we have become so in the thrall of radical individualism, I wonder whether we still do. "Choice" is becoming a voracious monster.


HT: Gregory Ford

Oldsters at Risk from Greedy Middle-Aged Children

This from the Telegraph: "Greedy middle-aged sons and daughters are the people most likely to rob their parents of money, valuables and even their homes, according to a report today. The findings, published by Action on Elder Abuse, are based on a study of calls to the charity's helpline last year.

They show that far from the family being a haven for the elderly, many pensioners are victims of their close relatives' avarice and psychological cruelty. They are regarded as easy targets if they have disabilities or suffer dementia."

And yet people still promote assisted suicide as beneficial for the elderly. Ri-i-ight.

David Prentice Rebuts Hit Piece in SCIENCE

Science did a very nasty and, in my view, politically motivated thing before the election: It printed a hit piece by William Neaves and others against David Prentice, essentially accusing him of lying to the public, without giving him a chance to respond. Finally, half a year later, they deigned to permit Prentice to respond. Here is his letter in its entirety:

Treating Diseases with Adult Stem Cells
Letters Science 19 January 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5810, p. 328

In their Letter "Adult stem cell treatments for diseases?" (28 July 2006, p. 439), S. Smith et al. claim that we misrepresent a list of adult stem cell treatments benefiting patients (1). But it is the Letter's authors who misrepresent our statements and the published literature, dismissing as irrelevant the many scientists and patients who have shown the benefits of adult stem cells.

We have stated that adult stem cell applications have "helped," "benefited," and "improved" patient conditions. Smith et al.'s Supporting Online Material (2) repeatedly notes patient improvement from these cells (3). We have never stated that these treatments are "generally available," "cures," or "fully tested in all required phases of clinical trials and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)." Some studies do not require prior FDA approval (4), and even the nine supposedly "fully approved" treatments acknowledged by Smith et al. would not be considered "cures" or "generally available" to the public at this stage of research.

The insistence that no benefit is real until after FDA approval is misplaced. Such approval is not a medical standard to evaluate patient benefit, but an agency determination that benefits outweigh risks in a broad class of patients. Physicians and patients use an evidentiary standard. Our list of 72 applications, compiled from peer-reviewed articles, documents observable and measurable benefit to patients, a necessary step toward formal FDA approval and what is expected of new, cutting-edge medical applications.

Smith et al. also mislead regarding citations for testicular cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, referring to "[t]he reference Prentice cites," as though only one reference existed in each case, and not mentioning four other references that, according to their own SOM, show "improved long-term survival" of patients receiving adult stem cells. There are currently 1238 FDA-approved clinical trials related to adult stem cells,including at least 5 trials regarding testicular cancer and over 24 trials with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (5). They also disregard studies showing successful stimulation of endogenous cells for Parkinson's.

The ethical and political controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell research makes scientific claims especially prone to exaggeration or distortion. All such claims should receive careful scrutiny, as recently acknowledged by the editors of this journal after two articles claiming human "therapeutic cloning" success were revealed to be fraudulent. This scrutiny should be directed equally to all sides. We note that two of our critics, Neaves and Teitelbaum, are founding members of a political group whose Web site lists over 70 conditions that "could someday be treated or cured" using embryonic stem cells (6). High on this list is Alzheimer's disease, acknowledged by experts as a "very unlikely" candidate for stem cell treatments, with one NIH expert describing such a scenario as a "fairy tale" (7). The entire list, in fact, is based on no evidence of benefit in any human patient from embryonic stem cells and little evidence for its claims in animal models. No one should promote the falsehood that embryonic stem cell cures are imminent, for this cruelly deceives patients and the public (8).

David A. Prentice*

Pennyslvania Promotes Advance Directives

PA has a big push ongoing to promote advance health directives and, as part of that effort, has passed a law that creates a commission to determine who decides such matters for residents without their own directive. (I will keep a close eye on that.) Toward educating the public, the Pennsylvania Medical Society has created a Web page with some basic information.

I think advance directives are important, too. However, I suggest that people never sign a "living will" since that gives doctors the right to decide when it is effective and what it means. The decider should not also be the treater. When asked, I urge patients to sign a durable power of attorney for health care, which names someone else to stand in your shoes as the decision maker in the event of need.

I have one an advance directive prepared by a lawyer--always a good idea--that is consistent with the provisions of the Protective Medical Decisions Document (PMDD), a state specific advance directive prepared by the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.

