Friday, September 15, 2006

The Future for Missouri's Deceptive "Cloning" Amendment?

The folks responsible for attempting to hoodwink the citizens of the State of Missouri with deception, doublespeak, and outright lies, may be encouraged that, while implantantion in utero of cloned embryos is "banned" in the amendment, there are other sorts of macabre possibilities for them on the horizon.

Notwithstanding the fact that the proponents of embryonic research and killing have redefined a scientific term to be something else for political and monetary purposes as noted here,:

(2) “Clone or attempt to clone a human being” means to implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy that could result in the creation of a human fetus, or the birth of a human being. [Sect 6, "Meanings"]
...the opportunity may exist for demented and diabolical "researchers" to use "artificial wombs" thereby avoiding the restrictions of their new definition of "cloning".

The St. Louis Review has an article today by Jennifer Brinker which brings the future eerily into focus:

It sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie, but using artificial wombs to conduct embryonic stem-cell research may soon be a reality...

Jim Cole, volunteer legal counsel for Missouri Right to Life, has detailed that in a new paper he wrote on the issue. Cole has penned several articles on the possible effects of Amendment 2, the Nov. 7 ballot initiative that seeks to constitutionally protect embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning in Missouri.

"Note well that it [the amendment] says ‘to implant in a uterus,’" said Cole. "An artificial womb is not a uterus."

One such example of using artificial wombs comes from Dr. Hung-Ching Liu of Cornell University’s Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility. Liu and her team of researchers have been working on developing artificial wombs for about the last decade.

According to a 2002 article in The Observer, sister publication to British-based newspaper The Guardian, Liu’s research team removed endometrial cells from wombs and grew layers of them on scaffolds of biodegradable material formed into the interior of a uterus....

"Clearly, an artificial womb that depends on biodegradable scaffolding, the cultivation of endometrial cell layers, the artificial addition of nutrients and hormones and the constant attention of scientists during gestation is not a ‘uterus,’" said Cole.

Amendment 2, he said, only forbids the implantation of cloned embryos into a uterus. Therefore, the proposed amendment would allow the implantation of cloned embryos into these artificial wombs, "where they can be gestated into any stage that scientists have the ability to maintain them," said Cole.

Certainly, one would be safe in assuming that the proponents of the Missouri "Cloning for Killing" amendment knew of this and other research and employed the best legal wordsmiths to develop a legal document which would provide them public funding for all of their ghoulish and morbid "research"...

May God help us in overcoming this hideous attack on the unborn, on life itself, and on ethics and common sense.

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