World's first GM babies born

reply to post by GrantedBail


Are we really that surprised, It was clearly bound to happen with everything the US is up too. I wouldn't be surprised if the US has already started cloning humans..But GM a baby, now that's playing with God, and how far are they really going to goo?

are there really that many people here that are that are so unhappy with their lives lacking any real potential that they are willing to change their genetic structure? This is like saying liposuction is equal to diet and exercise to lose weight. It could be nature why some folks can't become pregnant or possibly they have made poor choices health wise and their body cannot support life naturally. This technology could become very important but the ethical decisions made between the beginning and perfecting the technology are what worry me. GM foods are in all of out stores and that technology hasn't even been perfected. Why don't we practice on animals? Why not tweak the genes of a chimp and try and make a human? That's what we are possibly anyhow?

I just had a thought about GM people in relation to politics.

Candidates spend billions to convince us they are the best suited candidate. But what if we could simply genetically modify some people to become the perfect, benevolent leader?

It'd be quite ironic wouldnt it? The people engineering their leaders instead of the other way around.

Just food for thought.

reply to post by Druscilla


You have no idea.

I just so happen to read as entertainment and do not watch television. I love to eat information about the human/inhuman condition.

You are not thinking far enough.

No one said the elite are dastardly Hollywood fantasy. They want control because they have very young souls, like animals but intelligent. The empathy from a long souls journey has not come to fruition. Not all is how it seems, as above so below.

Of course they already have sex slaves. Its not just about sex though. It is ego run amuck of an immature soul, a person that is awake understands more about our multidimensional existence and does not place so much importance on the physical.

Wow...this is syfy stuff to me...lol
Talk about whose your momma...lol
Try tracing your hertiage now...lol
A whole new breed to be racist against...lol
If the societies in this world were doing a better job of getting along and playing nicely as well as seeing that no one goes hungry and all the children of the world were currently having thier needs met then maybe you could convince me that this was a good idea...but we suck at taking care of what we have now. This is only going to lead to disaster imo....

reply to post by GrantedBail


This is not about "fertility". This is about women who can/have passed faulty mitochondrial genes to their offspring. Mitochondrial diseases can be devastating, leaving those who suffer from them ever unable to live a life of any quality. Most die very very young.

The women who would be involved in this process would be women who can conceive but do not want to pass on their faulty genes. In this case, basically they use the "eggshell" from a donor. As the outer layer of the egg cell contains mitochondrial DNA, that gets passed on to the child. (In this case, the healthy mitochondrial DNA).

On a biological level it is not much different from blood transfusions, bone grafts, heart transplants, etc. All of the arguments here regarding the technology and it's application are the exact same ones as we heard in the first days of in vitro fertilization. Exactly the same.

Oh, and here is a little FYI for you; the people who think so highly of themselves that they would spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to have a baby of their own, one that is biologically theirs, one that is good enough, are not the people who are clamoring adopt. And there are no legal ramifications regarding the rights of the donor of the eggshell. It is donated and all rights are relinquished, just like when you give blood, or donate and organ.

If you start reading books, that imagination might just be capable of working out some other possible horror show the spooky all powerful Elite stomping through our streets just dragging people out of their houses for any and every undignified purpose right now could visit upon all of us poor widdle vicitms.

reply to post by Druscilla


Like that has not happened before or is not happening now... Anyway moving on swiftly, experiments with cloning animals often ended in newly born pain and subsequent death (cows born with 5 stomachs etc) , do we want this for newly born babies, IMO both are ethically wrong period , if we need to torture to learn about science or anything for that matter, I would rather remain in the dark ( anyway ignorence is bliss, so no problem. stupid scientists with there big sad brains always trying to improve stuff..)

reply to post by GrantedBail


This is old news, I'm sure I read it about 1-2 years ago.

As long as care is taken to not treat this like uncontrolled human experimentation but instead like a therapy, I fully support this.

Ethical arguments cut both ways, you know. Is it ethical to genetically engineer babies in an uncontrolled manner such that they could suffer from unintended consequences? Nope. But it is also deeply unethical to have the capability to better their genome and refusing to do it. A balance needs to be found, and I think it is only a matter of time before fixing congenital diseases by genetic engineering is common. Because there is no ethical issue with that, IMHO.

Guys

Technology is like money. It's a tool. use it for good or bad, that's up to how individual human beings use these tools, like genetically engineered humans and clones. There's plenty of positive applications for genetic engineering and cloning, but you need this kind of technology in the right hands.

