The human pig cometh

Last November we posted a report, "From the bioethical front ..." (Musings, November 8, 2008), detailing not only a eugenic proposal to kill disabled human babies, but a plan to create human-cow embryos, a scenario more recently comented on by an article in the Weekly Standard, "The Pig-Man Cometh."

Now the British House of Commons has actually done the nasty deed: "Commons approves embryology Bill" (The Press Association, October 22, 2008):

Controversial new legislation allowing scientists to conduct experiments using hybrid human-animal embryos has been approved by the House of Commons despite a small rebellion by Labour backbenchers.

The staunchly Catholic former minister Ruth Kelly [See "A woman with balls ..."], who quit the Government earlier this month, was one of 16 Labour MPs who voted against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

... Conservative MP Nadine Dorries warned that loopholes in the legislation would allow scientists to attempt to create a "humanzee" - a hybrid between a human and a chimpanzee.

Recalling Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's 1920s efforts to create "the ultimate soldier" by cross-breeding men and apes, she warned: "Of all the experimental possibilities debated in the course of this Bill, surely none is quite so utterly repulsive as the possibility of seeking to inseminate animals with human sperm."