Why Transhumanism Would Result in Stultifying Sameness

Dove

This ad has been around awhile, but I think it punctures the transhumanists' naive presumption that the post human future would be wildly individualistic and iconoclastic. I believe the opposite would be true. Just as today we are herded by social pressures and corporate advertisements into a conformist mindset--what my friend Ralph Nader calls "thinking corporate"--so too would we be pushed toward a stultifying sameness if transhumanists "seized control of human evolution." Only rather than being literally skin deep, as is true today with cosmetics and fashion, the sheep-like sameness would be implanted deep within our biological beings. Baaaa.

HT: Mark Pickup

Hawaii Assisted Suicide Bill: A Wide Latitude and No Choice for Doctors

We so often hear that physician-assited suicide is about "choice." The patient's to die, and the doctors to either facilitate suicide or not. But the new Hawaii bill to legalize assisted suicide requires doctors to participate--either by prescribing poison or cooperating with an "alternate physician" who does the deed. And note, the alternate physician need not even examine the patient, but rather, is a mere order taker who may not even have to meet the patient face to face. From the bill:

"If at any time an attending physician declines or is unable to fulfill any of the responsibilities detailed in subsection (a), particularly paragraph (12) regarding dispensing medication to a patient, the attending physician shall relinquish the responsibilities to an alternate physician who is willing and able to fulfill the responsibilities detailed in subsection (a). The alternate physician shall confirm with the attending physician or the consulting physician that the diagnosis has not changed and that the patient is capable, is acting voluntarily, has made an informed decision, and remains a qualified patient under this chapter. The alternate physician may not dispense medication to the patient under subsection (a)(12) until at least fifteen days after the alternate physician's initial consultation with the patient."

Forcing doctors to cooperate in assisted suicides, even those they don't wish to commit, is in keeping with the agenda of normalizing killing into a mere medical treatment.

And get this language from the "who" may ask for assisted suicide provision: "An adult who is capable, is a resident of Hawaii, and has been determined by the attending physician or alternate physician and consulting physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed that person's wish to die, may make a written request for medication for the purpose of ending that person's life in a humane and dignified manner in accordance with this chapter."

Also note that the patient only need be "capable" of communicating his desire to have suicide, which is a different standard than being competent. Capable is defined in the bill thusly : "Capable" means that, in the opinion of a court or in the opinion of the patient's attending physician or consulting physician, psychiatrist, or psychologist, a patient has the ability to make and communicate health care decisions to health care providers, including communication through persons familiar with the patient's manner of communicating if those persons are available."

Typical "choice" gibberish from the death on demand crowd.

"Peering Into The Darkness" Podcast Interview

I was interviewed on Saturday in a talk radio format, but it is a podcast called Peering Into the Darkness, with Derek and Sharon Gilbert. The topic was transhumanism and related issues. What astounds me is that communication technology is moving so fast that it is hard to keep up. While not quite up to radio technical qualities yet, this medium is changing how we communicate at lightning speed. Everything is becoming decentralized, both for good and ill.

In any event, the conversation was wide-ranging, and at times got me in over my pay grade. But I had a very good time and thank Derek and Sharon for their hospitality. If you have a spare hour and are interested in the more esoteric issues surrounding transhumanism as religion, check it out.

12 Year-Old Given Transsexual Sex Change Therapy

This is wrong. A boy decides he is a girl--a boy--and psychiatrists and doctors agree to get on with the hormones before he has even had a chance to experience puberty and perhaps come to different conclusions. The worry was that experiencing puberty would itself be traumatic for a boy who believed he is really a girl. (Surgery has to wait until 18, thank goodness.) And here's the kicker: Shades of Ashley's case: "Doctors admit that the treatment involves a risk, however, and that its effects on children as young as Kim are not fully understood." In other words, once again a child is being used in human experimentation.

Frankly, I think we are mucking up our children in so many ways, exposing them to concepts before they are really ready to understand and deal with them, treating them as if they are just diminutive adults instead of children, that we will never understand the lives we have harmed and the pain we have caused.

Yea, Yea. I know. I'm a dinosaur.

Visit Nigel Cameron's Blog "Choosing Tomorrow"

I have noticed that many of the most commented upon posts here at Secondhand Smoke have to do with transhumanism, futuristic technologies, and whether we will remain fully human in the coming biotech age.

