My name is Raymond Austin Johnson and I was born on May 9th 1997. On this day in history around the world a great deal of events occurred. Events like the Israeli Governments new laws on execution, The potential forthcoming of human cloning, and beginning of new drug studies.
One interesting issue that took place on this day was, the Israeli government announced that Israeli Jews who sell land to the Palestinians will face execution. “The death penalty will be imposed on anyone who is convicted of selling one inch to the Palestinians”, “Even middlemen involved is such deals will face the same penalty” said the Justice Minister. This was a warning to all Palestinians, inside it’s present control or not. Surprisingly after reading this article no government, including those financially holding up the Palestinian National Authority(interim self-government body), said anything. No one from the United Nations had a voice or wanted step in a say there was a moral issue arising, The National Council of Churches and other church groups normally solicitous of Palestinian rights, or the American Friends Service Committee (Rosenthal 1). To many people it would seem as if the world was just blocking out the problem arising in Israeli. Even though this announcement horrified the Christian church groups along with the whole world of Jewish organizations people still did not speak up. Voices went unheard. Maybe because of the fear or just the simple lack of willingness to take action.
At this time in history, there was a huge advancement in the fields science and technology. The Roslin Institute in Scotland has achieved a new scientific feat, they have created a lamb known as “Dolly”; Dolly is the first mammal cloned from another sheep. This cloning process was made possible by extracting the cells from a sheep’s udder and growing them into what is now ‘Dolly”. Although scientifically this was a huge success, it now posed both moral and ethical questions. If they can clone a sheep then what is the extent that they are willing to go next? After the successful attempt the Roslin institute sought international patents that say it will cover cloning of mammals, in which humans happen to be a technicality. The Edinburgh institute assured the public that the use of the patents would not include human trials. “ Our (patent) applications do… apply to use in animals,” Harry Griffin told the Associated Press in a telephone interview “but it is up to the relevant authority in each country to decide whether the term ‘animals’ should include humans (Johnson 1). At this time people now were able at ask them self’s a new moral question, from what previously was an idea was now a reality. Can humans be cloned?
Studies on marijuana were just beginning to become more and more relevant. At this time. There were more people using this drug and more people started questioning the possible benefits / the possible dangers of using both short term and long term. The question now was the idea of the use for medicinal marijuana but, before anyone could think about the possibility of that, studies would need to be conducted. To this point the science community knew little of the effect’s marijuana had on the body. Numerous studies began to erupt, one of which came from The Bowman Gray School of medicine. They conducted a $ 50,000 project as part of a campaign to furthermore understand the effects of this drug. Volunteers will be given free, certified marijuana cigarettes and will be protected from prosecution. They’ll earn $200 for four sessions and be shuttled to and from the lab by taxi. The study is needed because the data on marijuana’s dangers is inconclusive, said David P. Friedman, associate dean for research development
On May 9th 1997 people all over the world would start to change. Advancements in science, advancements in technology, and the decisions made by leaders in government would at the time unknowingly effect the world we know today. People were for the first time experiencing new feats in their fields of work. People were being forced to think differently, question their own personal morals, question the ethics behind actions and decisions made by ones government.