University slams anti-abortion group for false claims about cloning

Could we clone the members of MCCL but insert a gene that would enable the clone to actually tell the truth instead of always lying?

If the U is not pursuing human cloning for research purposes, how do they explain Dr. Frank Cerra’s testimony that “therapeutic cloning … is really at the core of much of the work we do”?

If the U’s embryo-destructive research is legal, what is their explanation for how it does not violate Minnesota Statute 145.422?

You report, “The university says it does not engage in human cloning and that all stem cell research is legal and done with private dollars.” But it is not enough to just say that. Since they have not provided an answer to MCCL’s charges, I imagine a more accurate title for this article would be “Anti-abortion group slams University for false claims about cloning.”

wps,

In the view of most people, cloning human cells for therapeutic applications and cloning a complete human being are quite different things. When the technology exists for me to take my cells, clone them, and give them to someone for therapy I would be delighted to do so and will do so at the first opportunity. Any cells, even reproductive ones. God is the ultimate abortionist, as thousands of defective embryos are spontaneously aborted every day, apparently defective in the eyes of God. But then, that’s God’s choice, isn’t it…………….God can take “innocent life”…………….

But Tim,
They don’t just take cells and clone them. Cloning 101: They take a human egg, remove the nucleus, and insert the nucleus from, say, one of your skin cells. The human egg now has your 46 chromosomes, and begins developing and growing like all humans do…except this is the clone of you! After some time, the your clone embryo’s stem cells are harvested for research. You see, cells aren’t cloned, humans are cloned. And they wouldn’t clone your cells to give to someone else…the whole purpose of cloning is to have genetically matched cells. Don’t think you’d be doing anyone any favors…taking your cells and giving them to help someone else (like, for example, bone marrow) can and already does happen. Helping people with your cells? Been there, done that. That’s something already available for you to do, and based on your assertion that you “would be delighted” to help someone with your cells, I would guess you plan on doing so ASAP.

Tim,
It’s not the new law banning state funds for cloning that the U of M is violating. It’s the law against destroying a human conceptus. You got it all wrong, man. And as a member, I know that MCCL supports all stem cell research except that which destroys human embryos. Again, you got it wrong. Whatever happened to journalism?

Let’s reserve therapies based on stem-cell research to those people who support the research effort. Members of the MCCL, donors to MCCL, flat-earth society members, luddites and other nay-sayers can suffer without the benefit of this research. They can blame it on whomever or whatever higher power they may recognize.

Meanwhile in China and elsewhere the research is going full steam ahead. It may soon be a moot point if the US doesn’t shed all these restrictions and get down to business. We could end up paying for life saving drugs and tissue with Yuan having voluntarily abdicated our research effort to satisfy a bunch of narrow minded fundamentalists.

[...] Read the original here:  Minnesota Independent: News. Politics. Media. » University slams … [...]

We should be shocked that people who can’t tell the difference between a frozen embryo and a crying baby get any rational people, or even politicians, to pay any attention to them.

It is my fervent hope that with new administrations in the White House as well as both houses of congress, research involving therapeutic human cloning (stem cell research) will continue apace …and that society as a whole will recognize the hypocrisy that calls for a ban on such work while maintaining that it is permissible for fertility clinics to destroy human embryos !