Ronald Bailey at Reason online presents an interesting essay on Sen. Brownback's (R-Kan.) proposed legislation to ban any research that would create chimiras--human-animal hyubrids.

This quick review shows that current experiments using chimeric animals and embryos do not threaten our "respect for human dignity and the integrity of the human species." Ultimately, the Human Chimera Prohibition Act is a misbegotten legislative blunderbuss that would criminalize much valuable research aimed at curing human diseases. We can afford to wait until we hear that a Harvard or Stanford institutional review board has approved an experiment to produce a humanzee before Congress needs to act.

As Bailey makes clear, this legislation is about more than the creation of freakish monsters. It is yet another ill-disguised attempt to support a prolife aganda with naive assumptions about human nature and human dignity. The sanctimonious and simple-minded attempts to limit what could very well lead to beneficial discoveries in medicine and reproductive health strike me as, well, ...inhumane.

Reason: Brownback's Chimerical Attempt to Curb Science: Outlawing human/animal chimeras will hurt serious research

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