R J Adams -Musings And Meanderings
……..a great and glorious sound that reverberated around this planet. It lifted the soul; brought tears of joyous emotion; lightened the heart, search and captivated the mind.
Now, thumb it has gone forever.
Rest in Peace, unhealthy Luciano Pavarotti.
Filed under: Great artists
It goes without saying that many people – not just in America, but throughout the world – will throw up their arms in horror at the very suggestion of scientists producing an embryo part animal-part human. The heated debate still rages over the use of human stem cells for scientific research. Any attempt to combine animals and humans in embryonic form will be greeted by them as – well, in much the same way as “Ken”, an anonymous writer on the BBC website, reacted:
“This is so inherently evil and immoral a path, how can a scientist not recognize that there are things that should not be followed?”
It’s a pertinent question, but there is another, equally relevant: how can a scientist view the suffering of those with Alzheimer’s disease, and other debilitating illnesses, know there is a way forward towards finding a cure, yet refuse to follow that course of research?
The moralists and religious might respond with another question: where will it all end?
That is the crux of the matter. So far as this writer is concerned, those who condemn out of hand the use of human stem cells for medical research, solely on the grounds it is taking or denying human life, are narrow-minded, egocentric, bigots totally out of touch with reality. Given the amount of human life legally taken by governments every minute of the day in wars and executions, it is ludicrous to complain about an odd embryo or two. But then, no doubt there are still some who consider masturbation a form of murder.
It is, however, right to be concerned about the manner in which scientific research is conducted. Governments regularly exhibit their inability to regulate all manner of important matters, and it is up to voters to ensure their feelings are known and acted upon by those they vote into office.
Thankfully, the British government has shown itself a little more capable than its American counterpart in both allowing stem cell research and regulating its use and purpose. Its recent decision not to ban research using human-animal embryos is to be applauded, provided sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent abuse.
In a BBC report, Dr Lyle Armstrong, Head of Human Genetics at Newcastle University said of the matter:
“……it’s not our intention to create any bizarre cow-human hybrid, we want to use those cells to understand how to make human stem cells better.”
In contrast, Dr Helen Watt, from the Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics, called the technique:
“a further violation of the rights of the embryo. The embryo is deprived not only of its life in the course of the experiment, but of any human parents. It is further dehumanised by the very method of its creation.”
Josephine Quintavalle, a campaigner for the group, Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said:
“Using hybrid embryos has never been acceptable – it offends the dignity of humans and animals.”
Are these people totally out of touch with reality? They are discussing the rights and dignity of something invisible to the human eye; microscopically tiny. Certainly, we would all jump up and down with righteous indignation were some crazed professor to suddenly produce an Angelina Jolie with huge milking udders, or a Brad Pitt sprouting magnificent bull horns, but some members of our species seem ready and willing to lose their sense of proportion very quickly when it provides them with a bandwagon. Maybe, just maybe, that’s one reason why so many shout so loudly about embryonic dignity and rights.
For most, objections are based on ‘religious’ rather than humanitarian grounds. After reading, on the BBC website, of two goats ritually slaughtered on the tarmac at Katmandu airport last Sunday, by officials of the state-owned Nepal Airlines, this writer can find little sympathy with any ‘religious’ objections to anything. The goats were sacrificed to a Hindu god because a Boeing 757 had developed a fault that technicians seemed unable to correct.
Frankly, as a species, we suffer from an inordinate lack of both dignity and commonsense. It seems unlikely even the most crazed scientist could ever produce a monstrosity weirder than Homo sapiens.
The BBC report on embryo research is available HERE.
The BBC report on the slaughter of innocent goats is available HERE.
Filed under: Weird species
It was late August, 1997. The Italian Lakes beckoned. The vacation was booked months in advance. Two weeks at a resort on the banks of Lake Garda, in northern Italy. By road, it was a two day journey from Britain. A drive to Dover, on the south coast. Then across the English Channel on the ferry to Calais, France, and on via Paris to the Swiss border, the Mont Blanc tunnel, and eventually the French/Italian Alps before a run down to the one of the most beautiful places on earth – Lake Garda.
I’d driven through Paris before – and since. It was about 2.30pm, on August 30th, 1997 that I steered my two-seater Toyota MR2 down through the Pont de l’Alma underpass in Paris before settling down for the long run to our overnight stop near the German/Swiss border.
I slept well that night. The long drive, though stimulating in a sports car designed for continental autoroutes, was still tiring and my dreamless sleep held no presentiment of the drama unfolding in that very same Pont de l’Alma underpass I had traversed only hours before.
It was after 5.00pm when we eventually reached our destination next day. Checking in to the accommodation took time, so it was after six when we finally parked up and began unloading our luggage into the luxury trailer rented for the vacation.
I was lugging the last of the baggage from the trunk when a young German man with only broken English and a sense of acute embarrassment, walked slowly over from the trailer next door.
“You ees Eenglish, yes?”
I nodded, a little suspiciously.
“We, that ees, mein frau…..eh, my wife an’ me…..we so sorry, ’bout your Diana.”
I looked vacant, “Diana?”
“You does not know?”
I shook my head, perplexed.
The young German man seemed most uncomfortable.“Your princess……Diana? She dead. Killed. It was car accident, yesterday. In Paris.”
I muttered something resembling “thanks”, went inside and began tuning the radio to find an English language station.
Little more than twenty-four hours before, the Pont de l’Alma underpass had seemed so benign……so, very ordinary………
Filed under: Rest in peace