Re: [DIYbio] Which country has the most progressive human GM laws? China?

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Ah, well if it's just legal arbitrage, that's an interesting (if
slightly incomplete) question. Lots of places have seemingly no laws
when it comes to foreign business; Thailand comes to mind, given its
lax attitude to what would be considered sex crimes over here for
business tourists, and Mexico/Russia are permissive medically speaking
(that is, we'll do stuff you want done to yourself but can't legally
get done at home) but probably would take issue with stuff done to
*others*: whether they define an unborn as "an other", probably an
unanswered question.

I recall a few years back there was some nutter in Italy claiming to
have cloned a person, can't recall whether he was doing so, ah,
"legally": that is, whether Italy's government seemed to care.

Also, with embryonic stem cell research being South Korea and
Beijing's pet projects, it's possible they'd stretch to tinkering with
gestating embryos. Once you look at embryos as research projects, you
probably won't discriminate based on context. :P

I do think though that it's still worth considering the ethics, not
only because it's the right thing to do, but because the ball doesn't
stop at the law; the doctor/surgeon/basement-hacker you're asking to
do stuff to an embryo is going to have an ethical or moral framework
of their own, and you may find that genetic tourism is fruitless when
the locals won't create babies with multiple hox cassettes just to see
if you can get extra arms in the bundle.

You're thinking of thalidomide, by the way; it was prescribed for
hyperemesis gravidarum, a not-uncommon but extreme form of morning
sickness that can be lethal if untreated (but is, these days, totally
treatable if ridiculously punishing to the mother). At issue is
whether the company knew then that thalidomide posed serious risks to
gestating babies, which it seems they did. Big issue here in Ireland
where lots of thalidomide-babies have grown up and want justice.

On 03/26/2013 12:05 AM, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Cathal Garvey
> <cathalgarvey@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
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>>
>> The hot person you'd like to mate with should have a choice in
>> the matter.
>
> I never said my partner wouldn't be in on it.
>
>> Whether the resulting child has any choice is just the hard fact
>> of nature, but imposing further unilateral decisions on
>> someone's genetic fate based on your perceptions of "cool" is
>> against the basic outlines of bioethics; informed consent and
>> beneficence.
>>
>
> But simply put, people choosing to mate, choosing to smoke and
> drink while pregnant still happens. Weird experimental drugs that
> in the past lead to child birth deformities were intended to harm
> the children, it just turned out that way, then the drugs were
> banned for that use (can't remember the drug name now).
>
>> When you act in the direct, objective interests of the child
>> it's acceptable, although that requires two prerequisites: A) The
>> technology must be ready, or you are taking a risk with someone
>> else's entire life and genetic fate. That rules out
>> germ-line/embryonic genetic therapies for the next decade at
>> least. B) You must have someone objective and disconnected to
>> sanity check your idea of "beneficent", *especially* if
>> discussing your own offspring, for whom you will certainly have
>> no objectivity.
>
> Sure, and this measure will surely differ among groups. What are my
> options?
>
>>
>> You'll be thinking "a child, much less an unborn one, can't give
>> informed consent, so it falls to the parent". Yes, that's true,
>> so the parent must give informed consent. But you have to accept
>> that, as a parent, your ability to be "informed" when you give
>> your consent is undermined by your lack of objectivity; get a
>> second, objective opinion.
>
> I agree. I'll probably have a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth
> opinion. Maybe I'd post the plans to the DIYbio group.
>
>> It is likely that, after lots and lots of legal, ethical and
>> moral wrangling, society will come to a set of legislation-backed
>> norms that will effectively act as a hard "bioethics committee"
>> by simply banning what's decreed to be unethical.
>
> Again, the point of this thread was to gauge the different worldly
> opinions. Maybe I'll have to go to Canada or Mexico, or Thailand
> or India or China to get exactly what I want done. The fact that
> wars rage says enough about differing opinions, ways of life,
> ethics.
>
>
> The real point of this wasn't to dive into ethics at all. I'd like
> to keep it to facts, I'm sure there must be countries where they
> might not have any ethics board that would care, but also maybe not
> the equipment/resources.
>
>

- --
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