UCC’s cell research will not lead to brave new world
I am sure I was not alone in asking why is the UCC governing body cooperating with the slaying of innocent human beings?
Other academics should realise, instead of getting angry or envious about it, that UCC is simply repeating the mistake of its most famous mathematician in trusting dubious medical treatments.
The inventor of set logic, a fundamental of computer programming, George Boole, contracted pneumonia after getting saturated walking to the university one rainy day in 1864.
Already in a very poor health, he then apparently fell victim to the contemporary belief that the cure to his illness lay in the cause of the infection. This typically meant that if you were bitten by a dog, for treatment you simply got a “hair from the dog that bit you”.
His wife, apparently influenced by early homeopathy advice, may have wrapped her suffocating husband in wet blankets. That and whatever other “treatments” were applied all failed and the great mathematician met his maker at 49 years of age. Now there are reports that stem cell treatments show lethal effects of tumour formation in embryo tissue regeneration, but this has not deterred the UCC authority.
In contrast, as Mr O’Sullivan’s letter pointed out, the more successful adult stem cell treatments do not require the killing of a human life.
While there has been no success in tissue regeneration from embryonic cells, there are more than 70 medically approved successes from adult cells, such as those extracted from umbilical cord.
I believe these academics are being strung along for another reason. The influence on educationalists in 2009 appears to be a combination of the acceptance of “experts”, peer group esteem and approval.
However, is this a justifiable reason to abandon tried and trusted moral certitude for some utilitarian rationalism? Do our intelligentsia realise this approach undermines the right to life of our own species.
Perhaps the UCC ethics board was a little unbalanced in suggesting such developments may lead us to a brave new world. We must be alert to any form of eugenics utopia... the ruthless philosophy that crushes the flower of human life in its dependent stages.
Of course, not all academics want this. However, I believe the Government and the board members and staff at the university have a grave duty to be responsible for these embryonic human lives. If those in a custodian role fail I believe that eventually there will be calls for a new underclass of human clones for spare parts.
At the same time, it is important to continue to support ethically non-divisive research and the experts in this area, especially when their progress is consistent with the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.
I hope another “snowflake” embryo finds a home, develops, grows up, gets a medical education, advances adult stem cell tissue regeneration and becomes instrumental is stopping this killing of the innocent unborn.
Joe Keane
Dun Na Riogh Rise
Naas
Co Kildare
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