Tea at Trianon: The Case Against Chimeras

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, October 8, 2016

The Case Against Chimeras

From Women of Grace:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent a detailed letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) outlining the reasons why they oppose the Institute’s plan to rescind a moratorium forbidding federal funding of human/animal chimera embryo research. This research will involve injecting human embryonic stem cells into animal embryos to create beings who will allegedly help scientists to grow human tissue and organs in animals which will aid in studying human development, disease pathology and eventually organ transplantation.

However, as the bishops correctly point out, using embryonic stem cells hasn’t worked very well thus far, and this new plan only causes more problems.

“The government has already crossed a significant moral line by treating the destruction of human beings, at a very early stage of development, as the raw material for allegedly useful human embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. Such research has failed to produce treatments for human ailments over the last 17 years, and morally noncontroversial avenues such as adult stem cell and induced pluripotent stem cell research have surpassed ESCs in scientific and clinical benefits,” states the letter, which was written by Anthony Picarello, USCCB associate general secretary and general counsel, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel.

“The government now proposes running roughshod over another basic moral principle, however, by injecting human embryonic stem cells into the embryos of various animal species to create beings who do not fully belong to either the human race or the host animal species.” This presents a serious moral issue. “For if one cannot tell to what extent, if any, the resulting organism may have human status or characteristics, it will be impossible to determine what one’s moral obligations may be regarding that organism.” (Read more.)