I’m not sure just what prompted this legislation but the thought of something like that is revolting enough that I doubt anyone would be eating whatever it is.

An Oklahoma bill that would ban the sale of food containing aborted human fetuses has some people wondering: What food currently contains aborted human fetuses?

The bill, introduced Jan. 18 by State Sen. Ralph Shortey, prohibits the manufacture or sale of “food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”

Shortey declined to give specific examples but said some food manufacturers used stem cells in the research and development process.

“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” he told KRMG Radio. “I don’t know if it is happening in Oklahoma, it may be, it may not be. What I am saying is that if it does happen then we are not going to allow it to manufacture here.”

link to full article

What the fuck?

That’s got to be the most revolting concept I’ve come across in a long time. If I found any company putting that in my food I’d be suing them.

Umm.. ew?

Only thing I can think of is that someone pointed out a loophole in the laws concerning cannibalism, and they’re closing it. Either way.. Umm.. yeah. ew?

Peter - 26 January 2012 04:32 PM

What the fuck?

That’s got to be the most revolting concept I’ve come across in a long time. If I found any company putting that in my food I’d be suing them.

The simple answer is, that there are no companies doing this.

The hidden agenda of legislation like this is to put a black mark on abortion by manipulating the perception of abortion. If you can “convince” people that aborted fetusses “end up in your food”, that makes abortion revolting to people.

Remember: “cannibalism” is one of the biggest taboos in human society. So if you can manage to forge a link between “cannibalism” and “abortion”, however tedious or imaginary,  that is one very powerful way to manipulate the perception of abortion.

In other words: this has nothing to do with food safety etcetera. It is manipulative anti-abortion (and anti stem-cel research) image management.

LaMa hit the nail on the head and drives it home as well.

Dang, beat me to it. I was just thinking about it when I realized that it was probably one of the sneaky ‘end-run’ tactics that the Pro-Lifers have been known to use in the past. Explains the cagey ‘maybe there is, maybe there isn’t’ response.

Whatever your stance on the matter is, having to resort to this sort of trickery is just shameful.

Now, I will point out, that the proposed law has some interesting loopholes:

Absolutely nothing in there about eating UN-aborted fetuses. Just use a long fork? (ew)
Using aborted fetuses for non-consumption purposes? Sure! Like my new hat? (ew)
Nothing in there about using aborted fetuses for NON-human consumption! Here Fido! (also, ew)

. . . yeah, I have a demented mind sometimes, but these folks more than anoyone should know that failing to spell things out specifically in the laws can result in some interesting boomerang effects.

When I first read the topic title though, I really thought this was going to be about fertilized chicken eggs that are often found on ordinary farms where there are only a few resident chickens that run about.  We often found the little red blood spots that indicated the egg had been fertilized and therefore, if it had been left with the hen would have hatched a chick.

But who here hasn’t had a hankering for a fetal cutlet served rare with a baked potato?

Some stem cells are descended from earlier cells that were extracted from human fetuses.  The current generations of these cells therefore aren’t actually from fetuses, but could still possibly be argued to be “human fetus cells”.  Besides which, many if not most anti stem cell activists don’t make any distinction between the origins of different stem cell groups, even those that aren’t originally from aborted fetuses.  They just declare that stem cells = murdered babies.

These stem cells can be used in all sorts of ways, because they are undifferentiated.  They haven’t yet been “programmed” into turning specifically into muscle cells or bone cells or nerve cells or whatever.  They’re just generic protocells.  They could potentially be programmed into growing into slabs of meat which could then be sold. . .but I don’t really see that as being a likely scenario.  If nothing else, food companies would find it just as easy to use pig or chicken stem cells to do that, and that way they’d avoid the danger of being caught promoting cannibalism.

More likely, this is about the use of human stem cells in medicine.  That’s where most current stem cell research is concentrated.  By starting off with laws about stem cells and food, they might hope to not only make the public think “Ick!” whenever the subject of stem cells is brought up, but also to open up a new pathway to making new laws about stem cells in medicine.  After all, if there is a law specifically against using stem cells in food, then it’s not that far of a stretch to move on to laws about stem cells that are used in making medicines.

Charybdis - 28 January 2012 11:40 AM

But who here hasn’t had a hankering for a fetal cutlet served rare with a baked potato?

*salivates uncontrollably*