Woodstock CT Café

We really know nothing about the “quality of life� of a clone.

‘t’, I believe that you are asking the following question in referring to “developing embryosâ€?. You appear to be asking ‘What would happen if the gamete nucleus of the egg was removed and the ‘hollow egg’ was fertilized by a mature nucleus taken from any individual (for example, from a skin cell)? If this ‘fertilized egg’ was allowed to grow in a petri dish, you would end up with a culture of embryonic stem cells which could then be used to develop specific cell types for cell replacement therapy for the person that donated the skin cell nucleus. The other alternative fate could be that the egg, fertilized by this unnatural “nuclear transferâ€? process, could be implanted into a willing female’s uterus to allow natural embryo development. This, in theory, could lead to the development of a live fetus that would be the clone of the person who donated the skin cell nucleus. This would be the cloning of a human being and, of course, this has been accomplished with many animal species … but not yet with humans. This was also done four or five decades ago with amphibians. Read the rest of this entry »

One has to question just about anything one reads in the Villager. On Page A7 of today’s issue (Aug. 11, 2006) the Villager reported the Democratic primary voting outcome in a large bold table for each of the races on Tuesday in Woodstock, Eastford and Pomfret with a + sign to indicate who the Villager endorsed. The Villager endorsed Lieberman, and reported that Lieberman beat Lamont by 322 votes to 219 in Woodstock, a 60 to 40 landslide.

The only problem with this reporting is that it was Lamont that got the 322 votes, not Lieberman. Read the rest of this entry »

Bowman and t’s Point-Counterpoint

Bowman responds to ‘t’

“The FIRST thing scientists should be doing is determining if human embryos do or do not in fact have life, not constructing temporary hypotheses for or against human embyonic life while in the interim treating them worse than lab rats or test tube bacteria. If through scientific research, it is determined in how ever many months or years by a vast consensus of scientists that human embryos do not in fact have human life, then we can further the debate tremendously. We can even end the debate, but be glad we erred on the side of caution. At some later research date though, scientists, politicians, and you saying, “oops we made a mistake, those embryos ARE our most innocent human lives, and we’ve destroyed them allâ€? isn’t a good enough moral defense. It’s murder. ” Read the rest of this entry »