Well, for those interested in such things, my friend Nigel Cameron has a blog up and running in which he ponders and discusses issues such as nano technology, artificial intelligence, and the like, and expounds on what it's all about, Alfie. It's called "Choosing Tomorrow," because, I suppose, that's precisely what we are doing. Check him out here.

"Anarchy in Cyberspace"

Now, here's a story of how and why transhumanism isn't going to cure what ails the human condition: Second Life, which I had not even heard of until a correspondent wrote asking to interview me about it a short time ago, allows players to lead virtual lives. Say, you are a lawyer and always wanted to have a more adrenaline filled job. You could become a cop or a soldier. Or, you're a plumber and wanted a job where your hands don't get dirty. You could become a stock broker. As I understand it, the people playing the game have virtual lives, go through different experiences, date, marry (?), that is, have whole new second lives.

Well, trouble has come to paradise. From the story: "FRENCH elections are typically volatile affairs. But when Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front party (FN) set up a virtual campaign headquarters on Second Life, the internet site where over 2.9 million registered users live a double life, it caused a cyber-riot.

"The arrival of the xenophobic party in the 'geographical' area of Second Life known as Porcupine sparked protests by outraged virtual characters known as avatars. They protested, waving placards and banners decorated with an unflattering portrait of Mr Le Pen sporting a Hitler moustache.

"But the protests soon degenerated into riots, during which anti-Nazi protesters from a group named Second Life Left Unity engaged in running gun-battles with FN supporters and hurled exploding pigs--fortunately only of the virtual variety--at their political opponents."

There is a lesson here, it seems to me. People are people, wherever we find them--even in virtual reality which, of course, isn't real at all. The same will be true in Transhumanist Land. That is why it seems wiser to me to embrace our full humanity and work in the real world to overcome our baser sides than to pine for a utopian post-human future that would probably remain all too human. Our problem as a species isn't that we don't live long enough, it is that we don't love fully enough.

Strengthening our more noble natures doesn't require futuristic technology, drastic disfiguring surgeries, or electrode implants: It merely requires true introspection--the doing of which we are the only species capable--unplugging from music, videos and other entertainment to just think, ponder, contemplate, pray if that is one's wont, and, I think, finding the joy in serving others (including animals, if that is our desire).

And with that bit of "wisdom," I end my sermon and return to areas more within my pay grade.

Post Script: I am sure we can expect "Second Life: The Movie: any day now.

And the Federal Money Keeps Pouring In for ESCR

I just checked at the NIH Web site to see the latest NIH funding levels for ESCR. Wow. Between fiscal 2003-2007, the Feds will have shelled out approximately $161 million for human embryonic stem cell research. Add in $492 million for ESCR in animals, and the total over five years comes to a whopping $653 million!

Peter Singer Supports "Ashley's Treatment"

Of course he does, and of course, he is allowed to do so in the New York Times. You see, although he doesn't say it in this article explicitly, to Peter Singer, Ashley is not a person. That means that if it serves her parents' "interests," they had every right to give her "Ashley's Treatment." But unstated in Singer's article, is that it would also support their killing her and allowing her to be used in medical experiments--so long as these actions did not cause her to suffer.

Singer claims that arguments supporting her "dignity" are misguided. He knows, of course, that the term is used to denote intrinsic moral worth. We can't have that. So, he misconstrues the term into something different, the concept of acting or appearing dignified: "But we should reject the premise [innate dignity] of this debate. As a parent and grandparent, I find 3-month-old babies adorable, but not dignified. Nor do I believe that getting bigger and older, while remaining at the same mental level, would do anything to change that."

Notice also that Singer calls Ashley a "what" and not a "who": After the riff denying even the concept of Ashley having intrinsic dignity because she is human, he writes: "She is precious not so much for what she is, but because her parents and siblings love her and care about her." He could say the same thing about a favorite house plant.

Peter Singer's denial of the importance of being human opens the door to terrible oppression and killing against the weak and vulnerable. We hearken to his sterile utilitarianism at the distinct peril of the most weak and vulnerable among us.

Why is THIS Called "Controversial?"

The Times of London is reporting,"Sir Richard Branson will launch his most controversial business to date as he moves into stem-cell storage and the biotech sector." Huh? The stem cells in question come from umbilical cord blood. How in the world could that be considered "controversial?" Perhaps in the UK such private storage facilities are frowned upon: I don't know. But storing UCB stem cells is utterly uncontentious. Indeed, last year here in the USA, Congress unanimously passed and the President signed into law, a bill creating regional UCB stem cell banks.

