Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity: Illinois Senate Voting Toclone, Postponing Ethics

Summary

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CHICAGO, Nov. 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Stem Cell Research Act (HB3589) currently before the Illinois Senate is "backwards and dangerous, according to The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, headquartered in Illinois. The bill admits that embryonic stem cell research "raises significant ethical and policy concerns." Yet it seeks to legalize and fund the research, calling for "full consideration" of the ethical concerns only after the legalization takes place. In light of the strong public opposition to human cloning, the fact that the bill hides human cloning in the technical language of "somatic cell nuclear transplantation" is no surprise.

The implications of this bill are staggering. Instead of Recognizing ethics as a protector of all human beings against Inherently unacceptable practices, the bill calls upon the State to "balance ethical and medical considerations." "As important as medical benefits are," notes CBHD Director of Clinical Ethics, Robert Orr, MD, "it is extremely dangerous to think that we should put the medical and ethical considerations onto the same scale. Ethics provides protections limits beyond which science and medicine must not go. This bill goes far beyond those ethical limits by cloning human beings and subsequently killing them." It ultimately threatens every human being, at any stage of development, as long as others will benefit sufficiently from their destruction.

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Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity: Illinois Senate Voting Toclone, Postponing Ethics

After nearly a decade of carefully considering the ...

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