Human-animal hybrid ban sought at Louisiana session

5 posts / 0 new

Mon, 2009-04-20 19:07

Snuckles

So does this mean producing artificial insulin would become illegal in Louisiana?

Quote:
BATON ROUGE -- Legislation that would prohibit scientists in the state from creating human-animal hybrids for experimentation -- believed to be the first such ban proposed in the nation -- has been filed for debate at the lawmaking session that opens April 27.

Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, has filed Senate Bill 115 on behalf of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Conference lobbyist Danny Loar said the bill is designed to be a "pre-emptive strike" against scientists who might want to mix "human and animal cells in a Petri dish for scientific research purposes. . . . It is becoming more of an issue globally."

Read it [url=http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/humananimal_hybrid_ban_sought....

Mon, 2009-04-20 19:28

Maysie

Damn those mermaid-hating Lousianians.

Mon, 2009-04-20 19:52

ElizaQ

Without even clicking on the link I figured this must have something to do with something religious and likely related to something to do with stem cell research. I don't know enough about the science behind what the hell they seem to be talking about and pre-emptively banning. From the article I'm not sure if they know what the hell they're talking about. It's hard to tell if that's the article writers fault or the Bill itselfs fault that makes writing about it difficult.

Anyways in the comment section someone sent and email to Sen. Martiny who file the Bill on behalf of the Catholic Archbishop and posted the apparent reply he got back...."The bill has just one purpose---preventing any increase in embryonic stem-cell research on human embryos. England has passed laws authorizing this practice & I (& the Catholic church) am against it. It's a simple bill on which I expect little if any opposition."

So yeah, I guess it's just another ignorant (creative??) attempt to fight against stem cell research with a whole lot of talk about the potential for scary human animal creatures to enact fear against the evils of science or something. At least this one sure has a whole lot of humor in it. The comments below the article are a much better read then the article itself.

A few of my favorites:

"This is but ugly stupid. Louisiana is in the middle of a budget crisis and this dumb bell comes up with something like that is not a problem, won't be a problem for years, it is going to divert attention from important items, and he comes up with it now. The problem is that we already have humans that mixed animal and human cells and those cells escaped and got elected to the legislature."

"...and I was so close to finishing my manbearpig project."

"How about a ban on creating religion/government hybrids...that combination is more deadly for Louisiana than a whole army of molemen created by evil madmen in the futuristic labs of Kenner.

I'm pretty sure with Biologists already boycotting our state due to our disbelief in science education, we will not be creating any mermaids around here ant time soon anyway.

What the heck is wrong with Archbishop Hughes? One can only wish he was more interested in preventing Pries/Boy hybrids...that would've been a socially helpful use of his time. Get your religion away from my laws or I'll invent a piranha baby to eat your flesh. "

Mon, 2009-04-20 21:21

torontoprofessor

There is an article on animal-human hybrids in the National Geographic News, here. According to this article (written in 2005), "Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo." Interesting.

Wed, 2009-04-22 17:43

Feather Sky

Before everyone assumes that the motivation is confused religious hicks, there is another side to this.

Currently, there is a process called xenotransplantation. They add human DNA to pigs so that the pigs develop different body parts that are more compatible with humans, so that they can then 'harvest' (aka murder) the pig so that they can take the organ.

Now, some of you may not see a problem at all. However, we are creating life forms that are more and more human that we are simply using as shells to extract various parts for the 'real' humans.

The saddest part is that if there weren't some human element to these hybrids, no one would care. The world doesn't care how we murder animal life on this planet.