tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12625691.post114113893127089833..comments2024-02-29T01:43:23.900-05:00Comments on Women's Bioethics Blog: Global governance needed for species-changing and species-endangering proceduresLinda MacDonald Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02378544626277000243noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12625691.post-1141876667025559442006-03-08T22:57:00.000-05:002006-03-08T22:57:00.000-05:00Strange that this is the point you chose to emphas...Strange that this is the point you chose to emphasize. Out of context (and arguably even in context), it does not capture the gist of Annas's argument. Here's how he closes his piece:<BR/><BR/><BR/>Somatic cell nuclear transfer experiments, limited to the creation of stem cells, do not carry these species-endangering risks. Nonetheless, they are closely enough related to germline genetic engineering experiments to provide an important, perhaps unique, opportunity for the global community to set the basic ethical and human-rights standards for potentially species-altering research. Both the UN and the private sector have thus far proven ethically impotent. <BR/><BR/>We need to exercise our moral imaginations to create a structure that can act as a virtual global conscience for the scientific community pursuing species-altering and potentially species-endangering biotechnologies. An ethical oversight structure must be global and should include representatives from governments, industry, non-governmental organizations and the public. <BR/><BR/>The group should be charged with articulating substantive global research rules (using existing international human-rights documents, like the Nuremberg Code, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine as a basis), reviewing and approving (or declining) all proposals to do species-altering or potentially species-endangering procedures, and monitoring these experiments as they are performed.<BR/><BR/>That we can imagine the horrors of an avian flu pandemic or a bioterrorist attack, but cannot imagine ways to develop and exercise a “species conscience”, is a potentially lethal attribute of today’s humans.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com