UK Stemcell Research Controversy...

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-03-24 01:09pm

Stem cell vote may be rare victory for UK Catholics

By Nicholas Leonard
Monday March 24 2008

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and the Catholic hierarchy in Britain may be about to score a rare political victory at Westminster.

There was speculation last night that Gordon Brown is reluctantly planning to back down and allow his fellow cabinet ministers and MPs a free vote on whether or not to support controversial new legislation on human fertilisation and embryo research.

This would be an immense relief to the three senior Catholic ministers in his government, Des Browne, at defence, Ruth Kelly, at transport and Paul Murphy, who recently took over responsibility for Wales from Peter Hain.

Genetic manipulation was described recently by the Pope as a mortal sin, and the three ministers would have to choose between their religious consciences and their political careers if Mr Brown imposed a three-line whip to ensure the new law is passed.

There have been suggestions that Mr Brown might allow them to abstain, but Catholic leaders want them to positively vote against the proposed law to try to ensure that it is blocked.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said yesterday that "Catholics in politics have got to act according to their Catholic convictions, so have other Christians, so have other politicians."

Media and anecdotal evidence suggests understanding for politicians divided between their loyalties to their faith and their government.

The respect for a politician's right to a conscience may be partly because many non-religious people share some of the doubts expressed by Catholic and other church leaders about the new legislation, especially the proposal to allow the creation of human-animal hybrids in order to further medical research into such diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

When Cardinal Keith O'Brien described the proposed new embryo law as endorsing work of "Frankenstein proportion", he predictably generated massive media coverage, much to the fury of the government. The health minister, Ben Bradshaw, called the comment "intemperate and emotive."

For opponents of the new law, putting human genetic material into animal embryos to grow human stem cells for medical research sounds very much like a 21st century equivalent of the Frankenstein legend, even though the scale is microscopic and no 'new' life, human, animal or hybrid, can be created.

While the Cardinals have captured the headlines, leaders of other major religions are also opposed to the embryo law.

The Queen, as head of state, would have to formally endorse the new legislation if it is passed. But she is also head of the Church of England, which is still the country's established church. One of its archbishops, Tom Wright of Durham, yesterday likened the proposals to '1984', and said the cabinet was being driven by a militantly atheist and secularist lobby.

Some commentators at Westminster believe that the government could concede a free vote and still get the majority of the bill passed into law. But there is intense uncertainty over whether the human-animal embryo clauses would be accepted.

Such work is already forbidden by law in a number of other countries, including Italy, Canada and Australia. Scientists in the UK fear that if it is banned in Britain, they may lose ground to competitors in more accommodating regimes.

- Nicholas Leonard

Link

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-03-24 01:23pm

Genetic manipulation was described recently by the Pope as a mortal sin

The stemcellocracy is a tool of satan apparently. Well, no surprise here. Religion never fails to deliver.

Kristoff · Post by **Kristoff** » 2008-03-24 03:25pm

Genetic manipulation was described recently by the Pope as a mortal sin

Does anybody know if he was talking solely about human genome manipulation or genetic manipulations in general?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-03-24 08:51pm

I love how when the church wants to meddle in government affairs, it's all considered fair behaviour, but if the government were to start penalising the church for its stance on condoms or for aiding and abetting known paedophiles, they'd cry persecution and fascist and soforth (ignoring of course the close relationships the church had with the fascist regimes from the start). Vipers and hypocrites, indeed.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2008-03-24 08:55pm

God just doesn't want us correcting his mistakes. If that means we have to remain ugly, stupid and dying, then those are sacrifices any good Christian should be willing to make on the altar of Yahweh's almighty ego.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-03-26 02:08pm

Although non-Catholics are causing a disproportionate amount of religious shit in America, what is the Church of England's stance in this mess? I much rather have eternal life through provable science than through faith.

wjs7744 · Post by **wjs7744** » 2008-03-26 11:45pm

The Article wrote:The Queen, as head of state, would have to formally endorse the new legislation if it is passed. But she is also head of the Church of England, which is still the country's established church. One of its archbishops, Tom Wright of Durham, yesterday likened the proposals to '1984', and said the cabinet was being driven by a militantly atheist and secularist lobby.

They honestly believe that scientists want to do this just to spite them, don't they? The notion that scientific research might be done for the good of mankind never crosses their minds. I guess it's down the tremendous religious egocentrism, i.e. everything must be about their god, therefore people actually go out and do things simply to defy him rather than because they want to.

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2008-03-27 07:28am

Darth Raptor wrote:God just doesn't want us correcting his mistakes. If that means we have to remain ugly, stupid and dying, then those are sacrifices any good Christian should be willing to make on the altar of Yahweh's almighty ego.

Well...doesn't a lack of death leads to overpopulation?

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-03-27 07:32am

ray245 wrote:
Darth Raptor wrote:God just doesn't want us correcting his mistakes. If that means we have to remain ugly, stupid and dying, then those are sacrifices any good Christian should be willing to make on the altar of Yahweh's almighty ego.
Well...doesn't a lack of death leads to overpopulation?

Yes. Clearly we should stop developing medical technology.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2008-03-27 09:52am

Even if all the Catholics on the Labour benches decide to rebel, the bill would still be passed - there are only about 40 of them. Damnable vocal minorities...

