(DOWNLOAD) "Stem-Cell Alchemy: Techno-Science and the New Philosopher's Stone (Commentary)" by Arena Journal ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Stem-Cell Alchemy: Techno-Science and the New Philosopher's Stone (Commentary)
- Author : Arena Journal
- Release Date : January 22, 2002
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 196 KB
Description
The current debate over experimentation on foetal stem cells implicitly goes to core questions about what it means to be human. When does human life begin? Is stem-cell science simply a technical matter of deploying abstracted body parts, or does it involve experimenting on potential humans? Do we continue along the path to becoming technologically maintained cyborgs, or should there be limits to the techno-scientific remaking of life? Like the splitting of the atom, there is obviously no going back to a time before the knowledge was available, but does this make its application inevitable? Techno-science clearly has a long and gathering history. The abstraction of the human body, particularly in relation to reproduction is not new. Theodor Kerckring's anatomical atlas, Spicilegium anatomicum (1670) immortalized lovingly preserved and artfully displayed foetal skeletons in obscene ikebana. William Hunter's famous obstetrical atlas, Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) faithfully depicted full-term foetuses in butchered maternal carcasses. We use the term 'butchered' advisedly. By the nineteenth century much care was being given to creating a taxonomy of the embryo and foetus, indeed to inventing stratified definitions for those very terms and dividing pregnancy into developmental categories based on the careful arrangement of preserved aborted, miscarried or post-mortem human remains. (1)
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