FSTDT Forums

Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: DiscoBerry on January 25, 2012, 08:00:23 pm

Title: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: DiscoBerry on January 25, 2012, 08:00:23 pm
Quote
A Republican state senator in Oklahoma has introduced a bill banning aborted human fetuses in food, despite the fact that there are no known foods or food products that actually contain aborted fetuses.

Sen. Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma City introduced on Tuesday Senate Bill 1418, which prohibits "the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses." He says he based the bill on an article he read online about an anti-abortion group boycotting companies that allegedly use embryonic stem cells to research and develop artificial sweeteners.

“People are thinking that this has to do with fetuses being chopped up and put in our burritos,” Shortey told NewsOK. "“That's not the case. It's beyond that.

“There are companies that are using embryonic stem cells to research and basically cause a chemical reaction to determine whether or not something tastes good or not,” he said. “As a pro-life advocate, it kind of disturbed me that we would use aborted embryos or aborted human fetuses to extract stem cells and use them for research to basically make things taste better.”

PepsiCo did partner with food product development company Senomyx to develop a new low-calorie sweetener, but the company denied using fetal tissue in its research in an April 2011 email to Children of God for Life.

"Unfortunately, there is some misinformation being circulated related to research techniques that have been used for decades by universities, hospitals, government agencies, and private companies around the world. These claims are meant to suggest that human fetal tissue is somehow used in our research," wrote Margaret Corsi, a spokesperson for PepsiCo. "That is both inaccurate and something we would never do or even consider. It also is inaccurate to suggest that tissue or cells somehow are being used as product ingredients. That’s dangerous, unethical and against the law. Every ingredient in every one of our products is reviewed and approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html)
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Captain Jack Harkness on January 25, 2012, 08:13:29 pm
Who the fuck would think that there's the need fo-

-Oh.  It's Oklahoma.  *mega facepalm*
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Danarth on January 25, 2012, 08:27:30 pm
I'm sorry....what?

This guy can't be serious...
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Cataclysm on January 25, 2012, 08:38:57 pm
Mmmmm.... stem cells *drools*
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 25, 2012, 08:42:28 pm
This is about as dumb as that Australian lawmaker who tried to ban dihydrogen monoxide.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: TheUnknown on January 25, 2012, 08:47:53 pm
I notice that he admits that this whole law is based on a single article he read.  It doesn't sound like he did any research on his own.  Also, from the way this article is worded, this bill won't actually stop what he's disturbed by.  It says that it'll ban fetuses from being present in food products, but as the article states, there are no food products that actually contain fetuses.  Even if what he says is true, they're only being used for research.  So, if the bill is for a ban on fetuses in food, how exactly will it stop the research?  Unless he means "in food" to mean "in the food industry."
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: rosenewock21 on January 25, 2012, 09:00:11 pm
This reminds me of that sick article someone was passing around a place I worked at claiming abortion would lead to legal organ harvesting from cloned babies.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Shane for Wax on January 25, 2012, 09:10:17 pm
They do know Soylent Green was just a movie, right?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: JohnE on January 25, 2012, 09:13:26 pm
Why the hell would any food company go through all the difficulty and expense of creating an elaborate fetal stem cell system for testing whether food tastes good when they could just, you know, taste it?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: N. De Plume on January 25, 2012, 09:23:23 pm
Why the hell would any food company go through all the difficulty and expense of creating an elaborate fetal stem cell system for testing whether food tastes good when they could just, you know, taste it?
I am guessing some of the taste receptor stuff is part of a search for a mechanical way to taste test the food without it having to be consumed or thrown out. ‘Caues they can’t sell food another person has put their tongue on.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: KZN02 on January 25, 2012, 09:24:19 pm
Wasn't there an FSTDT entry about some soft drink that contained fetuses?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: MadCatTLX on January 25, 2012, 10:45:03 pm
This reminds me of that sick article someone was passing around a place I worked at claiming abortion would lead to legal organ harvesting from cloned babies.

As long as you find a way to clone the body without the brain then I don't see what would be wrong with it. You could clone an anencephalic baby, which has no brain, only a brain stem, and hence no consciousness.

EDIT: By the way, as an Oklahoman I'm embarrassed by my state again, almost as much as us having a law in the top 100 submissions.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: N. De Plume on January 25, 2012, 11:15:59 pm
Wasn't there an FSTDT entry about some soft drink that contained fetuses?
Yeah. Sounds like it was spurred by the same article that inspired this piece of shit. They both mentioned Pepsi.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 25, 2012, 11:23:51 pm
As long as you find a way to clone the body without the brain then I don't see what would be wrong with it. You could clone an anencephalic baby, which has no brain, only a brain stem, and hence no consciousness.