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2008-03-27 01:35pm

Zablorg wrote:
ray245 wrote:
Darth Raptor wrote:God just doesn't want us correcting his mistakes. If that means we have to remain ugly, stupid and dying, then those are sacrifices any good Christian should be willing to make on the altar of Yahweh's almighty ego.
Well...doesn't a lack of death leads to overpopulation?
Yes. Clearly we should stop developing medical technology.

I mean the dying part of medical technology.

I mean a natural death beats resorting to acts of violence to maintain the population levels of humans on earth.

wjs7744 · Post by **wjs7744** » 2008-03-27 01:45pm

ray245 wrote:Well...doesn't a lack of death leads to overpopulation?

And a lack of breeding like rabbits counters this. Your point?

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2008-03-28 01:21am

wjs7744 wrote:
ray245 wrote:Well...doesn't a lack of death leads to overpopulation?
And a lack of breeding like rabbits counters this. Your point?

Well, unless we can somehow decrease our population growth to a much lower level...

Doesn't a overpopulation already leads to many problems we are going to face due to global warming?

But I'm unsure of how can we lower the global population growth.

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2008-03-28 01:23am

In case anyone misunderstood my meaning about lower global population growth...

In most developed country, our population growth is decreasing, but the population growth in 3rd world country still leads to a overall increase in global population.

Darth Tanner · Post by **Darth Tanner** » 2008-03-28 07:51am

Well, unless we can somehow decrease our population growth to a much lower level...

By improving living standards and education perhaps?

I mean the dying part of medical technology.

eh?

Is there a different part to medical technology other than keeping people alive?

I mean a natural death

Small Pox is quite a natural death, perhaps we should release it into Africa to solve over population problem?

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2008-03-28 08:28am

Kristoff wrote:Does anybody know if he was talking solely about human genome manipulation or genetic manipulations in general?

The pope was talking specifically about genetic manipulation of humans. Apparently the roman catholic church has been somewhat of an advocate of manipulation of foodstuffs etc. in order to alleviate hunger problems in famine-stricken parts of the globe.

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2008-03-28 01:35pm

Darth Raptor wrote:God just doesn't want us correcting his mistakes. If that means we have to remain ugly, stupid and dying, then those are sacrifices any good Christian should be willing to make on the altar of Yahweh's almighty ego.

Ah, but they aren't His mistakes, as we were created perfect in the garden of Eden, so all of these faults only exist because Adam and Eve ate the fruit. So basically it's all our own fault, if we didn't want to die of cancer and AIDS and a million other ailments then we should have thought before eating that pomegranete or whatever it was, now all we can do is suck it up and hope for a better life in the next world.

Even so, God was never keen on the idea of us improving ourselves: "Now we must cast him out, lest he put forth his hand and eat of the tree of life, and live forever"

DaveJB · Post by **DaveJB** » 2008-03-28 01:55pm

Dartzap wrote:Even if all the Catholics on the Labour benches decide to rebel, the bill would still be passed - there are only about 40 of them. Damnable vocal minorities...

Labour's majority is only 62 (or 67, since Sinn Fein don't take part in the House of Commons). When you consider that some of their MPs will probably abstain on this one, and that the Tories and LibDems are guaranteed to oppose it to the max out of simple principle, those 40 MPs could well be enough to cause this bill to fail.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-04-01 03:41pm

DaveJB wrote:
Dartzap wrote:Even if all the Catholics on the Labour benches decide to rebel, the bill would still be passed - there are only about 40 of them. Damnable vocal minorities...
Labour's majority is only 62 (or 67, since Sinn Fein don't take part in the House of Commons). When you consider that some of their MPs will probably abstain on this one, and that the Tories and LibDems are guaranteed to oppose it to the max out of simple principle, those 40 MPs could well be enough to cause this bill to fail.

It seems perculiar that the Catholics in Britain seem far worse than the more reasonable Catholics in North America, while with the Protestants is seems to be completely the other way around. What is the Church of England's opinion of the stem cell research of tiny, barely formed clumps of human matter?

And in regard to abortion, while I shudder at fairly advanced fetuses getting aborted, I do not understand the aversion to experiments on very early embryos that were never intended to form into people anyway and if the experiments on them are properly regulated, then there is a good chance that it would benefit the millions of suffering people alive today (but some Catholics get funny about wasting sperm through wanking or having protected sex as well).

The Guid · Post by **The Guid** » 2008-04-02 09:52am

DaveJB wrote:
Dartzap wrote:Even if all the Catholics on the Labour benches decide to rebel, the bill would still be passed - there are only about 40 of them. Damnable vocal minorities...
Labour's majority is only 62 (or 67, since Sinn Fein don't take part in the House of Commons). When you consider that some of their MPs will probably abstain on this one, and that the Tories and LibDems are guaranteed to oppose it to the max out of simple principle, those 40 MPs could well be enough to cause this bill to fail.

I doubt the Lib Dems are opposed - I don't even know the Tories are.

Further research reveals they both have a free vote - so we're not looking at a voting bloc against labour. Most Lib Dems are sensible for one, not being able to rely on religous backing at all anyway - the Tories will be split.

The bill will pass

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2008-04-02 10:21am

Doesn't one of Cameron's kids have an disability that might be one of those conditions that could potentially be prevented in other children through the research? I'm fairly sure he would encourage his members to vote for it if that is the case.

The Guid · Post by **The Guid** » 2008-04-02 12:30pm

Aye, but then again he does have to rely on more conservative elements of Britain for a possible election victory so I think that is why he is letting his party have a free vote. Now, if his party finds out the way he is voting and decides to vote with him then that's obviously a different matter.