January 2006

Genetic Ethics and the quest for the perfect child

When I was in Scotland earlier this month, I attended a conference on Pre Natal Genetic testing and diagnosis. Euphemisms run rampent when discussing normal, healthy children and parental rights to use technology to have the best children possible. One prominent physician kept insisting that the parent’s perception of their unborn child should be the […]

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Are you my mother?

P.D. Eastman’s classic children’s book, “Are you my mother?” has always been one of my favorites stories. This poor little baby bird falls out of his nest, while his mother is away catching worms, and goes on a search for her. Each page this cute bird stops and asks other animals, “are you my mother?”. […]

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Saturday night live’s goat boy *again*

While I was in Scotland last week for meetings on human cloning and human commodification, the Scotsman ran a headline, “Scientists set to create human-rabbit hybrid” National Geographic news ran a piece on animal-human hybrids last January which discussed the ethical concerns of produciing chimeras. It is worth reading and following their great links. This […]

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Blogging Resumes

Apologies for my absence. I moved my office then headed off to Scotland for a conference and a series of meetings. My new office no. is 925-828-9123. ShareTweetPinShare

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Leon Kass Interview

Interview conducted by Kathryn Jean Lopez for the national review online, April 5, 2004 On Thursday, the President’s Council on Bioethics issued a its latest report, “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies.” Dr. Leon Kass, head of the commission – who is a medical doctor, a professor on leave from the University of […]

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Human Guinea Pigs?

(for weeklystandard.com) IAN WILMUT, the creator of Dolly the sheep and newly appointeddirector of Edinburgh University’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine,wants to experiment on dying people with embryonic stem cells–eventhough he admits that such potential treatments “have not been properlytested.” Wilmut’s plan, which in essence would use people with terminalneurological conditions as lab rats, is the […]

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Danger Zone

(for nationalreview.com) In the court (and courts) of life and death, a little 11-year-old Massachusetts girl named Haleigh Poutrecould be the next Terri Schiavo. For those who have not heard thetragic story, Haleigh was beaten nearly to death last September,allegedly by her adoptive mother and stepfather. The beating left herunconscious and barely clinging to life. […]

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Wooed

(for nationalreview.com) Between March 2004 and the end of2005, South Korean veterinarian Woo-Suk Hwang rose from relativeobscurity to become the world’s most famous scientist. Hisrise to international renown began when he reported, in the March 12,2004, edition of the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Science,to have created the first cloned human embryos and embryonic-stem-cellline. Hwang’s reputation really […]

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2005 Winners and Losers

Propostion 71 Opponents: Our hats are off to a rag tag team of feminists, environmentalists, progressives, pro-choice and pro-life voices who have stopped Prop. 71 in its tracks. California biotech has yet to see any of the 3 billion dollar’s it was promised. A truly poignant and modern David and Goliath story. United Nations: The […]

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Another Cloning “Breakthrough”

(from the WeeklyStandard.com) In February 2004, Woo–Suk Hwang made world headlines whenhe claimed to have cloned human embryos using a technique calledsomatic cell nuclear transfer, and then to have derived a line of stemcells from the embryos that could be used for medical research.Enthusiasm for this first “successful” experiment in human cloning,published in the prestigious […]

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The CBC 2005 Bioethics Winners and Losers

Proposition 71 Opponents: Our hats are off to a rag tag team of feminists, environmentalists, progressives, pro-choice and pro-life voices who have stopped Prop. 71 in its tracks. California biotech has yet to see any of the 3 billion dollar’s it was promised. A truly poignant and modern David and Goliath story. United Nations: The […]

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