Well I for one think it is fantastic.

It is so hard for some women who want desperately to start a family but cant, for whatever reason, be it endometriosis, fertility problems etc. Lots of women do not want to adopt but want to have a child that is still in some way part of them and their partner, this seems to do that :-)

edit to add - just recently there was a documentary on the tv here about women who donate eggs for procedures like this, it showed the women involved on both sides and it really was a touching documentary, It really is a good thing.

does no body remember the eugenic wars from star trek where augments or genetically modified humans took over the planet as warlords and took to fighting each other.

reply to post by Druscilla


Again, you entirely miss the point I was trying to make.

*sigh*

I give up. Some people you just can't reach.

Not quite the world's first though.

Originally posted by ShadeWolf
reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

 

Right there with you, man. It's disturbing how much ATS hates the natural progression of technology in relation to biology.

We do not ever get to play God. Here, they are.

CNN reported on this in 2001. The Daily Mail's article said it was "just reported last night." Nice credibility, Daily Mail.

archives.cnn.com...

reply to post by nomnom


Oh no. It's entirely clear that you (majestic plural, not personal) are completely content, almost pornographically so, to play the victim.

Talk about sheep.

Fact of the matter is, you're being ego-centric, as well as, socio-centric. (that's "you're" in the plural context in addressing a position)
Ego-centric: you personally, privately disagree with the development, don't like it, and so rationalize any and every reason to villainize the development even to the extent of willfully playing the victim just to make a point.

Socio-centric: tying in with the ego-centrism in projecting personally subjective distaste about the development; those dastardly no good over-privileged spoiled rotten power hungry invisible Elite people that we blame for everything are going to keep all the cool toys to themselves like they always have, awww shucks, poor me, wahhh, they are evil and will use it for no good, boo hoo.

Get over it.
You personally don't like it. Period.
Quit over-rationalizing with made up stories about Elites, and Slave races, and other doom porn.

Me? I like the development. I think it's fantastic and I also think it can help lots of people.
Feel free to turn this into just another perversion of doom pornography if that's what tickles you.
I, for one, will enjoy seeing where and how this technology develops.

Wow, reading that reminds me of a crazy movie I recently watched called "Never let me go" where kids are born/clone just to harvest their organs when they grow up, because they have no idea if the kids have souls or not.

This article is one step in that direction...not cool...not cool at all...

Even if this never happens, still the idea sounds kinda creepy, like something Hitler would have a wet dream over in creating a master race of kids...so not cool...not cool at all...

reply to post by mblahnikluver





I have wondered what people who are born as twins feel about cloning.

I guess I thought a person with a twin would not see cloning the same as those who protest it. This may have entered my mind based on the fact that a pregnancy with multiples is the natural cloning process,

Instead of being a synthetically created clone, twins are essentially organic clones. However, I will admit that I am not a part of a twin set and have very limited knowledge on the subject. I know that identical twins are created by the splitting of a single egg, multiples aren't extremely rare, and they are created 100% by nature.

If a woman had her fertilized egg split by a Dr., in order to birth a set of multiples, would you be OK with that, or not?

I do not mean to seem as if I am baiting your reply. I am genuinely curious how someone who belongs to a set of multiples sees this - naturally produced multiples pregnancy v. laboratory produced multiples pregnancy.

Are laboratory created multiples OK in the same way a natural occurring multiples pregnancy OK?

I have also wondered how the majority of people feel about having an unconscious clone of themselves grown. I read about this a while back, how future medicine may allow anyone to have a clone of themselves created, which would provide blood transfusions and organ donations to the clone's owner.

I am not sure how I feel about this. If they have absolutely no consciousness or meaningful brain activity (outside of involuntary motor skills), I suppose it would be a good idea to have some spare parts laying around, in the event of a serious medical emergency. It would really take some pressure of the organ donor waiting list.

I know it would be easy to say unconscious cloning is vulgar and should never be allowed. I do wonder how much that sentiment may change if the protestor found themselves on death row (organ donor waiting list), with little hope of securing an organ donor before it's too late. I imagine their opinion would quickly and dramatically change....

I know if I was a protestor, but suddenly found myself in need of a transplant to extend my life, my opinion would change in a split second.

If our species didn't have such a propensity to corrupt everything in it's path and we could trust that scientists would use ethics in endeavors such as these, then perhaps it would be easier for me accept that this type of research is a positive step. But, as everyone here knows, governments, money, ego, and humanity's desire to dominate others will ultimately turn any promising research into something ugly that will be used for nefarious purposes.