IMO there should be a free vote on this topic as there has been on related issues in the past. I think that human/non human embryo research is a good thing and holds the promise of many benefits but the debate must be wide ranging and all of the scientific and ethical problems have to be examined in a public forum that's not been tainted with the phobias of religious fanatics.


www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/03...bill-89520-20358843/

O'Brien's interference in this debate is unhelpful because he is putting members of the government who happen to be RCs on the spot. This is a bad thing for democracy because voters in future elections may well regard RC candidates with suspicion because they think that they don't have a mind of their own and are in thrall to superstition.

I have no problem with a religious leader giving guidance to his flock
on the application of their faith to the problems of the real world.

However in this instance the Cardinal clearly doesn't understand the
science, and so is actually giving his flock misleading advice. Sadly,
this also means that he is trying to deny the benefits of that science
to the sick.

Robin T Cox wrote:
I have no problem with a religious leader giving guidance to his flock
on the application of their faith to the problems of the real world.

However in this instance the Cardinal clearly doesn't understand the
science, and so is actually giving his flock misleading advice. Sadly,
this also means that he is trying to deny the benefits of that science
to the sick.I fully agree with your comments Robin.
The need to understand how disabling disease and crippling human conditions, needs this additional avenue of research, but only under strict supervision.

Some of these comments are quite appalling. I'm disappointed in yours especially Robin. I'm used to Lev's phobia about people who believe in God.

What you are defending here is the right of scientists (who are NOT going to be strictly supervised incidentally) to do something that we have always been told would NEVER be done! They are now doing just that by mixing the cells of humans and animals. It is obscene and if you think it is in order to dismiss that view as belonging to someone who just "doesn't understand science" or want to help the sick then you aren't listening to the argument. You are also being grossly offensive and patronising. I think that is arrogant of you and I also think it shows a blatant disregard for ethics and for the basic principles and regulations previously associated with such research. There used to be lines that weren't crossed Robin. They have just removed a very, very important line. I would say that no one is "misleading his flock" on that point. Not even slightly. He happens to be speaking the truth. When that last line is gone we are in big trouble.

The creation of new beings for the purpose of research and experimentation is not acceptable to many people and they are not all religious. (Lev, please note!) In discussing this issue with people of all religions and none I have come across as many in the "none" category who are fiercely opposed to this development and who are extremely alarmed by it. (What IS it with the constant attacks on people with beliefs these days anyway?)

What will we call these beings Robin? Presumably they won't have "human" rights once they exist either eh? They are there just to be experimented on and then destroyed after they are "created". Not animal, not human. Not anything really so they don't count. If that's "science" Robin, you can keep it. It is wrong to start mixing cells in this way. We are not talking here about mixing plant life to create exotic new plants to impress other gardeners. We are talking about HUMAN cells.

As for you Lev, back to the usual "religous fanatics" stuff I see. Again I would say that the comments made on this subject are quite disturbing so far given that you all clearly see yourselves as entitled to a view while people like me are to be labelled as unworthy of participation. What fascist outrageous and complete tosh! Fanaticism is clearly something not confined to the group you paint with that label. Your own words betray you as being a bit of a fanatic yourself. I'll pray for you

Clare wrote:
Some of these comments are quite appalling. I'm disappointed in yours especially Robin. I'm used to Lev's phobia about people who believe in God.

Why are the comments any more appalling than the Bishop's? I don't have a phobia about religious people. If people pick a religion from the hundreds on offer and choose to believe in it that's fine by me but please don't tell me they have any sort of moral or ethical superiority to the rest of us.

Clare wrote:
.....mixing the cells of humans and animals. It is obscene...

Now you're just being silly. "Human" and "animal"? We're ALL animals with far more similarities than differences. I don't deny that there are potential hazards in tinkering with genomes but as long as a robust risk assessment is done and precautions are in place I can't see what the fuss is about

Clare wrote:

You are also being grossly offensive and patronising. I think that is arrogant of you and I also think it shows a blatant disregard for ethics and for the basic principles and regulations previously associated with such research. There used to be lines that weren't crossed Robin. They have just removed a very, very important line.

