Hybrid Embryos

I've just received an email containing the following information, to which readers of this blog may like to respond. These are issues which have been discussed at General Asssembly and which the SRT project have spoken about.

"As you may know a Bill shortly due to come before Parliament (19.11.07) would permit experiments that much of the world would like to see outlawed. Scientists will be permitted to create ‘true hybrids’, embryos that would have a human parent and a nonhuman parent. These embryos would be destroyed at 14 days but the question remains: what kind of creatures would they be? In every country law and ethics distinguishes human embryos from pig embryos. What then should be said of a half human half pig embryo? I believe that we are in danger of following Dr Moreau in the novel by HG Wells, who says of his animal-human creations, ‘I went on with this research just the way it led me… I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter.’

If you like me are opposed to the creation of human nonhuman hybrids (and perhaps like me more than a little sceptical of the supposed necessity for the research) then please sign the following petitions and also pass on this email.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/stemcell/

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/HybridEmbryos/

Thanks

David

Professor David A Jones
Professor of Bioethics
St Mary's University College, Twickenham
tel: 020 8240 2311
fax: 020 8240 2362