Jack Kevorkian: Circumcision Consultant

With the murderer Jack Kevorkian soon to be released from prison on parole, he has to think about earning a living. According to this story, he has decided to go into business as what he calls a circumcision consultant. From the story: "Kevorkian was asked if his circumcision consulting might only be a subterfuge to hide his actual goal of helping people kill themselves. 'Nonsense,' he answered. 'Nothing could be further from the truth. I am really looking forward to a brilliant new career in foreskin termination.'" Let's just hope doesn't video tape himself at work like he did his last job.

Yes, of course, it's a spoof.

PETA's Big Lie About "Gay Sheep"

A few weeks ago I reported about the anger expressed by some gay activists about animal research reportedly aimed at making gay sheep straight. I blogged the story, not in order to deal with gay/straight issues, but to point out its relevance to the hubristic human enhancement agenda.

I soon received information that the story was badly misconstrued due to PETA machinations, which were also posted in the comments section of the original post. I didn't post directly about these rumblings because, 1) the original story was in the Sunday Times of London, which had not retracted, and 2) because my point had nothing to do with gay/straight issues--which we do not discuss here--but the dangers associated with the new eugenics.

But now, the New York Times has published a story demonstrating that the original report was indeed seriously misconstrued due to PETA fabrications. The point was not to learn how turn gay sheep straight and then apply the technology in humans, but to learn why gay sheep are gay. This involved killing the animals to study their brains, which for PETA, should be absolutely forbidden for any purpose.

This raises an important point: PETA is not a credible organization. Its activists are expert propagandists. If the whole truth will serve its purposes, it will be told. If half truths and half lies serve better, it will take that route. And it is expert at lying by omission, as in a story I covered about PETA's campaign to destroy the Australian wool industry.

Germany Jails Purveyor of Suicide Pills

Germany has jailed a man who sold suicide pills over the internet. Good. Next stop: Phillip Nitschke. I would also like to see more enforcement against the suicide assisters among American euthanasia groups.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: The Check is Not in the Mail

When Proposition 71 was being pushed on the voters, campaign propaganda assured Californians that the money would pour in to state coffers if they only gave scientists the constitutional right to do human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The same tactic was deployed in Missouri in Amendment 2. Now, we find in California, that such promises were, shall we say, exaggerated. Even if it all works--a big if--the check will not be in the mail.

"The state could get between $537 million and $1.1 billion in royalty returns from it's $3 billion stem cell investment," the story states. Except, this wholly understates the loss. When interest is included on the loans our broke state will be taking out to give Big Biotech and its business partners in universities bounteous amounts of corporate welfare, the amount owed by taxpayers will be a whopping $6-7 billion. So, even if the CURES! CURES! CURES! come through, California loses at least %5 billion.

It's funny isn't it, how these studies and reports never come out before elections where they might have some real meaning. Now, with the horse out of the barn, it is just so much hot air.

Podcast: "The Trouble With Transhumanism"

In the current edition of Brave New Bioethics, I discuss the new religion of transhumanism, which fervently believes in a post human eschatology of human immortality and redesign.

A Mother's Stem Cells May Help Treat Her Child's Diabetes

It just keeps coming: The Telegraph is reporting that a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that "stem cells are passed from mothers to unborn children with type 1 diabetes and may help repair the damage caused by immune attacks on insulin-producing cells thought responsible for the development of the disease." This could mean that a mother's adult stem cells may be able to be harvested and used to treat her diabetic child.

There is so much happening on the non embryonic stem cell front that it boggles the mind.

More on the Bestiality Movie and "Sub Human Animals"

Apparently, there has been an attack on anti-bestiality laws, with the claim being made that such statutes are unconstitutional. (Why am I not surprised?) I haven't read it, but my friend Seth Cooper, a brilliant lawyer who once worked for the Discovery Institute, has. He weighs in at the American Thinker.

One argument against bestiality laws is that they are prohibited by the reasoning behind Lawrence v Texas (the Supreme Court case that prohibits laws banning homosexual sex), which found that such laws are constitutionally unacceptable "morals legislation." Cooper disagrees with this analysis: "Arguably, certain language in the majority and concurring opinions in Lawrence v. Texas casting doubt upon laws based purely upon traditional notions of sexual morality--if taken in its most literal and absolute sense--may thereby cast some doubt upon an important basis for anti-bestiality laws. But it's not unusual for jurists to resort to overgeneralizations and hyperbole in order to bolster their rulings in cases deciding highly specific matters...Only a seismic shift or complete collapse of traditional state police powers could exonerate bestiality."

