Il blog di Richard Dawkins!

E noi di Bioetica non ne sapevamo nulla! Incredibile.
Ecco qualche assaggio da un articolo del 1 Agosto («Collateral Damage 1: Embryos and Stem Cell Research»):

George Bush has just vetoed a bill, approved by both Houses of Congress, which would have allowed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Apparently the President’s ethical philosophy places a higher value on American embryos than on Iraqi or Lebanese men, women and children. Don’t misunderstand ‘embryos’, by the way. We are not talking miniature babies here. The ‘embryos’ used for stem cell research are no bigger than a pinhead, and completely lacking in sentience of any kind.The illogical and hypocritical inconsistency between Bush’s stance on embryonic stem cell research on the one hand, and on slaughtered and maimed Iraqis and Lebanese on the other, is the subject of this article. It is an inconsistency that you could find only in a mind massively infected with the disease of religion. …
Unlike the disputed (that’s putting it mildly) advantages of invading Iraq and bombarding Lebanese villages, the positive side of embryonic stem cell research, then, is overwhelmingly agreed. How about the negative side? How does the collateral damage in embryo deaths stack up against the collateral damage in Iraq and Lebanon? Is there, indeed, a negative side at all? Is it clear that killing a small cluster of embryonic cells is morally worse than, say, boiling a lobster? The lobster has a nervous system and probably feels pain. The embryonic cells certainly don’t feel anything at all. …
If you ask me whether I care more about the destruction of a blastocyst, which theoretically has the potential to develop into a conscious human being, or the painful killing of an adult cow in an abattoir which has already reached its full potential, my answer is not in doubt. If I see a terrified cow about to have its throat cut by a Jewish or Muslim slaughterman who insists, purely for religious reasons, that it must be fully conscious when the knife hits, I want to intervene on its behalf. If I see a human blastocyst the size of a pinhead about to be flushed down the drain, do I want to intervene on its behalf? Oh come on, get real.