I know this is off-topic, but that's an interesting idea. Since an anencephalic baby isn't conscious, you technically could harvest its organs for other uses.

inb4 pro-lifers say that I just proved them right
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Vene on January 25, 2012, 11:26:02 pm
Why the hell would any food company go through all the difficulty and expense of creating an elaborate fetal stem cell system for testing whether food tastes good when they could just, you know, taste it?
I am guessing some of the taste receptor stuff is part of a search for a mechanical way to taste test the food without it having to be consumed or thrown out. ‘Caues they can’t sell food another person has put their tongue on.
You don't sell the stuff that is created directly by the R&D people. If anybody is going to be tasting it, it'll be the people in quality assurance, likely when they have to grab samples for other uses anyway*. So, there's not really anything to be gained from some bioengineered taste test rig.

*Personal experience time, I worked QA for two different food companies and something like this would have accomplished nothing at either. At the juice factory I did taste it, but the juice I tasted was also subjected to chemical and physical tests and was discarded after them. At the produce factory we didn't ever taste the food and if we did it would probably have been from when we took samples for micro testing and those were also thrown away when we were finished.

As long as you find a way to clone the body without the brain then I don't see what would be wrong with it. You could clone an anencephalic baby, which has no brain, only a brain stem, and hence no consciousness.

I know this is off-topic, but that's an interesting idea. Since an anencephalic baby isn't conscious, you technically could harvest its organs for other uses.

inb4 pro-lifers say that I just proved them right
I'd rather just grow the organs sans the rest of the body.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: nickiknack on January 25, 2012, 11:41:26 pm
mmmm fetuses, taste just like chicken. nom nom nom nom
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: rosenewock21 on January 26, 2012, 12:09:05 am
I thought it was closer to pork?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: RavynousHunter on January 26, 2012, 12:51:28 am
This reminds me of that sick article someone was passing around a place I worked at claiming abortion would lead to legal organ harvesting from cloned babies.

You want it, baby, GeneCo's got it!
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: jumpingjackflash on January 26, 2012, 12:55:26 am
Wasn't there an FSTDT entry about some soft drink that contained fetuses?

Ask and ye shall receive!

http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=82731 (http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=82731)
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Sylvana on January 26, 2012, 06:32:22 am
As long as you find a way to clone the body without the brain then I don't see what would be wrong with it. You could clone an anencephalic baby, which has no brain, only a brain stem, and hence no consciousness.

I know this is off-topic, but that's an interesting idea. Since an anencephalic baby isn't conscious, you technically could harvest its organs for other uses.

inb4 pro-lifers say that I just proved them right
I'd rather just grow the organs sans the rest of the body.
I agree, think of the wastage for a single clone body with mature organs. The only reason to use cloned organs is because of DNA compatibility with the future host, so growing a whole body would be incredibly inefficient. There has been some progress on the growing organs research, but it is very slow going, made slower by restrictive stem cell research laws.

With regards to the actual bill, this has to be the most pointless pieces of legislation ever to see the light of politics. Surely something like legislating jay-walking would achieve more than this bill. Its a waste of the paper its written on.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: DiscoBerry on January 26, 2012, 09:01:57 am
Someone in the comments made an interesting point:
Quote
“I know everyone is having fun making jokes about Soylant Green, etc; but take a moment to consider the specific wording of this bill:
"The manufactur­e or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses."
This would include any medicine or treatment that was made using stem cell research. Several vaccines - including Hepatitis A, chicken pox, and the rubella component of the MMR - are manufactur­ed by culturing the virus inside cells that are derived from aborted fetuses. This bill would outlaw the sale or use of the most common form of those vaccines in Oklahoma. (The cells they're grown in were derived from fetuses that were aborted over 40 years ago. The continual use of fetal cell lines in vaccine manufactur­e does not cause the destructio­n of any embryos.)”

Law of unintended consequences at work. 
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: GLaDOS on January 26, 2012, 09:29:27 am
maybe he read this quote: http://fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=82731
Quote
There is a soft drink company, believe it may be Pepsi, that is using aborted baby cells to flavor pop. When you think they have hit bottom..look out..the bottom is still a ways to go
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Kain on January 26, 2012, 09:53:27 am
Yeeeeaaaaah, why the fuck is this even a thing?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Eniliad on January 26, 2012, 11:24:06 am
Oh good! Once again, the day is saved from totally nonexistent problems.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: D Laurier on January 26, 2012, 12:28:27 pm
So no more, and no less... but continuing with none at all.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Thejebusfire on January 26, 2012, 01:10:47 pm
Why is my state run by such idiots?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Witchyjoshy on January 26, 2012, 03:03:22 pm
Why is my state run by such idiots?