That sounds right to me. I have never read Lawrence, but at least to some degree it seems to me to be a culmination of decades worth of political/legal advocacy by a constituency that has significant political power in this culture. I doubt that "Zoos" will ever achieve that level of acceptance.

On another note: For years I have been steamed about the use of the term "nonhuman animal," because it seems intended to focus on humans as animals toward the end of knocking us off our pedestal of exceptionalism. Cooper has the proper remedy. He calls our furry friends, "sub human animals." Very good. Notice given: I intend to steal the term and use it whenever confronted with the "nonhuman animal" assertion.

Cooper also throws in some good human exceptionalism advocacy. Way to go, Seth!

Umbilical Cord Blood Make Pancreas Cells

So, the deconstruction of ES cells as the "only hope" for "cures" continues apace. Now, South Korean researchers have been able to grow pancreatic beta cells from stem cells taken from the umbilical cord blood. And, the cells made from umbilical cord blood stem cells secrete insulin.

The technology looks promising: In true biotech form, the researchers wrote a peer reviewed journal article and filed for patents.

Quick: Somebody tell Mary Tyler Moore.

George Will on Desire to Wipe People With Down Syndrome Off the Face of the Earth

A little while back, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urged that every pregnant woman be tested to see if her fetus has Down syndrome. I did not comment on it at the time, having written quite a bit recently about the ongoing anti-Down pogrom. But George Will now has. And he has a personal stake in the issue, which we must all remember, is, according to many pundits, the essential factor that gives one moral authority to opine.

Will's son Jon has Down, and he begins with a piquant question: "What did Jon Will and the more than 350,000 American citizens like him do to tick off the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists?" He later answers his rhetorical query: The policy seems intended to "have the effect of increasing abortions in the service of an especially repulsive manifestation of today's entitlement mentality—every parent's 'right' to a perfect baby." I would say that is just the surface issue. Beneath it, lurks the emergence of a new eugenics that judges the moral worth of people based on their lives' perceived quality.

And it won't end there, of course. Will points out that "as more is learned about genetic components of other abnormalities, search-and-destroy missions will multiply."

Read Will's entire column. He humanizes Jon, which is precisely what is needed in this time when the intrinsic value of human life is under accelerating assault.

People Want to Live

This study is unsurprising to me: A survey of colo-rectal cancer patients finds that they are more willing to take chemotherapy, even with a small potential for extending life at the cost of significant adverse side effects, than doctors thought would be the case. But when it is your life, you want to keep up the fight. People want to live and they are often willing to put up with the debilitations of chemo to gain a few extra weeks or months.

Unfortunately, this desire to "keep fighting" often keeps patients from accepting hospice care until it is too late to receive most of the benefits, which is a shame given the potential for great help that hospice--properly applied-offers. When I interviewed the late Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement, she criticized this aspect of the US hospice system. She claimed that it creates the appearance of a "one-way street," sort of an "abandon hope all ye who enter here." As a consequence, she told me that (at the time of our interview, circa 2000), the USA had a 15% hospice usage rate versus the UK's 65%.

I agree and it's a shame. When my father was dying of colon cancer we had hospice and it was of tremendous help both to my dad and the entire family.

ZOO: It Isn't About the One in San Diego

Perhaps it is wrong for me to comment about a movie I have no intention of seeing: But if this review of the new semi-documentary Zoo is accurate, it apparently has a sympathetic take on "the last taboo," meaning bestiality. ("Zoos" in this context don't refer to animal viewing facilities, but are apparently the chosen moniker of people who like to have sex with animals. It is a take off on "zoophilia." Who knew?)

This film, at least as reviewed and described by the director Robinson Devor, seems steeped in what I call "terminal nonjudgmentalism," by which I mean that we are losing sight of the important moral truth that some acts are intrinsically wrong--and it is killing our culture. Bestiality is one of these. It is wrong for many reasons, the most important of which goes beyond sex as animal abuse or, as some have put it, the lack of animal consent. Bestiality is an assault on human dignity itself. As I wrote in this piece about the controversy surrounding legislation in Washington State (since passed) to make bestiality illegal--which occurred after a man was killed from being sexually penetrated by a horse--the impetus for Zoo:

"The great philosophical question of the 21st Century is going to be whether we will knock humans off the pedestal of moral exceptionalism and instead define ourselves as just another animal in the forest. The stakes of the coming debate couldn't be more important: It is our exalted moral status that both bestows special rights upon us and imposes unique and solemn moral responsibilities--including the human duty not to abuse animals. Nothing would more graphically demonstrate our unexceptionalism than countenancing human/animal sex."

