Shame!
Filed on 19 February 2007 in Food For Thought category. 
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On a society that has forgotten how to shudder.
On our politicians who voted for research without morality,
who put research ahead of the intrinsic value of all human life
who would create human life for the express purpose of research involving its destruction
who chose to overlook the reality that stem-cell lines from destructive research on embryos was very unlikely to achieve the promise given by some pro-cloning scientists
who ignored the reality that stem-cell research from non-embryonic sources is already achieving benefits and
that embryonic stem-cell research is in fact unnecessary
who refused to amend the bill so that eggs could not be taken from aborted female babies
who ignored the principle that all human life must be protected in all states of dependency and vulnerability otherwise we open the door to the discarding of human life depending on the value we attach to it
who failed to perceive truth and chose to believe the many obfuscations
who failed to uphold moral truth for succeeding generations
who chose not to see that all human life starts from fertilisation and not at some other arbitrarily determined time
who failed to see ahead to where other scientists are leading us e.g. more mature embryos from which to take actual formed organs
who listened to the fears that we will lose scientists and research money and failed this opportunity to set a moral compass for ethical research in Australian medicine.
(a reflection on the passing through the House of Representatives 82-62 of the bill allowing destructive research on cloned embryos in Australia)
Lachlan Dunjey 6 Dec 2006.
This repression of elements in what would otherwise be our total reaction to it is sometimes very noticeable and even painful: something has to be overcome before we can cut up a dead man or a live animal in a dissecting room. These objects resist the movement of the mind whereby we thrust them into the world of mere Nature. But in other instances too, a similar price is exacted for our analytical knowledge and manipulative power, even if we have ceased to count it.
…It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, our selves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls… The objection to his doing so does not lie in the fact that his point of view (like one’s first day in a dissecting room) is painful and shocking till we grow used to it. The pain and the shock are at most a warning and a symptom. The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his dehumanised Conditioners.
From CSLewis The Abolition of Man 1943
