Author Archive for Rebecca Taylor

TV Show <em>Intelligence</em>: Patriotic Transhumanist Propaganda
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TV Show Intelligence: Patriotic Transhumanist Propaganda

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by on Feb 28, 2014 in Catholic Bioethics, Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, On Media
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My husband watches the new TV show Intelligence starring Josh Holloway (previously Sawyer from Lost) as Gabriel, a man with a rare genetic mutation (or some such) that allowed the U.S. government to put a chip in his brain. This chip gives Gabriel unlimited access to the Internet directly into his consciousness. As an agent […]

Eugenics Still Coercive and Devoid of Real Compassion
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Eugenics Still Coercive and Devoid of Real Compassion

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by on Feb 06, 2014 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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Today more and more people are whole-heartedly embracing eugenics. They probably don’t know it as eugenics, but every time a human life in the womb or in the lab is cut short because his or her genetics is not up to snuff, that is undoubtedly eugenics. Many associate the eugenics of old with a lack […]

More Media Stem Cell Confusion
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More Media Stem Cell Confusion

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by on Jan 23, 2014 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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After my many years of writing about stem cell research, I am still shocked when the media get the facts horribly wrong. I guess that comes from the assumption that to report the news, one must actually understand the subject matter. After last month’s confusion over whether research that produced mini-kidneys in the lab used […]

Sex-Selection in the West
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Sex-Selection in the West

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by on Jan 16, 2014 in Contraception & Abortion, Featured
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Everyone knows that sex-selection is rampant in the places like China and India where ultrasound and legalized abortion mean that roughly 160 million women are “missing.” What many people do not know, or refuse to acknowledge, is that the practice of aborting girls just because they are girls is growing in the West as well. […]

Mini-Kidney Likely Grown from Embryonic Stem Cells, Not Skin Cells
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Mini-Kidney Likely Grown from Embryonic Stem Cells, Not Skin Cells

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by on Jan 09, 2014 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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Ever since the dawn of embryonic stem cell research, the media has rarely gotten the facts straight. Either the reporter is unaware of the scientific and moral differences between adult and embryonic stem cells or he has an agenda to push. Some news outlets were so bold as to call embryonic stem cells “early” stem […]

Stem Cell Funding Shifts Toward Ethical Research
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Stem Cell Funding Shifts Toward Ethical Research

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by on Dec 06, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, Science
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I have always said that if you want accurate information about stem cell research and its possibilities, you should be reading the business section. Anything else is probably misleading, hyped or even flat out lies. In other words, follow the money. The money will tell you what is truly promising research. The money is painting […]

Google Launches Calico to "Solve Death"
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Google Launches Calico to “Solve Death”

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by on Nov 06, 2013 in Disability, Sickness & Suffering, Featured, Health & Fitness
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Google has launched a new company called Calico (California Life Company) whose focus is to “solve death.” CNN reports: Last month Google announced a new medical company called Calico, whose explicit aim is to take on aging itself. But what will Google’s approach be? And what other research into prolonging life already exists?… Calico — […]

African Girl Brought to UK for Organ Harvesting
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African Girl Brought to UK for Organ Harvesting

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by on Oct 29, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, The Social Order, Those in Need
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This is so horrific and evil that it almost defies reason. Officials have rescued a girl from Somalia that was brought to the UK to harvest her organs. They are sure that this is not an isolated incidence. The Telegraph has the story: The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the […]

Technology as Savior
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Technology as Savior

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by on Oct 08, 2013 in Catholic Bioethics, Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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I worry for young people these days. I know every generation says that about the one that follows, but today’s youth may face a world where simply being human won’t be good enough. Augmentation may be required to participate in society. A cyber-brain here, a bionic limb there with some genetic engineering and a few […]

The New Love Affair with Eugenics
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The New Love Affair with Eugenics

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by on Sep 24, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Disability, Sickness & Suffering, Featured
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One of the modern zeitgeists that scares me the most is the growing love affair with eugenics among the elite. Whether the masses are aware of it or not, elite ideas trickle down and infect our subconscious. More and more dropping from Ivory Towers are notes that say, “Eugenics is good,” and “The problem last […]

Procreative Altruism: Lebensborn Re-Imagined
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Procreative Altruism: Lebensborn Re-Imagined

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by on Aug 08, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, Reproductive Technology
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You remember Julian Savulescu, the Oxford “ethicist” who is telling parents that we are morally obligated to choose the child among many “possible children” that is determined by genetic testing to have the “best life.” He wants us all to use IVF, whether we are infertile or not apparently, to create a batch of embryos […]

Extra Chromosome Silenced in Down Syndrome Cells
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Extra Chromosome Silenced in Down Syndrome Cells

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by on Jul 24, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Disability, Sickness & Suffering, Featured
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Amazing news was announced in the field of gene therapy last week. Scientists in Massachusetts have taken the cells of a person with Down Syndrome and have silenced the extra 21st chromosome in those cells. The Guardian has the story: Scientists have corrected the genetic fault that causes Down’s syndrome – albeit in isolated cells […]

