From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 12 2001 - 23:30:43 MDT
Damien wrote:
> Those embryos cannot be nurtured, brought to term and born as baby humans
> without immense scientific and technological intervention. Now that
> nuclear transfer is possible, the nuclear DNA and associated factors in any
> skin cell has the same possibility of becoming a separate human if known
> technologies are employed. Should we stop washing our faces to stop this
> carnage of `potential lives'?
Well, Damien, those technologies are likely to come to pass
(to allow the growth of babies outside the womb) -- so if you
keep the embryos frozen long enough you could "birth" them
someday without the requirement that someone "bear" them.
[Google turns up more than 1000 hits for "artificial womb".]
And of course, you have probably figured out that my long
term forecasts include the ability for the de novo design
of the chromosomes that would manufacture a human. All of
this leads to the fact that we can't dispose of phosphoramidite
reagents used in DNA synthesis because they too have the
possibility of `potential life'.
There is a great cartoon in the making here, as the scientist
goes to put the frozen embryo into the incinerator (because
he has run out of freezer space) and the cells are saying,
"But we're not dead yet" and then as he begins to shave
himself the next morning and his skin cells are slowly
spiraling down into in the sink drain, they are screaming,
"We're not dead yet either!"...
Lets all stand up for DNA rights NOW!...
There's an interesting court case you could try to set up
where you take your frozen embryos to someplace where the
local DA is a religious conservative and then you advertise
in the paper offering free coffee and doughnuts for those people
who want to watch you incinerate the embryos with a flame
thrower across from the Church parking lot on Sunday morning...
Hmmmmm.... What about RoboWars in which the goal is to find
the most ghastly way to dispose of the embryos...
I think I need to get out more...
Robert
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