Theos-Talk Archives (August 2001 Message tt00217)

Here is some info from www.globalchange.com.

> From a theosophical point of view, many questions raise. What are the 
inner composition of the cloned bodies and what is the future spiritual 
growth progression etc.

MKR

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There could be one benefit of the human to cows egg transfers. Some people 
are very uneasy about creating a human embryo and then dismembering it, 
however early the stage, to obtain embryonic stem cells from which useful 
tissues might be grown. they might feel more comfortable with a hybrid 
solution, if it were shown that the embryonic cow-human stem cells were 
viable as tissue producers but not capable of becoming a baby.

However there are many other ethical issues. For a start it raises the 
biggest question of all: how many human genes does a cow or monkey have to 
gain before we give it human rights? In these human-cow clones one 
imagines every court in the world would agree that the child born would be 
capable of being prosecuted for murder, even though it would technically be 
1% cow. But what about other proportions?

Humonkeys are within our capability and have been for several 
years.Scientists have already made geep (combined sheep and goat), and 
camas (combined camels and lamas) simply by rolling two balls of cells 
together after fertilisation. Monkeys and humans have 97% of genes in 
common so if the right 1.6% were transferred from a human to a monkey we 
could land up with a monkey more human than animal. These questions will 
need facing sooner than you may think. And for the theologians another 
question: how many human genes does an animal have to have to need 
salvation? Christians, Muslims and Jews believe that humans are made in the 
image of God. Human life is a mystery. What does that mean in the light 
of these extraordinary developments?
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