Whose ethics are you talking about? Yours?
Regulations have to change as science progresses and lines are crossed all the time. Otherwise we'd still believe that the sun revolved around the earth like the church said it did in 1614. Galileo was effectively gagged, is that what you want?

Clare wrote:

The creation of new beings for the purpose of research and experimentation is not acceptable to many people and they are not all religious. (Lev, please note!) In discussing this issue with people of all religions and none I have come across as many in the "none" category who are fiercely opposed to this development and who are extremely alarmed by it. (What IS it with the constant attacks on people with beliefs these days anyway?)

There wont be any "beings" just a collection of cell in a tissue culture dish.
Of course lots of people of all faiths and none oppose this development - so what? I'm an atheist but I' not very keen on abortion unless it's necessary.

Clare wrote:

What will we call these beings Robin? Presumably they won't have "human" rights once they exist either eh? They are there just to be experimented on and then destroyed after they are "created". Not animal, not human. Not anything really so they don't count....
We are talking about HUMAN cells.

Make up your mind.

Clare wrote:

As for you Lev, back to the usual "religous fanatics" stuff I see. Again I would say that the comments made on this subject are quite disturbing so far given that you all clearly see yourselves as entitled to a view while people like me are to be labelled as unworthy of participation. What fascist outrageous and complete tosh! Fanaticism is clearly something not confined to the group you paint with that label. Your own words betray you as being a bit of a fanatic yourself. I'll pray for you

Nobody is denying your right to a view. But do remember that your view and that of other religious types has no greater weight just because a loudmouth bishop makes the headlines. It ill becomes an adherent of the Roman Church to brand anybody a fascist. Remember Pius XXII.

There you go Lev, "religious types", you just can't communicate any other way can you? I am NOT a "religious type" I am a person and my thoughts are my own. I am not taught how to think or told what to think, got it? I am also more than capable of putting my case whereas you just have a go at people simply because they happen to believe in God.

There is nothing in my previous post that is silly and for you to suggest that human beings are no different from animals proves just how very silly YOU are! And no I'm not talking about my ethics. I'm talking about assurances given that science would NEVER be permitted to experiment in this way. So stop twisting the facts to suit your own prejudiced argument.

And finally if you want to have a go at people with spiritual beliefs being "told" what to think why don't you have a go at a Government that refuses to allow a free vote on this issue. That is surely telling MPs how to vote is it not? That is threatening them with punishment (for there will be a three line whip on the issue) if they don't vote for this Bill. Let's hear it for democracy eh?

Before pursuing this matter further, it is important to read what
Cardinal O-Brien is actually saying. The full text of his sermon
can be found here:

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill...cardinal-stop-t.html

Probably the key part of that sermon, as far as the current debate is
concerned, is the following section:

The beliefs which we have previously held, and the standards by which we have lived throughout our lives and by which Christians have lived for the past 2000 years are being challenged at this present time in ways in which they have never been challenged before!

The norm has always been that children have been born as the result of the love of man and woman in the unity of a marriage. That belief has of course long been challenged. However I believe that a greater challenge than that even faces us – the possibility now facing our country is that animal – human embryos be produced with the excuse that perhaps certain diseases might find a cure from these resulting embryos.

What I am speaking of is the process whereby scientists create an embryo containing a mixture of animal and human genetic material. If I were preaching this homily in France, Germany, Italy, Canada or Australia I would be commending the government for rightly banning such grotesque procedures.

However here in Great Britain I am forced to condemn our government for not only permitting but encouraging such hideous practices.

Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has given the Government’s support to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which, more comprehensively, attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular Bill.

With full might of government endorsement, Gordon Brown is promoting a Bill that will allow the creation of animal – human hybrid embryos. He is promoting a Bill which will add to the 2.2 million human embryos already destroyed or experimented upon. He is promoting a Bill allowing scientists to create babies whose sole purpose will be to provide, without consent of anyone, parts of their organs or tissues. He is promoting a Bill which will sanction the raiding of dead peoples tissue to manufacture yet more embryos for experimentation. He is promoting a Bill which denies that a child has a biological father, allows tampering with birth certificates, removing biological parents, and inserting someone altogether different. And this Bill will indeed be used to further extend the abortion laws.