Because many politicians have weaponized fear and are using it against the population of the USA in order to achieve their goals.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Old Viking on January 26, 2012, 08:39:22 pm
Well what about if fetuses are clearly listed among the contents?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Auri-El on January 26, 2012, 09:34:49 pm
Yay, about time someone started focusing on things that matter. And tomorrow I'd better see someone proposing a bill that will prevent people from using radioactive materials to make clothing! /sarcasm
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: VirtualStranger on January 26, 2012, 10:11:28 pm
Fuck. Now I'll never get to use my grandma's secret barbecued fetus recipe.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Vypernight on January 27, 2012, 05:42:57 am
So yet another brain-dead politician wastes more tax-payers' money on a pointless law based on half-assed research that basically pushes one of the usual right-wing views (pro-life, anti-gay), etc. 

Looks like hte just win his next election.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Jodie on January 28, 2012, 12:26:26 am
I've heard blastocysts are tasty. I wanna try some in a casserole.
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: kefkaownsall on January 28, 2012, 01:08:04 am
Oh Oklahoma state where if things dont exist they ban them anyways
Seriously they banned Sharia law there
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: The Bright Angel on January 28, 2012, 01:26:50 am
Quote
A Republican state senator in Oklahoma has introduced a bill banning aborted human fetuses in food, despite the fact that there are no known foods or food products that actually contain aborted fetuses.

Sen. Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma City introduced on Tuesday Senate Bill 1418, which prohibits "the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses." He says he based the bill on an article he read online about an anti-abortion group boycotting companies that allegedly use embryonic stem cells to research and develop artificial sweeteners.

“People are thinking that this has to do with fetuses being chopped up and put in our burritos,” Shortey told NewsOK. "“That's not the case. It's beyond that.

“There are companies that are using embryonic stem cells to research and basically cause a chemical reaction to determine whether or not something tastes good or not,” he said. “As a pro-life advocate, it kind of disturbed me that we would use aborted embryos or aborted human fetuses to extract stem cells and use them for research to basically make things taste better.”

PepsiCo did partner with food product development company Senomyx to develop a new low-calorie sweetener, but the company denied using fetal tissue in its research in an April 2011 email to Children of God for Life.

"Unfortunately, there is some misinformation being circulated related to research techniques that have been used for decades by universities, hospitals, government agencies, and private companies around the world. These claims are meant to suggest that human fetal tissue is somehow used in our research," wrote Margaret Corsi, a spokesperson for PepsiCo. "That is both inaccurate and something we would never do or even consider. It also is inaccurate to suggest that tissue or cells somehow are being used as product ingredients. That’s dangerous, unethical and against the law. Every ingredient in every one of our products is reviewed and approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html)

Can I ask where did this law came from and what brainless idiot thought this was necessary?
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: Vene on January 28, 2012, 09:45:35 am
Quote
A Republican state senator in Oklahoma has introduced a bill banning aborted human fetuses in food, despite the fact that there are no known foods or food products that actually contain aborted fetuses.

Sen. Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma City introduced on Tuesday Senate Bill 1418, which prohibits "the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses." He says he based the bill on an article he read online about an anti-abortion group boycotting companies that allegedly use embryonic stem cells to research and develop artificial sweeteners.

“People are thinking that this has to do with fetuses being chopped up and put in our burritos,” Shortey told NewsOK. "“That's not the case. It's beyond that.

“There are companies that are using embryonic stem cells to research and basically cause a chemical reaction to determine whether or not something tastes good or not,” he said. “As a pro-life advocate, it kind of disturbed me that we would use aborted embryos or aborted human fetuses to extract stem cells and use them for research to basically make things taste better.”

PepsiCo did partner with food product development company Senomyx to develop a new low-calorie sweetener, but the company denied using fetal tissue in its research in an April 2011 email to Children of God for Life.

"Unfortunately, there is some misinformation being circulated related to research techniques that have been used for decades by universities, hospitals, government agencies, and private companies around the world. These claims are meant to suggest that human fetal tissue is somehow used in our research," wrote Margaret Corsi, a spokesperson for PepsiCo. "That is both inaccurate and something we would never do or even consider. It also is inaccurate to suggest that tissue or cells somehow are being used as product ingredients. That’s dangerous, unethical and against the law. Every ingredient in every one of our products is reviewed and approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html)

Can I ask where did this law came from and what brainless idiot thought this was necessary?
This is directly from the quoted portion of the article, "Sen. Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma City..."
Title: Re: No More Aborted Fetuses in Your Food
Post by: niam2023 on January 30, 2012, 01:17:14 am
At least this prevents any Sara Douglass type...incidents...from occurring./joke