Thursday, April 23, 2009

Mad Scientist, Secret Lab, Clones! Creepy Creeperson, M.D. is Back.

Did you guys read the latest from Dr. Zavos, the mad scientist hell bent on making cloned children? Yesterday he claimed he’s already cloned 14 human embryos and put 11 of them into the wombs of four women who wanted to give birth to cloned babies! The cells? Yeah, culled from dead children. Apparently grieving parents are desperate enough to do almost anything. This is total movie material, including the fact that he’s operating out of a secret lab, suspected to be in the Middle East where there’s no ban on cloning.

Why would a parent want a developmentally challenged version of a previous child to the tune of more than $45,000? Why not just have another child naturally? It seems the easiest way for Dr. Zavos to get test-cases is to prey upon parents who cannot get beyond their grief. Is this ethical?

One of my favorite freelance clients is the Women’s Bioethics Project, a think tank in Seattle that focuses on making sure women don’t get hosed in the policy making process. Let’s face it; almost all biotechnology issues have to do with women yet the majority of the people making laws about biotechnology are olde white guys but. Having hair sprouting from your ears does not necessarily make you wise, sometimes it just make you crotchety, shortsighted, and misogynistic. (Color me jaded.) Anyway, if you are interested in women’s rights with regard to medicine and biotechnology, check out the Women’s Bioethics Project. Interesting stuff.

7 comments:

Wyman Stewart said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PJ Hoover said...

Wow. I'm speechless. What a bizarre world we live in.

PurpleClover said...

Wyman-

You asked: By the way, what evidence do you have that Dr. Zavos is working out of the Middle East?And then you proceeded to rant. Christy was only paraphrasing the words of the article's author. She wasn't making that assumption.

But before that you said: In fact, women often go for men who treat them the worse.Just curious, where's your evidence?

:)

Christy Raedeke said...

Wyman, thanks for your thoughts! I think I may have misrepresented the Women's Bioethics Project--it is non-partisan but pro-science. In fact, they warn that if we ban reproductive cloning worldwide it might negatively impact positive uses of other types of cloning. Direct quote from WBP blog:

"Before we support a worldwide ban on cloning, we need to carefully examine the ethical language used and be sure it reflects the common good. We must watch carefully as human dignity is employed to ban human reproductive cloning, for it can set the stage for banning other reproductive technologies such as IVF, genetic testing and genetic modification as well as therapeutic cloning."

On a personal level I am just creeped out by people who want to clone their dead children. This has nothing to do with WBP policy.

Anonymous said...

Intresting debates going on here. Your link to the WBP didn't open for me, so I'll google it. I can't imagine losing a child, but I feel I might do ANYTHING to retain some portion of them. Much food for thought and ethics. As for the Middle East part, knowing you, I am sure you meant no politicism or racism in the comment.
CAM

Little Ms J said...

This is severely disturbing.

Wyman Stewart said...
This comment has been removed by the author.