Legislature banning animal-human hybrids

[heartlessfang]

after seeing this on FA I just had to post it here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#31914213

enjoy XD

[Uniform Two Six]

Two wars, massive unemployment, a collapsing global economy, healthcare, and THIS is what needs immediate legislation? Are you kidding me?

[Berserker]

lol.

[Terastas]

Two wars, massive unemployment, a collapsing global economy, healthcare, and THIS is what needs immediate legislation? Are you kidding me?

That was my first thought. Why are people trying to pass legislation over something that isn't even possible yet?

To make a name for themselves, I'm wagering. Some douche bag lawmaker knows pushing an anti-abortion or anti-stem cell research bill is going to get him his a** handed to him at this time (especially the latter; America could really use those high-tech / high-paying jobs right now), so instead he's trying to ham it up to the religious right/reich with this load of bull.

Seriously, we (and by "we," I mean "we, the entire population of Earth") haven't even perfected human cloning yet? Shouldn't we cross that bridge before we start worrying about this one?

This would be sort of like if congress had passed wiretapping legislation before Graham Bell patented the telephone: "Wiretapping? What the hell is that?"

[outwarddoodles]

No animal-human hybrids?!

My life is so meaningless now. D x

I'm kidding, but on a serious note; I'd like to echo what's already been said here and state that the only reason they're passing this is because it's an easy law to pass, and gives congress an excuse not to confront some of the bigger issues that NEED confrontation ("of course we're doing something! We just passed a law last week!"). Procrastination if you will...

[Baphnedia]

Oh, to add to what OD said, also, it gets in the way of anything beneficial, like using pig stem cells to regrow missing limbs (from amputations). This is something the US Army was looking at (and may still be, in spite of this law), to save many more lives.

[Scott Gardener]

This is what happens when people with contemporary sensibilities try to pass laws for future times. Suppose people from the 1930s passed laws for us living today? Some of those laws might limit whether or not women could vote, and they might not be prepared for a "colored" man as President of the United States. (let alone the realization that he could be one of the next really great ones for the history books if he can play his cards right)

But, with only a little extra imagination, I can easily picture genetically engineered beings who would be a bit less than happy to know that way back at the turn of the millennium, people in an all-human society were trying to pass laws to keep them from ever coming into existence. I think it's an attempt to keep humans in charge of the planet--a trend that inevitably cannot continue, given our overall track record. It's the Neo-Republican agenda of the 2050s, and I sincerely hope that by 2100, those who support it will seem as backwards as racists and sexists do today.

[heartlessfang]

This is what happens when people with contemporary sensibilities try to pass laws for future times. Suppose people from the 1930s passed laws for us living today? Some of those laws might limit whether or not women could vote, and they might not be prepared for a "colored" man as President of the United States. (let alone the realization that he could be one of the next really great ones for the history books if he can play his cards right)

But, with only a little extra imagination, I can easily picture genetically engineered beings who would be a bit less than happy to know that way back at the turn of the millennium, people in an all-human society were trying to pass laws to keep them from ever coming into existence. I think it's an attempt to keep humans in charge of the planet--a trend that inevitably cannot continue, given our overall track record. It's the Neo-Republican agenda of the 2050s, and I sincerely hope that by 2100, those who support it will seem as backwards as racists and sexists do today.

^ it's the same old song, with slightly different lyrics.

[Set]

it's the same old song, with slightly different lyrics.

And guess who always wins out in the end?

[IndianaJones]

We can wait, if the humans here on this Earth cannot sustain themselves any longer. As, weird scientists manage to create another race, half-human/half-animal hybrids. So, when most of humanity fails and falls. Animal-human hybrids will replace the once dominant sentient intelligent species to take care Earth now. It will be happen sometime in a long, long time. Probably......when 'Rapture' comes.

[WolfeGuardian]

Hmm dignity nah human as i am i feel no pride in it, and honestly what good is banning the change of something that hasn't even come forth yet when at the moment there are more important matters

[heartlessfang]

the biggest problem I see here is, like mentioned above, what if someone needed a new kidney and had a transplant from a pig-human.

