Congratulations! It's a ... Chimera!
If the Catholic Church gets its way, the U.K. will be officially renamed The Island of Dr. Moreau.
The British parliament is debating whether to allow the creation of hybrid animal-human embryos for medical research. The current bill requires the embryos to be destroyed within two weeks and forbids implantation in a woman's womb.
But Roman Catholic bishops want women to have the right to bear the chimeras -- named after the mythical half-animal, half-human beast -- as their own children. In their submission to the committee in charge of the bill, they argued:
Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so.
I say, why not? I can think of all kinds of advantages of a half kid, half whatever. For instance, a kid/squid chimera might come equipped with extra arms and ink -- both very useful to have on hand. With a kid/cat combo, you could skip the poopy diaper phase and simply train your chimera to use a litter box. Of course, you'd have to be careful figuring out what goes with what. Like, remember the creepy chicken lady in Kids in the Hall? ("Gravel and grubs, gravel and grubs, I love to eat my gravel and grubs...") I'd steer waaaaaay clear of that combo.
Animal-human embryos need human rights, bishops say [Reuters]
More proof of HG Wells' genius, to have predicted this in 1896.
Proof, too, of mankind's insanity, to be fooling around with this stuff.
And, with all respect to the bishops, how does this comport with the Church's position that only humans have souls? See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26soul.html?ref=science
Very perplexing.
Hmm... what's next? School uniforms with an extra fly zipper at the back for the tail? Kitty litter in the little kids' urinals to encourage our catkids to go pee? Having to tell your eight year old off for fiddling with their whiskers in public because it feels good? It's madness, I tell ya.