We know from history that fear of death has driven men to do many evil things to their fellows humans. However, some people shudder at your irrationality if you make any such statement in relation to those who would merely harvest stem cells from some already-aborted foetus for therapeutic use in an established human being. And generally, people have yet fewer quibbles with harvesting cells from human embryos no longer needed by fertility clinics. I wonder, however, how far the avatars of such reason will try to justify their pragmatism when/if it evolves in terms of a larger vision or ideology of human recycling:
'Absolutely horrifying’ proposal calls for using aborted babies as organ donors (HT: Gil Bailie)
London, England, Mar 13, 2009 / 04:04 am (CNA).- A leading embryonic stem cell expert in Britain has called for organs from aborted babies to be used in transplants to increase the supply of organs available for donation, drawing criticism from pro-life and Christian groups who called the proposal “absolutely horrifying.”It now becomes clearer for me why it is a point of morality for the religious to believe in a God who resurrects his children in a world to come (or, perhaps, why in many primitive religions significant items of wealth are buried along with the dead). Because if you don't, you may find it difficult to resist making some vision of nature's recycling into a human-centred religion so that you won't see wrong with using some humans, or human parts, to extend other peoples' lives. History teaches that some men, like Aztec or Eugenic priests, will go to great lengths to cannibalize their fellow humans, if it means keeping their dreams for this world alive. What could be the next terrain conquered by the ethic of reduce, reuse, recycle?
Professor Sir Richard Gardner of Oxford University, an advisor to the Royal Society and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, made his comments at an Oxford International Biomedical Center conference, the Daily Mail reports.
Expressing surprise that the possibility has not been considered, he said using fetal tissues for organ transplant is “probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others.”
Experiments in mice, he said, have shown that fetal kidneys grow extremely quickly when transplanted into adult animals.
Using aborted fetuses “is something that could be done but it's not something that's talked about much.”
“It is at least a temporary solution,” he said, also calling for a study into the feasibility of such procedures.
Professor Stuart Campbell, a London obstetrician who argued for the abortion time limit to be lowered, had no ethical objections to the proposal, arguing that many babies were aborted quite late.
“If they are going to be terminated, it is a shame to waste their organs,” he claimed.
“I am sure very few of those on the transplant list would rather die than accept an organ from an aborted fetus,” he told the Daily Mail.
Dr. Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship said the transplants would be immoral because every human being deserves “protection, respect, wonder and empathy.”
Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, called the proposal “absolutely horrifying,” telling the Daily Mail:
“At what stage do you say to the woman who is to have an abortion, ‘Can we have some organs for transplant?’”
'Absolutely horrifying’ proposal calls for using aborted babies as organ donors (HT: Gil Bailie)
1 comment:
My first thought in reading this was "cannibalism." And there it was at the bottom of the post, summing it up perfectly. Organ farming and Nazi medicine should be well past us now, even among Leftists. But the fruit of the poison tree keeps dropping and they wolf it down like gluttons gorging.
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