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Two Christian groups have launched a legal battle against a decision to allow university researchers to create human-animal embryos.
The Christian Legal Centre (CLC) and Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core) said they had filed papers at the high court seeking…the licences to be revoked so that no further experimentation is carried out.
Embryos created in this way would not be implanted in women or female animals to create young, but would be used to harvest stem cells for experimental purposes before being destroyed.
Backers regard the bill as crucial in making advances in treating and preventing conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease.
The point of hybrid research is cost-savings and expediting research.
Not that such reasoning will ever halt superstition and fear.
#30–ECA==so you don’t want milk or cow meat unless it is so expensive you can’t afford it. OK. That’s perfectly find for “you.”
Now how about the rest of us. Can we eat affordable food that we like, or do we have to do what you want==and will you use the power of the gubment to force your views on us, or let the market control this activity as it is doing now?
#31 – bobbo,
I have to say that I’m with ECA on this one. I’m not so concerned about the length of life granted to the cows or even calves in the case of veal. But, I am concerned about ethical treatment during that life and during the slaughtering process.
Currently, our major meat industry is extremely inhumane. It doesn’t need to be to keep these products affordable.
We can afford to give them a bit more space. Other countries of the world do. We can afford to slow down the slaughter houses enough to make sure the animal is truly dead before sawing off the legs and otherwise hacking it to bits.
The reason it appears that we cannot at the moment is because we don’t have mid-level options. We do have free range chicken that is not organic. But, to get properly treated beef, milk, and pork, one must go organic. That does cost a lot more.
So, with a very minor increase in cost, or possibly no increase when you look at how much less antibiotics you can pump into the animals when they have enough space, we can afford to have decently treated companion animals to milk and to eat.
And, please avoid veal in this country until the whole veal box thing is done away with … and I don’t mean my veal box (cubicle) at work.
bobbo & ECA,
Hey wait! How did we get this far off topic? I thought we were talking about religious nut jobs. Are we now talking about milking and slaughtering them? That would seem excessive.
#33–Scott–it would be even further off topic to discuss how we got off topic. I would rather remain more true to the topic, by remaing simply off topic.
To that end==you are being uncharacteristically compromising today. Willing to let others get protein at affordable price PLUS some small amount for minor adjustments for ethical treatment. Excellent.
I agree the actual killing should be as humane as possible. I don’t think you can let pigs roam wild and get any offset in the cost by savings in antibiotics, but I haven’t reviewed any studies on that. Why is free range more ethical than cooped up? If you have no problem with harvesting these “companion animals” (who has a chicken, or cow as a companion??) for food, then the cooped up versions of these animals would allow for millions more of them to experience life for their granted term?
I have watched these animals closely. They don’t read newspapers ripped up and part of their feed–never a glance. They never look at the tv while being milked==not even the Early Morning Farm shows. No–I think your notion of self actualization for these animals in the wild is COMPLETELY fanciful.
The only debateable point, which you don’t raise, is how similar to these caged animals we humans are ourselves. The analogy fits so closely, its hard to deny the solutions of Soylent Green.
#30, ECA, & #32, Scott,
I’m with you on this.
The religious right makes loud pronouncements on the cruelty of abortion and stem cells yet cares nothing how cruelly their dinner was treated. I for one do not believe that sheep and cattle are just for relieving sexual desires. The religious right should take the time to smooch a little with their partners before and after doing to their farm friends what they do to their TV audience.
(Geeze, I added some hamburg to my spaghetti sauce last night. I wonder if some sick holy roller was out playing around with Heifer – B16935-07-5AOK before …)
#34 – bobbo,
Most animals will go completely insane if kept in too-close-quarters. Humans are the only animals to deliberately do this to ourselves. In Manhattan, we pay top-dollar to do so.
But, as evidence of the cruelty, chicken farms remove beaks so that the chickens won’t kill each other. Pig farms remove tails because the pigs, when kept too close, bite each others tails.
And, yes, disease spreads much more when animals are in tight dirty quarters. So, they use the same antibiotics that they later give to us and hope like hell they’ll still work.
#36—Scott,===have you spent any time with your companions, or just photographed them from afar??
Chickens are too stoopid to go insane. Any animal appears more willey when not in a cage, but that is all illusion.
BTW–since we do pay top dollar to be caged ourselves and most caged-ones think it’s a good deal as long as the cable signal is strong==why not do it with our even more clueless bretheren.
No==your overidentification with Disney characters needs a more objective support rather than just your private emotions however they arose.
