I have been warning this was coming, that the assurances from “the scientists” that eggs would not be commodified for cloning were false. New York State is going to permit would-be human cloners up to $10,000 to conduct human cloning as part of its $600 million taxpayer funded stem cell research project. (Isn’t New York broke? That $ would fill a lot of pot holes.) From the story:
New York has become the first and only state to opt to pay women for eggs donated for human embryonic stem cell research. The Empire State Stem Cell Board (ESSCB), which oversees New York’s $600 million stem cell research program that was launched last year, came to the decision last week (June 11) following “extensive deliberation” from its ethics committee.statement.
“The Board agreed that it is ethical and appropriate for women donating oocytes for research purposes to be compensated in the same manner as women who donate oocytes for reproductive purposes and for such payments to be reimbursable as an allowable expense” under state taxpayer-backed grants, the ESSCB wrote in a statement.
The Board is hardly independent. It is part of the institutional culture. Their opinion should be judged accordingly.
This is shameful, putting poor women’s health at material risk, with public money. Egg extraction can be effects in about 5% of the cases, including infection, infertility, blood clots, paralysis, even death. And consider how far the induced pluripotent stem cells have come, which appear capable of allowing scientists to create custom made, patient specific stem cell lines without creating or destroying embryos and without putting any patient at risk.I have long said that if adult stem cells or the IPSCs cured all the diseases that stem cells are capable of curing, “the scientists” would shrug and keep on cloning. Because stem cells are not the goal: They are the launching pad to Brave New World technologies, the real goal and the real need to endanger women “for science.”’
Time to take out big ads warning women against becoming sellers. Their lives are too important. This video could help:
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