(Yes, I know that Peter Singer disagrees, claiming in a book review that "we are animals, indeed more specifically, we are great apes. This does not make sex across the species barrier normal, or natural, whatever those much-misused words may mean, but it does imply that it ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings.")

I am not saying that we shouldn't strive to understand what drives people into such a depraved state that they couple with animals. But this should not be to wink at the practice or normalize it as just another choice. Rather, it should be for the purpose of helping mental health professionals treat and restore "Zoos" to a proper sense of self-dignity and mental health. But this seems beyond Devor, a self-described "artist" who said, "I consider nothing human alien to me."

Devor also said that he had "aestheticized the sleaze right out of it." Sorry. Can't be done. What Devor really tried to do was cover up the moral stink, adding his energies and talent to the ongoing project to bring about the descent of man.

Fumento Takes Down the NYT

I have been traveling and neglecting my duties at Secondhand Smoke. Whilst gone, readers alerted me to the pathetic excuse given by the New York Times for not reporting the amniotic fluid stem cell breakthrough. Its reporter, Nicolas Wade, claimed he didn't report it because the study was merely a "minor" matter. Yet, less important ESCR stories have been prominently reported in the Gray Lady. Moreover the story was front page news in the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and other MSM outlets. Hmmm. Could it be--bias?

Not to worry. I may have been asleep at the switch but Michael Fumento was on the case. He also chides Newsweek for reporting that human trials with placental stem cells will not happen for years, when apparently, at least one is already under way. Way to go, Michael!

PETA Nudity

PETA, two of whose employees are now on trial for felony cruelty to animals, may be trying to divert attention from its own animal killing through the medium of a pretty woman stripping to reveal full frontal nudity. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to "in your face." The song afterwards sings of hating the whole human race.

Yup. That's PETA: As attention addicted, misanthropic, and fanatical as ever.

The UN Protects People with Disabilities

"Can anything good come out of the United Nations," I ask in the lede of my piece in the current Weekly Standard discussing that new UN treaty, which if followed--always a big if in these kind of things--would substantially protect the rights of people with disabilities. The article is currently only available to subscribers, but here are a few key paragraphs:

"The convention is a welcome reaffirmation of the principles that are 'proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations which recognize the inherent dignity and worth and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.' In a world growing increasingly utilitarian, an international declaration unequivocally affirming that human life has intrinsic moral worth regardless of capacities and attributes is most welcome."

Since the treaty protects the right to life of disabled people, I note, "This could be very good news for Dutch infants born with serious health problems or disabilities, as the Dutch parliament is well on the path to formally legalizing eugenic infanticide. If the Low Countries ratify the treaty, as expected, Dutch diplomatic representatives should be asked to justify their "compassionate" policy of allowing the killing of disabled babies in the face of this new international convention requiring the lives of disabled people be protected."

For reasons discussed in the article, US won't be participating in the treaty itself, although we lauded its passage. Still, we helped negotiate it and I point out that some of the most important protections--particularly one preventing discriminatory withholding of food and fluids based on disability--were negotiated by conservative Non Government Organizations (NGOs), of which there are too few now standing up for the intrinsic value of human life in the international sphere dud to disdain for internationalism. I conclude:

"But such standoffishness is woefully shortsighted. Like it or not, many of the most important social and legal policies of the twenty-first century are going to be materially influenced by international protocols such as this one. These agreements are molded substantially behind the scenes by NGOs--most of which are currently leftist in their political outlooks and relativistic in their social orientation. This makes for a stacked deck. If conservatives hope to influence the moral values of the future, they are going to have to hold their collective noses and get into the game."

"A Middle Ground for Stem Cells"

My friend Yuval Levin has a piece today in, of all places, the New York Times about President Bush's ESC funding policy and its moral import. Here are a few key quotes:

"At its heart, then, when the biology and politics have been stipulated away, the stem cell debate is not about when human life begins but about whether every human life is equal. The circumstances of the embryo outside the body of a mother put that question in perhaps the most exaggerated form imaginable, but they do not change the question.