How about some version of this===we measure our own humanity by how we treat the other species. That indeed I think is most of the rationale for humane slaughtering techniques. So, take the same standard to the living conditions. Some animals do herd–cows, pigs, others less so like chickens. But the chickes aren’t as smart as cows, and pigs are nearly genius. = = = = nope, not working. Its still an argument in a vacuum. I feel uncomfortable causing cruelty to animals. I feel that cruelty when I see animals not quite dead sawed up into piece–therefore and only because of my “feelings”, slaughtering and processing should be humane==FOR MY EMOTIONAL NEEDS, not the animals. I just don’t get any bad vibe from seeing chickens couped up, nor cows or pigs. I suspect most good folks agree with me and we know of course that corporate livestock agrees with that position, so it appears on this issue you have no objective argument and the emotional one is true for too few people.
Democracy rules==which by the way, you are also an advocate of?????
#27 – in a crowd, I am often heard to say
I have a hard time imagining you being in a crowd.
#38–OFTLO==your last gibe was better, but this one is not bad.
OK, substitute “mob” for crowd. I was just protecting my inner child. So, just last Friday at Happy Hour, the bartender cut me off of “Final Round, Gentlement” and I respnded “That’s not relevant.”
Everything I post here is the Gods honest truth, so help me God, for ever and ever.
#36 – Most animals will go completely insane if kept in too-close-quarters. Humans are the only animals to deliberately do this to ourselves. In Manhattan, we pay top-dollar to do so.
Humans CHOOSE to live in luxury condos or swanky urban apartments… and they are not shoved together in any way analogous to animals cooped by the thousands in industrial farms.
Further, all this discussion of ethics and humanity for animals is bordering on PETA-riffic lunacy.
Simply put, the human animal lacks compassion as a native trait. A small percentage of the population will learn compassion, but the majority of the species remains primal despite the appearance of manners (when they bother to show manners).
If you want to convince the masses to treat animals better, appeal to their survival instinct. Industrial farming techniques is creating unhealthy foods that are slowly killing us. The trouble is that despite all the evidence, all the mountains of articles written about it, all the “hard hitting” expose’ bits, humans remain an absurdly stubborn animal, clinging madly to whatever they were taught first and rarely actually seeing the truth through logic and reason.
Hence, we have religions. We also have people who think their food is safe. And none of them care a bit what sort of Abu Ghraib-like torture their hamburger endured.
I’m no different. I’m a misanthrope. I like one in every ten people I meet, hate two in ten, and be nothing short of ambivalent toward the remaining seven… and that one I “like”, well, we’ll see how long that lasts.
Yet, I still thrive on crowds and cities, and activity, and would go stark raving mad in a suburb, let alone the deafening silence and blinding blackness of the barren wasteland others describe as “rural”.
#40 – OFTLO,
Humans CHOOSE to live in luxury condos or swanky urban apartments… and they are not shoved together in any way analogous to animals cooped by the thousands in industrial farms.
True. Very true. But, I still like the Heinlein quote about doing it to ourselves.
Further, all this discussion of ethics and humanity for animals is bordering on PETA-riffic lunacy.
On this, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I am NOT a PETA lunatic, unless it’s this one PETA.
But, I do think we owe the animals some degree of respect if we are to consider ourselves a moral species. The observable fact that we as a species lack compassion does nothing to justify the lack of compassion. Those of us that can recognize our moral obligations have a further obligation to point them out and do something about it, at least to the best of our limited abilities.
… humans remain an absurdly stubborn animal, clinging madly to whatever they were taught first and rarely actually seeing the truth through logic and reason.
Way too true. I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s how we do stupid shit like performing the same experiment every year for 10,000 years seeing it fail every year for 10,000 years and still repeating it again for the 10,001st time.
On that, I refer to the common belief that producing more food will reduce starvation. For 10,000 years, we have stepped up food production. For 10,000 years we have observed that not only is the number of starving people in the world increasing, but the percentage of the world’s humans that are starving is increasing as well. And, yet, when we think about what to do about starving masses, the only thing we think of (if it can be described as thought) is to grow more food.
How about birth control?
How about growing less food?
Experiments with rats have shown that growing less food, slowly over time rather than all at once, reduces population fairly painlessly. Perhaps this would work for humans as well. How about trying something new for a year rather than trying what we know will not work?
Yet, I still thrive on crowds and cities, and activity, and would go stark raving mad in a suburb, let alone the deafening silence and blinding blackness of the barren wasteland others describe as “rural”.
Go figure. Me too. That means that the two most misanthropic people on this blog both thrive in crowded areas. How does that work?