Does that make the person who got the transplant no longer human?

....maybe I'm talking myself in a circle here......but I don't like the way they defined "human", or that and animal hybrid mocks what it is to be human.

[Terastas]

We can wait, if the humans here on this Earth cannot sustain themselves any longer. As, weird scientists manage to create another race, half-human/half-animal hybrids. So, when most of humanity fails and falls. Animal-human hybrids will replace the once dominant sentient intelligent species to take care Earth now. It will be happen sometime in a long, long time. Probably......when 'Rapture' comes.

You know, that's probably not too far off. The same thing will happen with this that happened with stem cell research: the scientists researching it will just say "sucks to be you America" and relocate to countries that will let them work there.
So all this means is that the first cat-girls may wind up being Japanese after all.

Same thing with the pig kidney donations. Americans in dire need will get those from the same place they get their cheap prescription drugs: Canada. And it'll only be when another Obama comes along and points out just how freakin' counterproductive that legislature was and braves through the sea of red tape and Bible-thumping religious morons that it'll finally get overturned.

And then, of course, some other douche bag lawmaker will ham it up to the religious reich with another useless bill pushing to restrict something that only exists in science fiction to date.

Hey, I got a law you can pass if you want to pretend you're busy: Make it illegal to push for legislation banning practices that don't [bleep]ing exist yet!

[Morkulv]

I lol'd.

If any scientists find some kind of way make animal-human hybrids they are obviously gonna do it anyway, because illegal things always happen the most.

[Aki]

I love how the best defense/argument the guy can muster is "The definition of what human is will be challenged!"

Definitions of things change, humanity included. The future has never been known for suffering lightly fools who attempt to hold steadfast to old definitions and practices.

[Scott Gardener]

Or, perhaps we can get to work separating person-hood and being human, two decidedly different sorts of things. To the casual person today, they assume they're both the same. But, anyone who has read or watched ANY sci-fi knows the difference.

And, it's more applicable today than one might think--consider the brain-dead on life support, like until fairly recently Terri Schiavo. The person, the essence of whom they were, is tragically destroyed, but to the one who cannot distinguish "human" from "person," the technicality that the body is still a human being elevates the brain-dead's need to continue living to the point of absurdity. In the case of Schiavo, her body was kept biologically operational for well over a decade after she was for all logical and practical reasons already dead.

Likewise, there's a push against the use of embryonic stem cells, based on the logic that a clump of a few primordial cells has the potential to grow into a human. It's at the moment a clump of cells with no distinct nervous system, let alone any sort of consciousness, but politicians and religious fanatics will defend their rights to great lengths, even as they overlook the much larger numbers of non-human animals tortured on a routine basis in the name of scientific research--animals that do have central nervous systems, the ability to perceive pain, and an emotional state not too different from humans in childhood. Priorities, people.

[Wingman]

I love how the best defense/argument the guy can muster is "The definition of what human is will be challenged!"

Almost as though he's worried he'll no longer count as human, eh?

[RedEye]

I suspect that law will last about as long as we can't treat serious disease with the addition of some non-human genetic material. There are diseases out there that we get that some animals just don't.
That means that using animal DNA to stimulate regrowth of an amputated limb will be illegal, and treating cancer with animal DNA to make it just dry up and blow away...won't happen here.
So what?
See the world and regrow an arm.
This could be a boon to the travel industry.

And as to what makes a human? There really isn't an answer for that one; and there never has been. The genetic answer fails when we get mutations caused by genetic drift. The philosophical answer fails when we examine the physicality of the people involved.
And unless it can support itself on its own; it's a parasite with potential. Period.

