Living Coat EuthanizedI found this on a website for geeks, and it just made me burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it at first. I mean, it's a coat. Grown from stem cells retrieved from mice. It was actually -alive- until it outgrew it's glass chamber it was in, being kept alive by nutrients. The "artist" who created it, a Pro-Choicer, then decided to disconnect the tubes, and felt remorse over killing the mouse jacket.
My second thought was wow. What are the moral implications of something like this? Also, the future is clearly now, because someone has created a -living article of clothing-. That's insane.
It kind of also makes me think about the whole idea of cloning specific organs for people out of stem cells. Now, everyone likes the idea of stem cell research, but in the end, will it result in strange frankencreatures like this?
Discussion points:
How does this relate to the abortion debate? Should this sort of thing be permitted to happen? Are there moral implications in creating something like this, especially if you then intend to destroy it? We all know stem cell research using fetii is wrong, but what about the possible results of stem cell research?
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