I do, however, go to the most remote locations I can on vacations. But, even so, I wouldn’t want to live in those locations.
#37 – bobbo,
have you spent any time with your companions, or just photographed them from afar??
I rarely photograph farm animals. I agree on your assessment of their intelligence. However, even chickens show strong evidence of mistreatment when crammed into small spaces, hence the afformentioned beak removal. That’s why, even though many of us like to live stacked on top of each other, OFTLO is right about us not being crammed in that tightly. And, the animals in our care do not like it. And, they show it in no uncertain terms.
Further, there is a real health issue. When animals are so close together, they spread disease more easily, as do we. This means they need to be pumped full of the same antibiotics we use. Unfortunately, overuse of these antibiotics creates drug resistant bacteria. So, when we take the antibiotics, they may not work.
As you accurately point out:
we measure our own humanity by how we treat the other species.
So, let’s see if we can score a bit better on our humanity, regardless of our differing motives in doing so.
Democracy rules. We don’t have it now. More importantly though, do the animals get a vote? It used to be that certain races of humans didn’t. Perhaps now we should try to at least take animal emotions into account. Anyone who has a dog or cat knows that they do indeed feel, unless the owner is a heartless bastard of a behaviorist psychologist, of course.
As for an objective argument, I don’t think one exists either way. This is not an objective discussion. It is an emotional one. So, I’ll grant your point on that without conceding the argument.
#41 – But, I do think we owe the animals some degree of respect if we are to consider ourselves a moral species.
So do I… I’m just saying that it isn’t that argument that will win over the other meat sacks.
The ends usually justify the means, so if you want animals to be treated better – and I do – then you have to appeal to everyone else’s selfish interests and demonstrate how humane treatment offers them an advantage.
I believe it best never to discuss positive moral and ethical issues with those who don’t understand either one. It’s why I don’t argue with clergy.
31,
Bobbo…
COW in dairy are NOT used for MEAT.
Its SUPPOSED to be against the law.
and it should be against the law useing 2 lbs of CHEESE on a pizza…You cant taste ANYTHING, except the cheese.
Farmers are getting about $1 per gallon..
After processing, its 1/2 water that you get at the store for Full milk. 2% milk is 1/2 water again(1/4 milk).
THEN you are willing to pay $3-4 for milk per gallon, and $5 for <1/2 gallon of Ice cream??
And the Dairy industry keeps Upping the amount of milk 1 cow GIVES, and lowing the number of cattle…Can you figure out HOW??
they also take Cows that arent diseased and PUT them back into the FOOD for the cattle.
And to your point of other meat animals, and organic…WHAT are the costs of Medicines, and chemicals to a COW, over ORGANIC.. I know a rancher that will cut and wrap a SIDE OF BEEF for you for less then $3 per POUND, ORGANIC…BECAUSE he gets LESS when he sells to the Big corps for the meat.
Let me add..
There are FEW animals that POOP where they eat, thats why the HEAd is in the front, but even LESS sleep in the same AREA as they Pooped, thats why the BATHROOM has a door on it. Take an animal thats DESIGNED to wonder over a range, and then SHOVE it into an area thats 1/100 that size. Have you ever LOOKEd at the ground in a dairy? its DIRT. Its that way because they CANT get to the grass. Even seen open pasture grazing of cattle/cows? THERES STILL GRASS. Take 1000 cows and then place them in an area about 6-12 city Block area…IT ISNT ENOUGH.
#43 – OFTLO,
You have a point about how to convince people. You are probably more persuasive than I am. It doesn’t make either of us wrong, however. I’ll keep trying my way, you keep trying your way. If each of us convinces even one person, then the blogging was worth it.
#45 – I think blogs are where people go to tell other people what they should think, and not to listen to opposing views. It’s why Fox news has an audience…
But we obviously agree on most things, and I would agree that if you want to spread a message and convince a lot of people of something, you should use many different methods to get the message out.
#46 – OFTLO,
I think blogs are where people go to tell other people what they should think, and not to listen to opposing views.
Damn. And here I was listening to you …
#47 – Hahahaha…
No one should ever listen to me 🙂
#48 – OFTLO,
So why do comments like yours in #48 only seem to come from the people that make sense?
#46 & 47,
Even if you agree on 99/100 things, you will still argue and try to persuade the other person on that last item. That is human nature.
Blogs, LIKE THIS, are for gathering ideas, and a voice on what OTHERS THINK.
this only works IF’ you open your mind and listen.
the problems come when SOME cant explain THEIR side, very well, and their argument goes in the Dump.