From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:07:40 -0500
Not sure if anyone out there disagrees with this law, but if so, I 'd be interested in hearing from you.
JDG
http://www.lifenews.com/bio175.html
Pro-life groups say a patent is a government-conferred property right and human beings shouldn't be considered "property."
The provision would ban patents for genetically engineered human embryos or human beings but would not prohibit patents on tissues, cells or other biological products.
_______________________________________________________ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
Humans being considered property makes my skin crawl. However part of the argument lies in the definition of life; something which is part of the pro-life/pro-choice discussion. For example if it was agreed upon that life doesn't start until one month after conception, and it was possible to patent these embryos in order to harvest whatever was needed to save the lives (in a medical sense) of one or more "living" persons, then it is somewhat justified. Or is it?
You may say that it's not justified. Fine. But what if you or your child or some other loved one of yours, contracted a life threatening affliction, and the only means of saving yours or the other person's life was to harvest a human embryo (which you consider to be "alive"). What do you do? Do you preach a high moral sense and refuse to take the life of an unborn human? Or do hardwired survival instincts kick in? A situation where you are willing to take a life (the embryo) in order to save your own or that of a loved one.
Or perhaps it's not considered alive........etc......
-Travis "it goes on and on" Edmunds
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