Dan Brown's <em>Inferno</em> Portrays Transhumanism in Positive Light
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Dan Brown’s Inferno Portrays Transhumanism in Positive Light

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by on Jul 10, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, On Books
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WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD. (That is if you want to read Inferno of your own free will.) I recently had the displeasure of reading Dan Brown’s new novel, Inferno, because I heard it had transhumanist themes. Essentially, it was the same book as Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code except this time the backdrop […]

Funding Restrictions Stifle Cloning Research
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Funding Restrictions Stifle Cloning Research

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by on Jun 21, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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Unlike many other countries, the United States has no federal restrictions on cloning. Scientists can clone human embryos as much as they want, provided they have the human eggs to do it, and in many states they could transfer those embryos to a female volunteer if they wanted. The only thing that we have in […]

New IVF Embryo Quality Control
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New IVF Embryo Quality Control

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by on Jun 12, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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In manufacturing, quality control (QC) is very important. A manufacturer always wants to put out the best product and eliminate defective merchandise. The same is true of IVF. With as many as 30 embryos created for every live birth, doctors are always on the look out for ways to separate the robust embryos from the […]

Supreme Court Allows DNA Collection After an Arrest
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Supreme Court Allows DNA Collection After an Arrest

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by on Jun 06, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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This week the Supreme Court decided that it is not a violation of the 4th Amendment for law enforcement to take a DNA sample from people who are arrested. The Court said that a cheek swab was no different than mug shots or fingerprinting; its purpose is to identify the person in custody. From the […]

Is Sex-Selective IVF Harmless?
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Is Sex-Selective IVF Harmless?

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by on May 29, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Aussie boy: “Hey Ma, where are we going on vacation this year?” Aussie mom: “We are doing something very special. We are going to circumvent the laws of our country and we are going to travel all the way to Thailand, stay in a fancy hotel for a week, and buy you a little sister!” […]

Human Embryos Created by Cloning in Oregon
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Human Embryos Created by Cloning in Oregon

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by on May 15, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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Once induced pluripotent stem cells hit the scene, human cloning slowly faded away. Why clone embryos with human eggs (exploiting women in the process) to get “patient-specific” embryonic stem cells when you can just take an adult cell and reprogram it back to an embryonic-like state? No eggs, no cloning, no creating and destroying embryos.But […]

Woman With Uterus Transplant Confirmed Pregnant
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Woman With Uterus Transplant Confirmed Pregnant

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by on Apr 26, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Doctors have announced that the woman that received a womb transplant is now pregnant. From RedOrbit: The Turkish woman who, two years ago, became the first person in the world to have a successful womb transplant from a deceased donor is pregnant, various media outlets are reporting. Twenty-two-year-old Derya Sert, who was born without a […]

From Choosing to Creating the "Better" Human
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From Choosing to Creating the “Better” Human

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by on Apr 03, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which oversees fertility treatments and embryo research in that nation, recently recommended that the creation of children with three genetic parents be allowed to move forward. Currently, it is illegal to transfer genetically modified embryos to a woman in Britain. The HFEA blessing will likely be used by lawmakers […]

Lance Armstrong: Cheater or Pioneer?
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Lance Armstrong: Cheater or Pioneer?

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by on Feb 06, 2013 in Catholic Bioethics, Featured
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After Lance Armstrong admitted that he cheated with performance enhancing drugs, I was waiting for the transhumanists to claim him as their own. It didn’t take long. The title of this Wired piece says it all: “Lance Armstrong should be celebrated as a pioneer in human enhancement.” The premise? Sure Armstrong broke the rules, but […]

Choosing Life: The Crisis That Wasn't
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Choosing Life: The Crisis That Wasn’t

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by on Jan 24, 2013 in Contraception & Abortion, Featured
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As the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade dawns, my friends that have adopted children have been posting pictures on Facebook of their beautiful families and thanking the birth mothers for their courage and sacrifice. These adoptive mothers asked everyone to choose adoption over abortion. As I contemplated praising my friends for telling their story, […]

Right to Consumer Genetics?
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Right to Consumer Genetics?

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by on Jan 17, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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These days it seems we have a “right” to everything except the rights that are actually given to us by our Creator and enumerated in the Constitution. According to this article from the MIT Technology Review we even have a “right to consumer genetics.” What exactly is consumer genetics? Well, you can go about getting your genes […]

Federal Stem Cell Research Funding: Why You Need to Know About the Dickey Amendment
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Federal Stem Cell Research Funding: Why You Need to Know About the Dickey Amendment

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by on Jan 07, 2013 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured
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In an attempt to stop the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, two researchers sued the Obama Administration saying that the administration’s funding of research that requires the destruction of a human embryo violates the Dickey Amendment. Unfortunately, while a lower court agreed that using tax-payer money to fund embryonic stem cell research is […]