Re: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning (fwd)

[Jonathan Wienke <JonWienk@ix.netcom.com>]

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At 10:17 AM 1/16/98 -0800, bill.stewart@pobox.com wrote:
>At 11:02 AM 1/13/98 -0800, Tim May wrote:
>>As I have made clear, I don't believe "banning research" which is neither
>>"commerce between the states" nor a direct harm to others (as the
"robbery"
>>example Michael Froomkin used earlier as a parallel is), is supported by
>>the Constitution.
>
>There are different degrees of UnConstitutionalness.  Some things are so
>blatantly off the edge that even if Congress passed them, they'd be
laughed
>out of the first court that addressed them, like banning plant-growing
>or discrete mathematics or arresting everybody with Japanese ancestors.
>Others are much grayer areas, where court cases addressing them 
>would take a long time and cost a lot of money, which can be prohibitively
>expensive for the early phases of research.

Hate to bust your bubble, but they did the Japanese thing during WWII...the
survivors and next of kin finally got a token payment last year.

>Alternatively, [Note: End of serious section] they could use the
>confiscatory tax model pioneered with the machine gun and marihuana bans -
>the tax on cloning body parts is an arm and a leg, but if you
>clone an entire human it'll cost you your firstborn child...

They have machine gun bars!!!  I think I'll take up drinking! :)


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Jonathan Wienke

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