Credit Where Credit is Due: AP Gets Missouri Cloning Story Right
The Associated Press has, miracle of miracles, reported accurately about the planned anti-cloning amendment that Missouri's own media generally botched From the AP report (in the St. Louis Post Dispatch!) byline David A. Lieb:
Without specifically repealing last year's measure, the new proposal attempts to reverse a key portion by writing a new definition for banned human cloning activities.
As a result of the 2006 initiative, "the Missouri Constitution currently has confusing language, which allows the same method of cloning that was used to create Dolly the sheep," said Dr. Lori Buffa of St. Peters, a pediatrician serving as chairwoman for the new group. "The Cures Without Cloning initiative is meant to just make it clear that human cloning within the state of Missouri would be prohibited."
At issue is a procedure known scientifically as somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which a person's cell is injected into a human egg, then stimulated to grow as if it had been fertilized by a sperm. Scientists remove the resulting stem cells for research, destroying the newly formed embryo.
Last year's amendment made it a crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to "clone or attempt to clone a human being." But its definition of human cloning allowed somatic cell nuclear transfer, so long as no one attempted to implant the cloned embryo in a woman's uterus.
Opponents contend that definition is deceptive. They claim a cloned human exists the moment scientists create that embryo. The newly proposed constitutional amendment would create another cloning definition that would encompass--and ban--somatic cellnuclear transfer.
Cue the "Hallelujah Chorus!"
Labels: Media Accuracy.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:02 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I smell something very fishy going on here. This is deceptive: "the Missouri Constitution currently has confusing language, which allows the same method of cloning that was used to create Dolly the sheep," said Dr. Lori Buffa. Dolly the sheep was created by joining a man's sperm and a woman's egg? She makes it sound like the old language would have allowed the birth of humans, just as Dolly was born.
The fact is, the new language allows for the birth of humans made from genetic engineering, since it narrows down the term cloning to mean "virtually identical genetically", so all they have to do to make a dolly is do SCNT with a slightly modified genome. Just make one change, and everything is allowed, whether for ESCR, where the "not-technically-cloned" embryos are destroyed, or for birth.
The old language would not allow implanting "anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male". That would not have allowed the birth of a Dolly. Why was that language removed from the proposed amendment? Is that what the real purpose of the new amendment is? To make GE and same-sex conception legal again there? (Note it also removed the "of a human male" language, allowing for stem cell derived genetically modified gametes to be produced from someone of either sex.)
Since all they had to do to make A2 stronger was change "implant in a uterus" to "create an embryo", it is very suspicious that they chose to re-write it in a way that allows genetic engineering to occur. And since it allows destruction of near-cloned embryos, it doesn't save any lives. Don't be fooled by this proposal, it is a wolf in sheeps clothing. There are better ways to strengthen A2, if it even needs to be strengthened, since it is looking increasingly like adult stem cells are going to be more useful and ESCR will probably just get abandoned as too unwieldy and exploitive of young women.
Why no comment, Wesley? You need to help bring attention to the flaws in this new amendment, which allows creation and destruction and implantation and birth of humans, as long as they are not exact clones of an existing person. Surely you see the flaw? The right way to protect the embryos from destruction is to change the law so that it bans conception of non-egg and sperm embryos, rather than only their implantation in a uterus.
The new law would allow creation and destruction of human lives too, plus it would allow the birth of genetically engineered children.
Because the post was not about the substance of the amendment, but the media reporting of it. I haven't gotten to that point, and probably won't due to time until and unless it actually makes the ballot. Moreover, one can support the limited goal of stopping all human cloning without getting into the broader issues that you focus on. Thanks, John.
What is the point of only stopping "all human cloning" in the narrowest technical sense if you don't support stopping the creation and destruction or even the implantation of genetically modified human embryos?
I've got a proposal and I am asking for your support - just a simple statement of support - to stop genetic engineering and preserve natural conception rights and get equal protections to same-sex couples via civil unions that do not grant conception rights. None of these things should wait until after the election - we need to float this idea and get people talking about it ASAP, before the election, so we know which candidates are free market eugenicists and which candidates believe we should prevent genetic engineering. Don't underestimate your influence on which future happens!
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