Extreme laws; extreme comparisons
Today Dr Josef Mengele would be 95. A doctor by profession, he was a member both of the Nazi party and of the feared SS. Following injury on the Eastern Front in 1942, he applied for and received a transfer as a medical office to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. During his 21 month stay there, he gained a deserved reputation as one of history’s blackest monsters.
Dr Mengele was interested in issues of hereditary and physical abnormality. To further his research, he used inmates of the camp in a series of bizarre experiments of highly questionable value. Common to all of them was his complete disregard for his subjects. To him, the subjects were not human beings, but simply the raw materials for his experiments…
On Tuesday (Melbourne Cup Day) the Australian Senate voted (34-32) to pass a bill authorising the cloning of human embryos for use in medical research, particularly for the extraction of embryonic stem cells. In a late amendment, it was decided to prohibit human-animal hybrids. Apart from this, in a gesture that extends far beyond the realms of mere irony, the key ‘restrictions’ placed on scientists were that the embryos could not be implanted into a woman and, instead, had to be destroyed by the time they reached 14 days of age. A whole legal class of human beings was thereby created. Not only do they have no human rights, but scientists are actually obliged to kill them.
Common to all the advocates of this bill (which is expected to pass in the House of Representatives fairly easily) is a complete disregard for the subjects of the legislation. To them, the subjects are not human beings, but simply the raw materials for their experiments…
Is this a fair comparison? Obviously advocates of the bill think not… and passionately reject it. And, from one perspective, they have a point. Dr Mengele’s experiments were amazingly evil and fatuous, including attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations of limbs and attempts to create artificially conjoined twins by sewing two young children together back-to-back. By contrast, the bill’s advocates are motivated to facilitate research into potential treatments for a variety of terrible diseases and conditions.
But it is a terrible blindness that prevents them from seeing the reality of what they are advocating. The creation of a living human being for the express purpose of using it for research or organ donation is horrific. The subsequent ‘destruction’ is, simply, the killing of an innocent human life. After all the tragedies of the twentieth century, how did we fall this far?
Dr Mengele was interested in issues of hereditary and physical abnormality. To further his research, he used inmates of the camp in a series of bizarre experiments of highly questionable value. Common to all of them was his complete disregard for his subjects. To him, the subjects were not human beings, but simply the raw materials for his experiments…
On Tuesday (Melbourne Cup Day) the Australian Senate voted (34-32) to pass a bill authorising the cloning of human embryos for use in medical research, particularly for the extraction of embryonic stem cells. In a late amendment, it was decided to prohibit human-animal hybrids. Apart from this, in a gesture that extends far beyond the realms of mere irony, the key ‘restrictions’ placed on scientists were that the embryos could not be implanted into a woman and, instead, had to be destroyed by the time they reached 14 days of age. A whole legal class of human beings was thereby created. Not only do they have no human rights, but scientists are actually obliged to kill them.
Common to all the advocates of this bill (which is expected to pass in the House of Representatives fairly easily) is a complete disregard for the subjects of the legislation. To them, the subjects are not human beings, but simply the raw materials for their experiments…
Is this a fair comparison? Obviously advocates of the bill think not… and passionately reject it. And, from one perspective, they have a point. Dr Mengele’s experiments were amazingly evil and fatuous, including attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations of limbs and attempts to create artificially conjoined twins by sewing two young children together back-to-back. By contrast, the bill’s advocates are motivated to facilitate research into potential treatments for a variety of terrible diseases and conditions.
But it is a terrible blindness that prevents them from seeing the reality of what they are advocating. The creation of a living human being for the express purpose of using it for research or organ donation is horrific. The subsequent ‘destruction’ is, simply, the killing of an innocent human life. After all the tragedies of the twentieth century, how did we fall this far?
posted by Australian Catholic at 7:02 pm
2 Comments:
Fab piece bro!
Wonderfulus Postus
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