BIO-ETHICS DUTY - Arrest follows failure to appear!

Okay, I admit it, I'm PRO-LIFE, so I want to be sure I understand this ...

• If I'm a girl fetus and my parents were hoping for a boy fetus, I'm cut up and flushed!
• If I'm not exactly perfect, to go with my present-perfect siblings, I'm cut up and flushed!
• If I'm old and not able to take care of myself, I'm starved to death, burned up and buried!
• If I'm disabled or injured and not able to take care of myself, I'm starved to death, burned up and buried!
• If I'm old, poor, indigent, and unable to take care of myself, I'm euthanized (aka: court ordered murder), burned up and buried!

Am I right so far? Good!

Now, if I manage to be born and can avoid any of the other unacceptable conditions of life, you (the government) send me a letter requiring me to register for an upcoming biotech testing pool for possible service in a drug trial to cure birth defects ... or is it to slow down aging?

Don't believe it? Read on ...

The Declaration of Helsinki, which has underpinned the ethical grounds of research since 1964, clearly states that "in medical research on human subjects, considerations related to the well-being of the human subject should take precedence over the interests of science and society."

But there are concerns that the desire to protect volunteers from potential harm is actually hampering research which could benefit the greater good. So should we all be obliged - or even compelled - to become human "guinea pigs"?

This controversial question has been raised by leading bioethicist Professor John Harris of the University of Manchester. Writing in the latest edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics, he suggests the public should be "morally obliged" to take part in research, in a similar way to wearing a seat belt or performing jury service.

Harris has called for the Declaration of Helsinki to be reviewed, arguing that research is becoming "impossibly difficult" to undertake, and that, in certain circumstances, a degree of compulsion is justified.

Why would you need to compel people to serve? If your system of culling unwanted fetuses and eliminating unwanted elderly and indigent works out you won't have any imperfect people who need drugs and if you do, just get a judge to order their euthanization.

In a world like that, Dr. Harris, you won't need drugs; you'll only need plenty of sharp scalpels, empty buckets, and crematoriums (Germany has a few old ones you could probably retrofit). You won't need neonatal incubators, intravenous foods or feeding tubes, or geriatric medicines ... so what drugs do you need to test?

As far as I can see the only drug you need to test is a heavy duty poison. You don't need volunteers for that ... just go out into your neighborhood and find some people you don't like the looks of and inject them! If they die, your poison works! If they don't die, your poison didn't work!

Gosh, and I'm not even a bio-ethicist. And you must read Harris' moral justification for such a proposal here ...