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A few random thoughts on Stem Cell research.
I was tempted to say, on George W. Bush's position on Stem Cell research, that he might be doing the right thing, if for the wrong reasons, in hampering it. After all, technology growth has outpaced the abilities of our ethicists, philosophers, and religious institutions to develop responses to it that will allow us to use the technology wisely and morally. The commodification of human material is definitely something we need to tread lightly around.
I was tempted, I say, because then I realized something. Bush has not proposed a ban or moratorium on the research, or, for that matter, even the creation of new stem cell lines. Rather, his actions merely amount to a refusal to provide money from the public sector. As I meditated on the implications of this for a moment I realized that what this means is that any meaningful stem cell research that gets done is going to be a strictly private sector endeavor, and that any discoveries, inventions, and methods resulting from this will be the exclusive intellectual property of the corporations that funded it.
Publicly funded research has given us an awful lot. The internet emerged from a DARPA funded project at MIT. Developments in radio and television also have their roots in publicly funded (mostly military) research, and it is because it was publicly funded that these things became as pervasive as they have.
It seems to me that what Bush is doing isn't so much about "the sanctity of life," as it is about excluding the public sector from a technology with significant business potential, and ensuring that the patents are privately held. Whether that is his intention, or merely the effects of him short-sightedly following his moral compass, I cannot tell.
I was tempted, I say, because then I realized something. Bush has not proposed a ban or moratorium on the research, or, for that matter, even the creation of new stem cell lines. Rather, his actions merely amount to a refusal to provide money from the public sector. As I meditated on the implications of this for a moment I realized that what this means is that any meaningful stem cell research that gets done is going to be a strictly private sector endeavor, and that any discoveries, inventions, and methods resulting from this will be the exclusive intellectual property of the corporations that funded it.
Publicly funded research has given us an awful lot. The internet emerged from a DARPA funded project at MIT. Developments in radio and television also have their roots in publicly funded (mostly military) research, and it is because it was publicly funded that these things became as pervasive as they have.
It seems to me that what Bush is doing isn't so much about "the sanctity of life," as it is about excluding the public sector from a technology with significant business potential, and ensuring that the patents are privately held. Whether that is his intention, or merely the effects of him short-sightedly following his moral compass, I cannot tell.