Life Imitates Art

Philosophy Now is currently my favourite magazine. It's philosophical, accessible and funny (believe it or not). Anyway, in the "News" section they alerted us to legislation that scientists wish to change for doing research on chimeras. Currently, scientists are allowed to fertilize human eggs with cells from rabbits, cows and goats, but the embryos must be destroyed no later than the two cell stage. The biologists would like to extended that period of chimeric life to fourteen days, in which they could study and experiment with the embryo before destroying the human-animal hybrid. The embryonic stem cell could be used to grow organs for humans.

Of course this is controversial. This article mentions some of the ethical issues people are worried about. For those of us who think that a human embryo is a person, then it is possibly problematic to destroy human-animal hybrid embryos. Also, if the chimeras are allowed to develop into full grown beings, what rights and responsibilities do they have? Are we to treat them like fellow human beings? Do we treat them as though they are moral beings with moral responsibilities?

We may not ever have to ask these questions, because any legislation to allow chimera creation probably won't pass.

Am I just one sick puppy, or does that disappoint any one else? The idea of a chimera, a part-human, part-animal creature from the world of sci-fi, fascinates me. What would they look like? How would they behave? What would we think of them? Would they be persons?