Where do candidates for the Kansas Legislature stand on human-animal hybrids?

That’s something that Kansans For Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion group, wants to know.

A questionnaire that KFL’s political action committee sent out to legislative candidates this month asks candidates whether they oppose human cloning and the creation of human-animal hybrids, which the group refers to as chimeras.

The questionnaire is a way to show candidates “the range of the kinds of things that the pro-life movement is interested in,” said Kathy Ostrowski, the group’s legislative director.

That includes cloning and genetic research that uses cells from more than one species. “Am I aware of it happening (in Kansas)? At this moment, no. But does that mean it’s not happening somewhere? I can’t tell you that,” she said.

Scientists in Japan were able to grow a human ear on the back of a rat using human stem cells, according to Discovery News.

Some U.S. states have banned animal-human hybrid research in recent years, but an attempt to do so in Kansas in the mid-2000s failed to gain traction, Ostrowski said.

“It’s been a concern for over 10 […]