This saturday-1/16/99 , I a had a chance to listen to Dr. Bernard Nathanson .
He seemed to think that abortion would not be an issue in twenty years. Seems that things will progress beyond that and it might be a non-issue. Seemed to think Prolife woul have its hands full with other life issues. He went into detail about things he has seen and that we are capable of now in this area of reproduction.
* Japanese and Chinese have developed an artifical placenta.
* Mice have been genetically altered to have human testicular cells so that they produce human sperm . That sperm has been used to fertilize human eggs.
* some of those eggsare coming from the ovaries of aborted female fetuses. Notice how the slavery of a nonperson starts. Did this female want her eggs donated? Doesn't matter. Next step is to put in artifical womb !
* have already seen some of the legal ramifications of this manipulation and the altering of accepted manners of biology. The example of that couple who borrowed an egg an used sperm from a donor to make embryos, and then implanted a surragate mother. When the baby was born, all wanted a part of it. Sort of had 8 parents, but court ruled that the child was parentless and put the child foster care.
* S. Korea has been cloning human cells, even though moritorium on it here-but not a ban.
* National Bioethics Commission is stunned at the speed that cloning technology is taking. In 3 years we will have human clone. Nobel Prize winner- Joshua Letterburg ( probably badly misspelled ) has printed that if you havea superior person, the best way to pass on those traits will be to clone, not sexual reproduction.
* Genetic manipulation - no laws concernng this. So can do what ever we want.
* Aging process- Telomere portion on genes gets shorter as cells reproduce. Have used an enzyme to prevent this in the lab and the cells don't age. So soon Somatic Immortality will be acheived.MIT scientist,Gerald Sussman, says that everyone wants to be immortal and this generation will be the last to die.What affect will this have? Will oly certai people be reproducing?
* Genome Project - started in 1990 and was expected to b done about 2005( I think he said). well guess what? they are done identifing the genes. Can now test a cell and tell what color eyes,how tall, what diseases you probably get, emotional tendencies,etc. Who will get this info? Insurance companies? employer? What might be donewith it? forget about discussions about whether to abort multiple births or handicap fetuses.
* Genetic Enhancement- can add better genes, much in the same way they added human testicular cells to mice and have made E. coli bacteria produce human insulin. So now can test fetus and determine how to alter these products of conception. more intelligence? Or less so have grunt workers? Who will decide and who can afford? Who runs our legislatures? What may sway their votes? Will it be done in secret anyway?
* Behavior Genetics- can also choose temperment for certain jobs and prohibit you from some. What role would there be for no 'descrimination"? Remember blacks were descriminated partly because they were considered genetically inferior?
Didn't the German scientists try to formulate a perfect race ( so much for dealing with only the physical world)? At what point would we be a new species? or race ? or caste?What would determine who is a parent??
Rock bottom moralities are being overturned. Is there room for our growing relativism to morality? Since most are afraid to judge and say something is wrong, will this continue unabated? Since most think each should decide for themselves what their truths are, how can this really be stopped. Won't it just be left up to individual choice as to whether or not to use this technology? How can we say it isn't 'right' for the human race?
Instead of man created in God's image, man will be created in Man's image.
Even for those who believe evolution has been great so far, what role will the above have in that process of evolution-since it is based on random chance?
bye carol
Links to other sites on the Web
© 1997 andorian@mailexcite.com
Get your own Free Home Page