[asa] "Interspecies Cloning"

I get broadcast email from the Family Research Council (in many ways to
understand what evangelicals who are probably largely more conservative than
I are thinking). This one below caught my interest. Is this a legitimate
concern, or is there a bigger picture to it?

*If the U.S. doesn't move quickly to regulate the new trend of interspecies
cloning, it's safe to say that researchers will experiment until the cows
come home. In the U.K., some already have. Since human eggs are in short
supply, researchers in Britain applied for permission to create human-cow
embryos. In America, scientists are not even required to ask for
permission--because no such restrictions exist! At the University of Nevada,
Professor Esmail Zanjani has joined the ranks of Harvard and Yale scientists
who have taken advantage of the lack of government scrutiny. This week,
Zanjani announced that his team has created the world's first human-sheep
chimera, whose cellular make-up is 15% human and 85% animal. Although
Zanjani promises that the technique will give rise to a new source of organ
donors, there's no telling what complications will result from the hybrid.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of ethical complications in this amoral
frontier. Research like this has created a legal and moral vacuum that
Congress should fill with guidance and oversight. Join us in urging your
leaders to ban creation of animal-human hybrids.*

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Received on Mon Mar 26 20:26:37 2007