"America's birth charter, the Declaration of Independence, asserts a positive answer to the question, and in lieu of an argument offers another assertion: that our equality is self-evident. But it is not. Indeed, the evidence of nature sometimes makes it very hard to believe that all human beings are equal. It takes a profound moral case to defend the proposition that the youngest and the oldest, the weakest and the strongest, all of us, simply by virtue of our common humanity, are in some basic and inalienable way equals.

Our faith in that essential liberal proposition is under attack by our own humanitarian impulses in the stem cell debate, and it will be under further attack as biotechnology progresses. But the stem cell debate, our first real test, should also be the easiest. We do not, at least in this instance, face a choice between science and the liberal society. We face the challenge of championing both."

Way to go, Yuval!

Beware of Adult Stem Cell Quackery

This story demonstrates the dangers that are out there in stem cell land for the unwary. A Las Vegas doctor has been treating people with serious illnesses, such as MS, with stem cells from placenta and other non embrynic sources. These have great potential for future therapies. But, such treatments mostly remain at the experimental level, and in any event, should only done under proper research protocols and in accordance with ethical medical practices. I mean, the doctor in question is an opthamologist! He has no business treating people with serious neurological conditions regardless of the efficacy of the chosen medium.

Advanced Cell Technology Gets Itself into the News. Again

ACT, which claimed falsely to have created ES cell lines without actually destroying embryos, has gotten itself in the news again: This time to tout receipt of a $204,000 NIH grant to conduct embryonic stem cell research. As usual, the company's spin machine is whirling like a centrifuge. "Advanced Cell's CEO, William Caldwell, called the grant 'momentous' because of what it says about the changing political climate and the federal government's move toward greater support for research into embryonic stem cell science."

Puhleese. First, to get the grant ACT has to be using Bush-approved cell lines. Second, in 2005, the NIH put out $50 million for human ESCR. Momentous? Only in that ACT got another article to put in its scrap book of memories to show potential investors.

Nebraska Bill to Outlaw All Human Cloning

Legislation has been introduced in Nebraska to outlaw all human cloning. And guess what? Unlike the deceptive Amendment 2, the legislation defines human cloning in a scientifically accurate manner. Maybe the reporters and editorialists of the Kansas City Star will read the legislation and learn that cloning is not, as the Amendment 2 propagandists asserted, the act of implantation. Nah. They might have to report it.

Animal Rights Unabombers

I have been warning that animal liberationist fanatics would kill somebody someday. It almost happened, in England. Two letter bombs sent to science firms. One injury. Animal protesters linked. If every animal rights leader and grass roots activist doesn't publicly protest this escalation in violence, it will speak volumes about the movement as a whole.

Mainstream Bioethicists Bit Off More Than They Can Chew Attacking Ramesh Ponurru

The mainstream bioethicists are mightily ticked because National Review's Ramesh Ponurru (and others) resist their perceived wisdom on ESCR funding and ethics. But in attacking Ponurru, they bit off more than they can chew. In his usual methodical manner, the NR writer demonstrates that he isn't the one spouting dubious facts.

Fighting Futile Care Theory in Texas in the Memory of Andrea Clarke

I received an e-mail from Lenore Dixon, Andrea Clark's sister. Readers of Secondhand Smoke will recall that Clark was the woman who was the subject of a fight over the attempt to terminate wanted life-sustaining treatment. Her family was treated disgracefully. Now, they are working to fight the futility law in Texas with an organization called Texas Patient Rights. Here is part of what she wrote: "I believe your readers were very helpful in allowing Andrea to continue life support until she died in her own time. Now my family and I are committed to changing the Texas law that allowed St. Luke's to play God with our sister's life. We've since learned of many other cases where hospitals played God. We want to change this law. The legislature is now in session and we need as many people as possible to take action in this effort."

Here is the Web site. Go, Lenore!

Experimenting on Ashley

As promised, I have now read "Attenuating Growth in Children with Profound Developmental Disability" in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (2006;160:1013-1017), written by the doctors who kept Ashley a "pillow angel." (HT Susan Nunes)

It is very disturbing. First: They don't even mention the mastectomy in the article, or the appendectomy. Only the hysterectomy. I find this troubling and telling.

Second: Attenuating the growth of a child to keep her from reaching normal size has apparently never been done before. It strikes me that this means Ashley was the subject of a human experiment, that might not have been illegal based on the intricacies of human research law, but sure seems unethical.

