Wednesday, January 11, 2006

How cloning exploits women: Scientist forced to donate - then dissect - her own eggs

Junior scientist Park Eul-soon suffered the most personally devastating blunder of her career when in 2003 she accidentally spilled a dish of human eggs while conducting experiments in the South Korean lab of then-clone king Hwang Woo-suk.

For that mishap, Hwang coerced Park, a subordinate Ph.D. student in her mid-20s, to replace the lost eggs with her own. After first saying no, Park relented for fear Hwang would otherwise exclude her from academic recognition for her work.

Afterward, according to Korean MBC TV, Park morbidly "went back to Hwang's laboratory and conducted the cloning experiment on the eggs that she herself had contributed that morning....


Read more about Park, Hwang, and how cloning exploits women in my WorldNetDaily.com column today.

wnd_logo.gif

BTW, Gov. Rod Blagojevich authorized taxpayer financed human cloning in his July executive order launching his IL Regenerative Medicine Institute.

19 comments:

Bill Baar 1:14 PM  

In case anyone things this is a right wing issue, here is an abstract from May 2002 in a British Medical Journal Commodification of human tissue: implications for feminist and development ethics. The author's steeped in Marxist jargon, but in my opinion they reflect the true danger,

One effect of late capitalism--the commodification of practically everything--is to knock down the Chinese walls between the natural and productive realms, to use a Marxist framework. Women's labour in egg extraction and 'surrogate' motherhood might then be seen as what it is, labour which produces something of value. But this does not necessarily mean that women will benefit from the commodification of practically everything, in either North or South. In the newly developing biotechnologies involving stem cells, the reverse is more likely, particular given the the shortage in the North of the egg donors who will be increasingly necessary to therapeutic cloning. Although most of the ethical debate has focused on the status of the embryo, this is to define ethics with no reference to global or gender justice. There has been little or no debate about possible exploitation of women, particularly of ovum donors from the South. Countries of the South without national ethics committees or guidelines may be particularly vulnerable: although there is increasing awareness of the susceptibility of poorer countries to abuses in research ethics, very little has been written about how they might be affected by the enormously profitable new technologies exploiting human tissue. Even in the UK, although the new Medical Research Council guidelines make a good deal of the 'gift relationship', what they are actually about is commodification. If donors believe they are demonstrating altruism, but biotechnology firms and researchers use the discourse of commodity and profit, we have not 'incomplete commodification' but complete commodification with a plausibly human face.

Anonymous,  1:14 PM  

larry horse is correct. the example cited by ms. stanek is *highly* unethical in the scientific realm, and cannot be used to tar legitimate research.

Anonymous,  1:51 PM  

Every time someone says something crazy, like "Blagojevich is funding human cloning," it cuts away the credibility of his detractors.

Anonymous,  2:23 PM  

Fran, please note Rich's post titled "New rulez"

Thanks.

Bill Baar 2:56 PM  

I don't understand how a person can consider themselves a person on the left and not see the huge potential for exploitation of women in these programs.

People awful quick to jump on the Biotech industries band wagon here, and they're the same folks who go on and on about oil companies.

Jill's right to be wary especially when we have such an opportunist for Gov.

Anonymous,  3:09 PM  

One can pose the question about the impact of cloning on woman, but to make the leap made here would be the same as someone saying some anti-abortion activists have killed doctors who perform abortions, therefore all abortion activists are murderers and must be stopped. Logical fallacies do not make good arguments.

Bill Baar 3:22 PM  

How about asking what ethical safeguards Illinois has in place?

What's to prevent this from happening in Illinois?

I haven't seen anyone come out and say this can't happen here, and here's why.

There is all this faith placed in the Medical Industrial Complex by commentators not normally inclined to be so trusting.

And it's a Medical Industrial Complex too..

Bill Baar 3:59 PM  

It's illegal to sell your kidney under the National Organ Procurement act of 1984.

My instinct is to make it illegal to sell human tissue including eggs. I don't like where these programs go.

I shuddered when I watched the Dems all get on this stem cell bandwagon.

Bill Baar 4:38 PM  

Geez Jill, what about the ethics of selling yourself? And where that could lead too.

Heck with longterm or shortterm risks to the donor.

Anonymous,  5:05 PM  

"No funds authorized or made available under the IRMI program shall be used for research involving the reproductive cloning of a human being."

Anonymous,  5:56 PM  

So, yeah. That's pretty unambiguous. No human cloning.

And for the record - I didn't call you crazy. I called the idea that Blagojevich is cloning humans crazy.

Let's add erroneous. Misleading. Hyperbolic. Demagoguery.

Anonymous,  6:51 PM  

Funny how the UN is suddenly the all knowning last word on cloning, I assume this means you support their efforts around the world to help protect the reproductive rights of women. The UN being the last word of course.

logical fallicies, strange bedfellows. I actually agree with you on cloning, but your shrill, selective citations of points of view and organizations that happen to support the rant de jour really cut into whatever creditability you might otherwise have.

Anonymous,  6:58 PM  

"I called the idea that Blagojevich is cloning humans crazy.

Let's add erroneous. Misleading. Hyperbolic. Demagoguery."

Now, just for a clarification here....

Are you using those terms in reference to Jill's post, or are they being used as a reference to Gov. Blagojevich?

Seems to me that those terms are more accurate if those terms are applied to GRod....

Anonymous,  7:09 PM  

Governor Blagojevich will support therapuetic cloning if the polls tell him that a majority believe in it.

Anonymous,  8:13 PM  

A small mind deletes those who question her, a silent, cowardly acknowledgement of her own hypocracy.

Anonymous,  3:16 PM  

I'm in favor of cloning women...like Elle McPherson, Cindy Crawford and Natalie Portman.

Bill Baar 4:09 PM  

anon 3:16

That's not far fetched you know, and exactly the morally repugnant potential of it.

Not that I don't appreciate the humor intended.

Anonymous,  9:49 AM  

So, when proven wrong, you fall back on "Anon, we all know the governor by now. Do you ever take him at face value? Do you trust him to say what he means and mean what he say?"

Weak.

Anonymous,  3:49 PM  

Once again, for those who missed (conveniently ignored) it:

"No funds authorized or made available under the IRMI program shall be used for research involving the reproductive cloning of a human being."

  © Blogger template The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP