Re: Re: Re: Cloning conference

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

Yesterday, In response to Jim Devine's query on my post on cloning I
posted an Op-Ed piece by Lee Silver, who teaches at Princeton. In that
piece he asserts the following claim, which is *utterly staggering* in
it's implications for those in the right-to life movement--I'm
defender of choice myself. Anyway, my question is for anyone on the
list who knows the economics of medical technology and reproductive
health care; how much is the average cost for an abortion as opposed
to the cost of carrying a pregnancy to term? Any guesses as to how
much investment would be necessary in order to capture all those skin
cells and bring them to term if the right-to-lifers' had their way
with the law?  And would costs drop for previously infertile couples
given what he's saying below?


> Until recently, the most persuasive secular argument for protecting
> embryos had been that embryonic cells are different in some
> fundamental way from all other cells in your body because they alone
> have the potential to form a sentient being. The assumption was that
> all other cells were irrevocably chained to the narrow task assigned
> to the particular tissue or organ in which they were placed.
>
> But within the past three years, this view of cell biology has been
> proven false. Scientists have discovered the molecular keys required
> to unlock an amazing plasticity in cell identity. Brain cells have
> been turned into blood cells, fat cells have been turned into bone,
> muscle and cartilage, and other examples of cell conversions are
> flooding the scientific literature. Of course, none of this is
> referred to as cloning, although that's exactly what it is. It is
only
> a matter of time before scientists uncover the mother of all
> molecular-conversion keys: the one that transforms an adult cell
> directly into an ES cell. In philosophical quarters, that discovery
> should be a lethal blow to the idea that potential alone is a
> sufficient criterion on which to base the granting of respect and
> protection: Even skin cells will have the potential to become
babies.

Also, in an interview Silver had with Reason magazine <
http://www.reason.com/9905/fe.rb.liberation.html >
he asserts we'll be able to create oil via GE and that cows will be
pharmacological factories. I'm wondering about the ecological and
economic consequences of just how many more animals and plants that
we've already 'domesticated' we'll need for biofuels etc. and what
kinds of economic analyses we'll need to understand how to make the
innovation process intelligible and, if the bio-edenists sustain their
drive to stop this process --like Rob Schaap I don't think Luddite is
appropriate given they weren't against the machines, just the social
relations of production and property-- what kind of arguments will
need to be presented to enjoin and balance their claims. I'm concerned
about the possibilities for hysteria about this and am only sharing
these thoughts because it will become a *big* issue, and not just for
the left, saii, but for all of us.

Just musing waiting for my beloved,

Ian