Roman Catholic Religion

The British Parliament is set to debate a draft legislation to allow experimentation with human chimeras. This is still not allowed in the USA but there will be eventual agitation among some scientists and some politicians in the US to approve such experiments. The British draft law will allow such chimera embryos to develop to an early stage only and it must be destroyed and not allowed to be implanted into a human or animal uterus. What's to stop an unethical scientiest from implanting the embryos in an animal or even paying a female subject to take the baby to full term. How can we be sure that it won't happen?

In a recent article in the Fortune magazine reported the plight of mutant rice, or genetically modified rice, having found its way into the human food chain! When rice was genetically modified several years ago the companes that developed it as well as the USDA assured the public the rice was only meant for limited animal feed use and it was impossible to end up as human food. What happened - is it human avarice that determined that it found its way into the human food chain or an act of God? Actually one of companies is claiming that the whole debacle is God's fault! So if we can easily attempt to pass the buck, on the mutant rice brouhaha, to God, what's the assurance that this will not be repeated with a human chimera embryo? Absolutely none.
Note that I used the term baby earlier to describe a chimera foetus. Yes it is a human baby, even if it doesn't have all human genes. The British bishops have already petitioned that such chimera embryos should have the right to life and not be destroyed as being recommended in the draft legislation. What will happen to society if these chimera humans are unleashed into society? No one really knows whether they will be more human in behavior or more animal. Do we need to conduct such experiments to observe the conclusions?

We are playing with fire that will consume us. This is what happened to our original parents when they wanted to experiment with the fruit of the tree of knowledge.  In this instance of the human-animal embryo issue, it's judicious to reflect on the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and just back off from the precipice we are advancing to. We are trying to play God when we are mere mortals. We should just play human and let God play God.