UPDATE: While we’re talking about these kinds of things, Dean Esmay has a link to a news story about chimeras, which kicks off a very interesting discussion.
I would never have believed what a can of worms republishing my old post about Leon Kass and therapeutic cloning would open up. (Of course, the Instalanche was a major factor.) First off, Daniel Moore took me to task on definitional grounds. (Note the excellent comments by co-blogger Stephen Gordon and M104 member Karl Hallowell.) Grace at Orthodox and Heterodox found my views “chilling,” while Justin Katz and friends at Dust in the Light went to some trouble to show that my views amount to advocacy for slavery and other evils. Gumby at Two Docs and a Shovel comments as follows:
This is why the hair on my neck sticks up. No longer does this blastocyst exist as a potential person, it is an object. A thing to be grown and discarded at the whim of the donor.