Further it seems that Labour MPs are not to be allowed a free vote on this Bill and consequently are denied the right to vote according to their conscience – a right which all other political parties have allowed.

This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. In some other European countries one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal. I can say that the government has no mandate for these changes: they were not in any election manifesto, nor do they enjoy widespread public support. The opposite has indeed taken place – the time allowed for debate in Parliament and indeed in the country at large has been shockingly short. One might say that in our country we are about to have a public government endorsement of experiments of Frankenstein proportion – without many people really being aware of what is going on.

Many excuses are being made for this present legislation, particularly that cures will soon be found for various diseases which afflict mankind through this legislation. Rather the opposite seems to be the case when cells required for ongoing investigation into cures through medical science can take place through cells obtained in other ways from human bodies and certainly not through the creation of animal – human embryos.

I contend that matters of such concern to the peoples of our countries should not be left quite simply to a vote by members of Parliament. Along with my colleagues in England and Wales and my brother Bishops here in Scotland I would maintain that the establishment of a single permanent statutory national bioethics commission is something which would indeed bring considerable benefits. As I indicated recently in a letter to the Prime Minister: “This would appear to be the only way that the issues raised by the swiftly developing biotechnology industry can be adequately discussed and weighed up in a body which engages with public concerns and informs the government and parliament on matters which will continue to raise such unimagined and complex ethical questions

Given that the issue under consideration is so serious, one might have
expected such a senior church leader to have addressed it with a little
less passion and a little more compassion, particularly for the sick.
It seems to me that it is strange to bewail the fate of imaginary
babies formed as human/animal hybrids, and at the same time to spare
so little time in the sermon for consideration of the suffering of
real sick people. However, given the obvious strength of the Cardinal's
feelings on this matter, perhaps his intemperate language is understandable.

He is attacking the creation of 'human-animal embryos' in stem cell
research, which is not new for those of the pro-life persuasion.
But he does not say at what stage a bunch of cells is to be regarded
as an 'embryo'.

The reader will find an interesting and sympathetic review of this
controversial issue here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

Having read the Cardinal's sermon, and in view of the science, I
stand by my view that the Cardinal is misinformed and misguided.

Clare wrote:
There you go Lev, "religious types", you just can't communicate any other way can you? I am NOT a "religious type" I am a person and my thoughts are my own. I am not taught how to think or told what to think, got it? I am also more than capable of putting my case whereas you just have a go at people simply because they happen to believe in God.

There is nothing in my previous post that is silly and for you to suggest that human beings are no different from animals proves just how very silly YOU are! And no I'm not talking about my ethics. I'm talking about assurances given that science would NEVER be permitted to experiment in this way. So stop twisting the facts to suit your own prejudiced argument.

And finally if you want to have a go at people with spiritual beliefs being "told" what to think why don't you have a go at a Government that refuses to allow a free vote on this issue. That is surely telling MPs how to vote is it not? That is threatening them with punishment (for there will be a three line whip on the issue) if they don't vote for this Bill. Let's hear it for democracy eh?

I don't use the term "religious type" pejoratively because I'm an atheist type. Little of my post was "having a go" at those who choose to believe in religion. Physiologically humans are animals; it's the fact that we've got much bigger brains that sets us apart from any other species.
The proposed experiments will produce cells that might have small parts of their DNA that come from a non human source and they will be allowed to multiply only to a limited extent. Anybody who imagines that viable zygotes consisting of half human half animal gametes will be created just doesn't understand what's being proposed.
Note the first sentence of my opening post of this thread.

Could the Cardinal please explain what he understands by this comment.
"This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life."

Excuses, or expanding our knowledge into human suffering and its alleviation?
"Many excuses are being made for this present legislation, particularly that cures will soon be found for various diseases which afflict mankind through this legislation."

The Cardinal is assuming a knowledge of science and research that he does not possess, in the following.
"Rather the opposite seems to be the case when cells required for ongoing investigation into cures through medical science can take place through cells obtained in other ways from human bodies and certainly not through the creation of animal – human embryos."

Frankly, I would not expect even a senior Catholic religious leader
to be much of an expert in human reproductive biology.

