Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The embryo question

Top blogging by Chicken Yoghurt:

The fact that the science of hybrid human-animal embryos, if successful, could mean the end to suffering for thousands if not millions seems to have passed many people by. Lost, as they are, in febrile daydreams of Tonto the Elephant Boy lumbering through the land or all those tiny little bags of chemical chance winging their way to heaven, the application and potential benefits don’t get a look in.

It’s certainly a consideration missing from man of God Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s sermon. Jesus went around curing the sick. Under this management? Live with it.

So much hand-wringing over these embryos; so many tears shed over these collections of cells, most of which would never become humans, could never become humans, destined to be destroyed in a laboratory once an IVF cycle is completed. What's the answer - no IVF? Force couples to carry every single embryo created to term? But it's not about the practicalities of things or the logical conclusions of things; it's about bemoaning the fate of these cells in a lab rather than the people who could be helped to have such a better quality of life through experimentation. Which is fine if you think that way, although I don't happen to.

These [MPs who supported the Iraq war] want to be allowed to vote with their consciences. Where were their consciences on March 18 2003 when the vote was taken to kill real, walking, talking, breathing, laughing human beings? How does an imaginary half-woman half-penguin get more rights than Iraqi children? Would the scientists get more support if their declared their intentions to cluster bomb these embryos?

Depending on which figures you choose to believe or not believe, Iraq casualties are between 100,000 and 650,000. Real human beings, not cells in a lab. Real human beings, with dreams, and families, children and parents, and hopes, and humanity. Real human beings snuffed out, not because of anything they've done other than the bad luck of being in the wrong place in the wrong time.

How can it be so easy to turn a blind eye to this human suffering one minute, then cry your eyes out over some cells in a lab because your medicine man from Rome tells you so?

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