I have written a more extended column about this for NRO. When it is out, I shall post it.

Animal Liberation "Helter Skelter"

Animal liberation radicals, calling themselves WAR (Win Animal Rights), have declared "war" against Wall Street because the New York Stock Exchange listed Huntingdon Life Sciences on the Big Board. Radical liberationists have vowed to put HLS out of business because it conducts animal testing, and they The term "helter skelter" is an ominous turn. While it was in one of the Beatles more extreme songs, it was also embraced by Charles Manson as the term for the race war he wanted to start. It reeks of anarchy, violence, and chaos.

So, let the "tertiary targeting" begin. But hey, it's for "the animals," right?

Arizona to Have Assisted Suicide Bill

This was expected: Arizona legislators will introduce an assisted suicide legalization bill. Typically, the media report states that the opponents will be Christians and Catholics. That's just the tip of the ice berg with disability rights and civil rights organizations also opposing, along with medical professional organizations.

"Feed me!" Part 3

The quest for the blank check to conduct human embryonic stem cell research continues apace, as states trip over each other to throw money at Big Biotech and its business partners in universities. Now, it's New York, where the new governor wants the state's taxpayers to shoulder a $2 billion debt (excluding interest), to spent over ten years, to compete with California and other states throwing more money at researchers than they can even spend.

Embryos as Inventory

The inestimable Will Saletan explores "the embryo factory" in Slate and, as is his wont, hits the nail on the head. He is writing about the Abraham Center of Life, which I commented about here at Secondhand Smoke last year. He writes that Jennalee Ryan, the entrepreneurial owner of the Abraham Center "represents the next wave of industrial rationality. She's bringing the innovations of Costco and Burger King to the business of human flesh." Indeed.

Ryan suggests that her service of making embryos to order is better than embryo adoption, as offered by the Snowflakes organization, for example, since the would-be parents aren't screened for suitability--and all for just $2500 for the embryo plus the price of being implanted and prenatal care. Regardless of what one thinks about Snowflakes, that service isn't about making embryos to fill a market niche. Rather, it is about saving an already existing frozen embryo from destruction, and loving and welcoming it regardless of his or her looks and expected capacities.

In contrast, Ryan and her clients are in it for themselves: "Buying embryos gives you all the advantages of buying eggs and sperm. You can screen donors—in this case, the embryo's parents--for physical and mental health, education, and looks. Since Ryan is shouldering the risk, she screens donors up front. Her embryos' moms are college-educated. The dads have advanced degrees. All the donors are white, since the clients are white. Ryan is no bigot, but business is business. 'There is simply a demand for white babies,' she shrugs. In fact, three-quarters of the DNA in her first two batches comes from blue-eyed blonds. This isn't eugenics; it's narcissism. 'What I was really looking for was blond hair, blue eyes, so the child would look similar to me,' one of Ryan's clients told ABC News."

It is also furthering the agenda of treating our children as custom made products to fulfill our personal desires. And it won't stop with buying embryos to order, but extend to offering surrogacy services--as Ryan already does. It's about the bottom line, both financial and eugenic: "To Ryan, embryos are inventory. 'I saw a demand for something and created the product,' she told to the San Antonio Current. The doctor who mixed Ryan's first batch of embryos was aghast to discover their fate, but Ryan insists, 'If they are my embryos, legally, what I do with those embryos is really none of her business.' What if clients aren't satisfied with the embryos? 'If they don't think it's right for them, they don't have to take them,' she shrugs. With surrogacy, that policy could be extended for weeks. Tested, personalized, affordable, disposable. You've come a long way, baby."

How Do We Judge Medical Harm?

Doctors are planning to perform the first uterus transplant in a woman desiring the surgery so she can have a baby, not to save her life. This strikes me as moving onto dangerous ground where doctors reduce themselves from professionals into technicians.

Medical professionals have responsibilities, for example and perhaps most famously, to do no harm. They have patients, to whom they owe fiduciary duties if solemn trust. Yet, this transplant could cause death, serious side effects, the and if there is a pregnancy and the organ fails, the death of mother and fetus.

Technicians, on the other hand, have lower standards--primarily those dictated by the marketplace--and they have customers. "Choice" and fulfilling desires become the ruling paradigm.

And this is where I see medicine devolving from the professional who refuses to harm patients, to the technician who supplies market demand and justifies every procedure by the excuse, "It's what he or she wants."

It ain't good.