Talk politics.

The First Synthetic Human Embryos Now Exist

But they immediately raise serious ethical questions.



Here's the short version:
“They are embryo models, but they are very exciting because they are very looking similar to human embryos and very important path towards discovery of why so many pregnancies fail, as the majority of the pregnancies fail around the time of the development at which we build these embryo-like structures.”

Great stuff - go science! Also, human stem cell research offers incredible life extending possibilities. Science needs the freedom to execute free of the religious rhetoric that has held critical research back. Christopher Hitchens spoke eloquently of this during his cancer battle years back.

Of course there's the question about ethical boundaries being transgressed in the pursuit of this organ transplantation technology. Creating living animals (and humans in particular) for use as “organ transplant feedstock “ strikes many as problematic.

Last year I watched the results on the news on this vote in Austin on abortion, which was won by pro-choice voters with a 50% margin. The response from a pro-life voter was devastation because it was against her religion and her feelings.

I think feelings are good to have as they point you to a moral dilemma, which ideally you can then rationally think through to come to the right conclusion in terms of your dilemma, and the implications of your decision about that and the effect of that on other people's fundamental rights.

So let's not kill science like this prematurely.