Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

Catholic MPs refuse to support embryology bill

Catholic Labour MPs are refusing to support the government's bill to facilitate research with embryos. Are they slaves of the church, incapable of independent thought, or what?

Research with embryos could well produce useful information. It might even lead to the discovery of cures for serious and presently incurable diseases. But is that reason enough to permit such research?

Immoral means should not be used to obtain scientific information. Experiments on prisoners in German and Japanese concentration camps during World War 2 is an example of immoral means being used to obtain information. It is wrong to kill a person or carry out operations on that person which could harm them. It is better to forgo the information.

But what is immoral about embryo research? An embryo is just a blob of jelly, surely? The problem comes down to the question of when does a human life begin? It is obviously before the time of birth, but the difficulty is in establishing when. Any time other than the moment of conception is bound to be arbitrarily defined, and the moment of conception is indeed the time at which the person becomes an individual, even though at that time it is only one with the potential to become a person. That is what is wrong with it.

In practice, there is a further danger. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if an embryo were allowed to develop beyond the minimum permitted period. Soon or later somebody will not be able to resist their natural curiosity.

This is why the Catholic church is opposed to such research. It is not being obtuse or awkward. Such research is fundamentally immoral and has the potential for great harm. The government is being badly advised to permit such research, but at the very least MPs should be allowed a free vote.
Etiketter:

Kommentarer

Skicka en kommentar

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

The Zombie Train that refuses to die

The Guardian has published a couple more articles against HS2, one by specialist rail commentator Christian Wolmar, and another today by journalist Simon Jenkins. The main arguments in favour will doubtless be wheeled out by the commentators: the need for capacity and the disruption caused by upgrading existing routes. HST itself will severely disrupt services to Euston during the construction period. Capacity can be increased at a fraction of the cost by a variety of measures, provided that it is accepted that the additional traffic will run at existing speeds. It is not generally known that the Midland main line is, or was, four track all the way from London to Trent Junction, between Nottingham and Derby. This is because the additional tracks are separate, having been added for coal trains which trundled down to Brent sidings, on the edge of London, from a collection point at Toton in Nottinghamshire, where the Midland Railway build a huge marshalling yard. Beyond Derby, the main l...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

Importing people to sustain demand

I got involved in a discussion with a Youtuber called “Philosophy all along”. This was in connection with criticism of Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, which he argued would be bad for the economy as it would reduce demand. This implies that there is a need to import people to sustain demand. There is no obvious reason why a population should not be able to consume everything that the same population produces. If it can not, then something else is going on. It is a basic principle that wages are the least that workers will accept to do a job. Wages are a share of the value added by workers through their wages. The remainder is distributed as economic rent, after government has taken its cut in taxes. Monopoly profit is a temporary surplus that after a delay gets absorbed into economic rent. Land values in Silicon Valley are an example of this; it's like a gold rush. The miners get little out of it. Rent and tax syphon purchasing power away from those who produce the g...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

Beyond electrification

In an earlier post I suggested a core list of lines which ought to be in an electrification programme spread over twenty years of so. This leaves a residue of routes which it is unlikely will ever be electrified. This include for example All lines beyond Glasgow, Stirling and Aberdeen All lines west of Exeter and Swansea All lines west of Chester Shrewsbury - Chester Everything not listed in my previous blog - electrification plans only scratch surface   Some of these routes carry main line services to London and other cities on parts of the network that are already electrified or included in electrification plans. Others are self contained and others carry light traffic - less than a dozen trains a day. The current plan is that main line services will be operated with the hybrid trains on order from Hitachi, but this is a costly, wasteful and ineffective solution. The performance of the trains will be inferior to the present Inter-City 125 trains on non-electrified lines and the ...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer