Pope Speaks Against the Perfect Baby

Ok I'm no big fan of preposterous notions of The Perfect Baby, but I've got nothing on the hardball position that we and lots of others predicted would come out of the Vatican once this Pope was named. MSNBC/Reuters reports that he is on the warpath where reprotech is concerned:

ROME - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday condemned genetic engineering and other scientific practices that allow people to select so-called “designer babies” by screening them for defects.

In a speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Church body of experts, the Pope also attacked artificial insemination and the widespread use of medical tests that can detect diseases and inherited disorders in embryos.

“In developed countries, there is a growing interest for the most sophisticated biotechnological research to introduce subtle and extensive eugenics methods in the obsessive search for the ‘perfect child’,” the Pope said.

Clearly no one has apprised the Pope that the critical bioethics issue these days is the fate of the body and child of Anna Nicole Smith, which has turned MSNBC into a 24/7 soap opera. But thank goodness he's protecting us from reproductive technology even in this time of crisis.
[hat tip: Art Caplan]

The Enemy of My Enemy is ... My Enemy

Panos Zavos is on everyone's list of the top five, um, eccentrics in the human cloning race. He's fooled millions - twice - with promises that the first human clone's birth is imminent, and with preposterous claims about his own skills at cloning. He would be funny, if he weren't so dangerous. The emergence of Zavos has done more than anyone to convince the world that scientists who work with nuclear transfer are crazy. For example, today's British papers are all reporting that "cloning pioneer" Zavos is accusing Britain of "promoting infanticide." You'll love this:

[Zavos] branded UK rules governing reproduction as “super-conservative” and warned they were forcing many adults into having multiple abortions because it was illegal for them to choose the sex of their baby. He said British couples were visiting his clinic for “family balancing” treatments, having terminated a number of pregnancies because the gender of their unborn baby was not what they wanted. At the Kentucky Centre for Reproductive Medicine and IVF, where Zavos is associate director, treatments offered include pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, where the sex of embryos can be screened to ensure couples have a child of the desired sex.

You just know sex selection advocates want to stuff this guy into a small, dark closet ...