Frankly I wouldn't expect posters here to have an in depth knowledge of transgenic embryonic research. How many of us are geneticists? As for the Cardinal's opinion - they are of no more weight than mine - but I agree with his position - this research is obscene.

I chaired a research advisory (ethics) committee for some years and have met highly trained clinicians who had as much humanity as a dead fish. Ethics and morality are alien concepts to these folks. That's why institutions and governments have ethics committees - to restrain these folks from fully exercising their macabre interests.

The debate is not about the RC church and Cardinal O'Brien but about the ethics and morality, the perils and the danger, that this research represents.

Finally, people's positions on all issues are informed by their belief system - whether communist, capitalist, atheist or catholic. To disregard someone's opinion out of hand because of their affiliation to a creed is a poor substitute for debate.

To say simply that 'we're ALL animals'...is too ridiculous for words. Clare....you're wasting your time discussing this matter with those who are NOT Spiritually aware! 'nuff said.

robbiedoo58 wrote:
To say simply that 'we're ALL animals'...is too ridiculous for words. Clare....you're wasting your time discussing this matter with those who are NOT Spiritually aware! 'nuff said.

It's an indisputable fact that humans are, in physiological terms, animals. We share the same biochemistry and molecular processes that any other mammal has. What does "spiritually aware" mean exactly?

Firstly Robbie it isn't necessary to be "spiritually aware" in order to tell right from wrong. I know good people who have no religion but they have values, standards and morals. Many decent people are horrified - regardless of whether they are in possession of spiritual beliefs or not - at what is being proposed here and it is the case that assurances on the subject of such experimentation were given a long time ago. We were told it would never be allowed. Even in the secular world many are astounded by this development and opposed to it for ethical reasons because for them the mixing of human cells with anything else is simply not acceptable. They are happy with boundaries when it comes to science and especially when it comes to this specific type of proposal. The trouble is other secularists get them a very bad name being as they are utterly detached from the idea that possessing values of any description are an affront to "freedom" and something only "religious types" bang on about. Whose freedom? You may well ask for it appears only they should have the freedom to speak! I have to ask are those people not "extremists" in the true sense of the word and a danger to the rest of us too believing as they do that anything goes when it comes to science, all in the name of "progress"? Actually, wasn't Hitler into this sort of experimentation? My haven't we come far! Not.

Lev, it is recognised that man is superior in design to animals in all ways and is therefore different entirely. For you to dismiss that accepted fact just to further your own argument (weak as it is already) beggars belief. I don't resent your right to a view incidentally but what I do resent strongly is the fact that you use your obvious problem with religion in order to rubbish views I hold as an individual and which I have reached on my own by researching the subjects I feel most strongly about. I resent your dismissal of that by labelling me a "religious type" and I find such an approach obnoxious. Any view I hold is a considered one and you should respect that rather than trash my views in the manner you do frequently. But I accept such attacks as they are becoming the norm these days in various forums, and nowhere more rabid than on the Herald sites, where the word "religion" sends those masquerading as intellectuals but who are in fact just bigots into a complete frenzy. They know who they are. They are there currently complaining about a Cardinal daring to speak on this issue, insulting him in every manner imaginable and ignoring the fact that Keith O'Brien is no fool, he is in fact a highly educated, intelligent and very informed man. But that doesn't matter to the bigots or the secular brigade. It isn't about listening to the man its about trashing him simply for who he is. Those same people have nothing to say about the head of a government who has told his MPs they will do what they are told when it comes to a vote on this issue. They call that democracy. If it wasn't so tragic one could laugh at them.

Robin. It is clear that many expect very little from a senior catholic leader. More fool them I say. Keith O'Brien knows his stuff let me assure you and he is entitled to express his view. Again I have to say that the tendency here to dismiss his views simply because of who he is is quite shocking. It is also clear that those on this particular thread who are deciding what the Cardinal knows and doesn't know are the ones lacking in knowledge, not to mention respect. For how disrespectful is it to dismiss a view with those well-ken't words, "Och, you just don't understand." Again I would repeat, wasn't Hitler into all this stuff in his quest to create the Master Race? And what did he do to those who opposed him? Oh yeah, he sent them to the gas chamber along with the Jews he despised!

Scunny, great post.