Paging Dr. Frankenstein? The Human-Hybrid Debate
Daily Galaxy: Genetic Engineering Louisiana Senator Danny Martiny is filing senate bill 115 on behalf of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops — indicating that he’s fuzzier on that silly “separation of church and state” thing than a kitten in a dryer that’s been struck by lightning. The bill would forbid the use of stem cells to create human/animal hybrids, so it’s basically the usual religious “NO!” reaction to stem cells, except applied to something nobody’s even doing. It’s nice to see that they sound just as stupid when they try to think ahead.
This is the first time this issue has come up in the states. A National Conference of State Legislatures spokesperson basically said “They’re doing WHAT? Uh, no, nobody else is even thinking anything like that. Because they have to deal with a real country with genuine problems.” They didn’t add that that’s because no other state has elected lawmakers with demented fears of half-man-half-kitten monsters, but it was pretty heavily implied.
The bill was triggered by the UK’s HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) granting the University of Warwick a license to work with human and pig cells. Work which will only use pig cells to incubate human cells, and is entirely focused on creating only human cells. A large part of the experiment is in fact dedicated to making sure that the pig cells have no effect. Oh, and it’s all to find a cure for a human heart condition and save lives. Which hasn’t stopped every Christian organisation online (and a few Islam ones besides) condemning the work as ungodly tinkering. Seriously, google “pig-human hybrid”, and add every result to your “People who didn’t even read the actual description before getting outraged and can be ignored” list.
Life must be a lot easier when you don’t have to study things, and can operate off a simple “See word GET ANGRY” Hulk algorithm.
Add the fact that these disease model organisms will never contain more living cells than the average sneeze, and you see it’s all an enormous waste of legislative time and taxpayer money. The only people who want human-animal hybrids are all online with eachother already, and don’t venture out into the wild except to make hilariously stupid victimisation claims.
The best bit is how the bill would only ban such research in Louisiana. As if being barred from the Bayou State is a bad thing for academics.
