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Religion has never been good for our health

By Brian Holden - posted Friday, 15 June 2007


One day DNA will be extracted from a human egg and your DNA injected in as a replacement. The egg will then be stimulated to grow as would an embryo and could become a clone of you if it was implanted into a uterus. But, it won’t get any further than a laboratory culture.

The new egg with your DNA in it will be cultured into a mass of embryonic stem cells. These will be stimulated to become differentiated nerve cells. When grafted into your broken spine they will not be rejected because they are derived from your own DNA.

(Another benefit of therapeutic cloning is in researching inherited disease. Stem cell cultures from the victim can be searched for the trigger which set the disease going in the first place.)

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Who stuck their heads up too high?

Cardinal George Pell is a man of high principle and extraordinary courage - which is half his problem. The other half of his problem is that he has little idea of the fundamentals of science. Put the two halves together and we hear of him threatening Catholic MPs with “consequences” if they vote in favour of the Therapeutic Cloning Bill.

Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen labelled the proposed research “Nazi-like”. Introducing the emotive word “Nazi” into the debate is a cheap shot. There is no comparison between research which sacrifices laboratory-created embryos which are unviable without a uterus and the Nazi research which sacrificed living children.

Finally

What should be straight-forward scientific research has been turned into a mess by the educated but scientifically illiterate supported by a cheer squad of know-nothings.

The, basically silly, ethics debates are only a blip in the graph which relentlessly moves towards a totally technology-dominated existence. By the end of this century, biotech will be redesigning humans. Even the bishops of the next century will be thankful for the biotech which gave them ageless skin.

I am not comfortable attacking institutions loved by their clergy (who are 99 per cent very decent people). Nevertheless, the time has come to put an end to the baloney - for all our sakes.

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About the Author

Brian Holden has been retired since 1988. He advises that if you can keep physically and mentally active, retirement can be the best time of your life.

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