[Baphnedia]

In my book, this law will only stand long enough for the medical industry in the United States to start complaining vigorously, because they're losing money over it. After the technology is innovated abroad, I have a feeling that our medical industry will complain to the government. If they can't make money, then this (and any other) law that gets in the way of making money will be repealed because otherwise they can't bribe or show financial support for their candidates. They'll cite the philanthropic reasons for doing it - don't get me wrong. But, money will be one of the major reasons why it will actually happen.

[Uniform Two Six]

In the case of Schiavo, her body was kept biologically operational for well over a decade after she was for all logical and practical reasons already dead.

The problem with the Schiavo case was that there is a microscopic number of individuals who enter a "persistent vegetative state" and eventually recover, against all odds. In the Schaivo case, a postmortem examination revealed that she was, indeed, brain-dead, but there was no way to know that for sure until an autopsy was performed. For all anyone knew, they could (highly improbably) have been killing a patient who had a chance at recovery. The real crux of that issue was the question of who had the authority to make the call. The spouse, who (the courts eventually ruled) had the legal right to pull the plug, and who just wanted the whole ordeal over, or the parents who had a purely emotional (and probably irrational) need to grasp at that faint hope that she'd eventually recover. The religious argument that it was court-enforced ("legislating from the bench" as the Republicans liked to call it) euthanasia, was only a small part of the whole thing. Admittedly, that got the U.S. Congress to intervene in an obscene example of legeslative and executive meddling in the affairs of the court, but the real issue had already been decided. The reason why it took so long to resolve was that the courts move at a glacial pace.

[Berserker]

I thought you could tell if someone was brain dead by doing an EEG.

[faladunaju]

Here are some information about vegetation state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent ... tive_state

And now my oppinion about hybrids:
If they are going to make pig with human heart I don't mind. But I'm against creating human-animal species....

[RedEye]

Too late: We already ARE!

Just ask Charlie Darwin...

[Uniform Two Six]

I thought you could tell if someone was brain dead by doing an EEG.

My apologies. Poor choice of words on my part. A person in a vegetative state is not brain-dead, in that large parts of the brain are still very much alive, but certain parts of the brain necessary for a state of self-awareness may not be. Scott will probably jump in here if I really screw this up, but my understanding is that EEGs and MRIs can get a ballpark estimate of the damage a brain has undergone, and what parts of the brain are still functioning and which aren't, but it's still not entirely an exact map of brain function. Additionally, there really is still a great deal about how the brain works as an integrated unit that medical science doesn't fully understand. Lastly, the brain has a certain innate ability for some functionality to migrate away from damaged portions of the brain to undamaged ones. For instance, people who suffer TBI, and lose (for instance) verbal language skills becuase the portion of the brain that had been responsible for that function was damaged, can sometimes re-learn those abilities, reconstituting pathways in regions of the brain neighboring the damaged ones, provided the overall damage is neither too severe or too extensive.
In short, it's my understanding that the whole knowledge of how the brain works is still too hazy for any really definitive statement to be made that a particular persistent vegetative state will be unrecoverable. Nonetheless, they can make the statement that recovery is so unlikely as to be possible only through a miracle.

[PariahPoet]

I actually think the ban is a good idea for the same reason I support the pit bull ban. It's not because human hybrids or pit bulls don't deserve to live, but because there is very little hope of them ever having a decent life. In the backwater hole where I grew up nobody bought a pitbull unless they wanted to fight or otherwise torture and neglect it. The only reason for creating a human-animal hybrid would be to use it for spare parts. If you're born a poodle, there is a chance you'll be abused and neglected, but a better chance you'll live comfortably as a pet and maybe be a loved member of the family. If you're born a pit bull, you are almost guaranteed to be tortured. If you're born a human hybrid your only option is to live in a cage in a lab and eventually be killed for your organs.

I could understand inserting a tiny fragment of genetic code into a lab animal to ease the threat of organ rejection in a transplant patient, but what happens when we start giving these chimeras human intelligence?
Maybe I just read too much sci-fi, but I can easily imagine genetically altered creatures gaining awareness and getting really pissed at the species responsible for their misery.