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Tuesday May 9, 2006
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Why Embryonic Stem Cell Research? It's About Human Engineering, Not Ending Disease
Quest for a 'superhuman' race and to create a race of sub-humans to do menial or dangerous tasks
By John-Henry Westen
SPRINGFIELD, IL, May 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. David Reardon, Ph.D., best known for his voluminous research on the after-effects of abortion on women, has launched a new venture to pre-emptively ban human engineering which he contends is the root of the quest for embryonic stem cell research.
Many have wondered at the insistence on funding for and pursuit of embryonic stem cell research given the fact that there is not even one embryonic stem cell therapy currently in use while adult stem cell therapies are used every day in the treatment of nearly a hundred different diseases.
Reardon, a biomedical ethicist whose studies have been published in such prestigious medical journals as the British Medical Journal and the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that the key to understanding the dilemma is the quest for a 'superhuman' race and to create a race of sub-humans to do menial or dangerous tasks. While embryonic stem cell researchers prefer to talk about the goal of ending disease, their ultimate goal is to create "better people," says Dr. Reardon.
While the claims may sound preposterous, Dr. Reardon, a consummate researcher, has done his homework and amassed a startling series of quotes from leading scientists which prove his point.
For example, James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize in 1962 for describing DNA structures, has proclaimed stupidity a disease and wants the freedom to design "better people" who lack the hypothetical "stupidity" gene. In a 2003 televised interview Watson, now president of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York said, "If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease . . . so I'd like to get rid of that . . . People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."
Additionally, Dr. Joseph Fletcher a Harvard Professor widely recognized as the "patriarch of bioethics", who died in 1991, said, "Chimeras [human-animal crossbreads] or parahumans might legitimately be fashioned to do dangerous or demeaning jobs. As it is now, low-grade work is shoved off on moronic and retarded individuals, the victims of uncontrolled reproduction. Should we not program such workers 'thoughtfully' instead of accidentally, by means of hybridization?"
Gregory Stock, the Director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at UCLA's School of Public Health and author of the 2002 book "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future" has said, "If biological manipulation is indeed a slippery slope, then we are already sliding down that slope now and may as well enjoy the ride.''
Furthermore, Dr. Reardon's website devoted to the subject, lists, in addition to more salient quotes, links to organizations devoted to 'transhumanism' or moving forward human evolution through genetic manipulation.
Dr. Reardon has formed a coalition to enact a pre-emptive ban on human engineering and require that the scientists who wish to pursue such research first prove their efficacy with animal experiments and then appeal for approval of further research from voters.
An initiative to amend the Missouri constitution to erect a pre-emptive ban on human engineering, defined as any act that genetically alters human gametes or "nascent human life," has been filed with the Secretary of State's office for the November election.
See Dr. Reardon's website:
http://www.elliotinstitute.org
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