Well, our legislature might suck here in Missouri, but our Cardinals sure don’t! Congratulations to the 2011 World Series Champions! I’m not a big baseball fan, myself, but even I couldn’t help getting a little excited (not a word I generally associate with baseball) after watching game 6 Thursday night. Game 7 wasn’t nearly as exciting, but I sure loved … Read More
A Defection of Pro-Life Leadership in the Missouri Legislature
Last week, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed into law an economic development bill that, among other things, provides public money and/or tax incentives for new technology businesses, including businesses engaged in human life sciences research, without effective language to prevent funding of abortion-related services, human cloning, or embryonic stem cell research. The bill was passed this way by an otherwise … Read More
Cloning Liars and My “Prejudice” Against Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Yesterday morning I testified at a MO House committee hearing in favor of a bill placing pro-life protections on some life science research grants (so that the money cannot go toward human cloning/ESCR). During testimony, two cloning advocates spoke up in opposition to the bill – one a major cloning lobbyist for Washington University near St. Louis. That two cloning … Read More
Minnesota Seeks Ban on Human Cloning
Lawmakers in Minnesota have proposed legislation to make human cloning illegal throughout the state. Good for them! I hope they have better success than we did in Missouri a few years ago (see this post for an explanation of that disaster). It is a common misconception among Americans that our country prohibits human cloning. But, then, most people also think … Read More
MLK and Human Rights, the Battle Continues
Today we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who died fighting (peacefully) for the rights of those who were treated as less than human because of the color of their skin. Today, the battle for the freedom and the rights of all human beings is far from over and the threats to the dignity of the human person are only … Read More
IVF: “The Younger Sister of Eugenics”
Some bishops in Poland aren’t afraid to tell it like it is: (Reuters) – Bishops of Poland’s influential Roman Catholic Church have branded in vitro fertilization (IVF) “the younger sister of eugenics” in a letter aimed at swaying lawmakers ahead of a parliamentary debate. But their intervention, two weeks after the church condemned the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize … Read More
Would Human Clones Have Souls?
Catholic apologist Tim Staples gives an excellent answer to the question “do clones have souls?” (h/t The Deeps of Time): Once an embryo has been created through Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (the cloning process) using a human egg and human somatic cell, a new, living organism comes into being that is biologically, genetically human (note: this has been done before … Read More
New Cloning Movie: Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go starring Keira Knightley is supposed to be released this October: Near as I can tell, it’s about a group of friends from an English “boarding school” who find out that they are actually clones who were born and raised for providing organ transplants. Kind of similar to The Island, maybe? Though, judging by the trailer, significantly … Read More
Sure as Sh**
Commenting on Bill Tammeus’ unscientific defense of human cloning at the National Catholic Reporter, Rebecca Taylor says: If SCNT, the same technique that created Dolly, makes cloned sheep embryos, then it sure as sh** makes human embryos when used with human eggs and human somatic cells. (Sorry I am really angry!) Don’t worry, Rebecca, you are not the only angry … Read More
Splice **Update**
h/t to Jill Stanek on Facebook for the heads up on this human/animal hybrid sci-fi/horror movie out this weekend. I hadn’t heard anything about it until today and I’m going to try to see it sometime next week – if I can get my little sister, a horror movie fan (which, with very few exceptions, I am not usually) to … Read More