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Human Embryo Stem Cell Research Allowed
glitch13 writes "This article from MSNBC discusses the federal go-ahead (read: money) to start research on stem cells from human embryos."
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I don't know how they pick stories either. Maybe a shorter description?
Maybe they don't really try to get all the good stories because there's too many to look through?
Unfortunately, the religious right has completely politicized what should have been a personal, private issue all along... along with a bunch of other issues, which I'll save space by not going into.
Political solutions are the only possible solutions at this point, then -- and I'm glad that those are at least possible. It could easily be worse, and might get that way soon; I think my .sig pretty much says it all.
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
I wonder what those people who exhorted president Bush to cut off funding for embryo research will say when they hit seventy and start forgetting where they live? I'll bet you they run right off to other countries and get their treatments. After all it isn't sinful if the neighbors don't know. Nonsense. Some of us have higher ethics that don't boil down to "what everyone else thinks." There's something just wrong about mining dead babies for medical treatments. It's somewhere lower that Niven's "corpscicle" raiding, but I'm sure that society will come up with the same morally indifferent excuses if this kind of research continues. I'm appalled by this kind of research. This is just a step below "organlegging."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Okay, how is this different from sci-fi author Niven's "organ bootlegging?" Oh, right. We're making it legal. After all, they're not really human. Their humanity is a "personal, private issue."
Sick. If this research goes anywhere, it'll open up a whole new world of mining dead babies for medical resources. I'm sure that once some benefit comes from it, people will all demand that it's their right as well. It's this kind of shrugging off ethics once something profits you that's the core of everything that's wrong in society from corporate pollution to drug dealing.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
There is a world of difference between the mature, functional adults who were "broken up for parts" in Niven's stories, and a fertilized embryo which hasn't even begun to differentiate. If you can't see that, I can't help you (except to comment that no one I've talked to would even think of a full-scale funeral for a miscarried embryo at that stage -- it's extremely unlikely that the mother would notice anything more than a heavy period).
One more time: not "dead babies," but undifferentiated embryos. The ones under discussion are left over from in-vitreo fertilizations for couples unable to conceive; since they aren't used and are otherwise going to be destroyed, this use makes sense.
But I'm sure I'm wasting my breath (or finger motion, as the case is...) -- you no doubt have some problem with helping infertile women conceive, too. So let me further confuse the issue for you, and ask if (since the Scottish successes in cloning non-stem cells from adult animals) every cell in your body has recently acquired some sacrosanct status? Remember that you naturally shed a lot of skin cells...
I suspect you actually mean "morals" instead of "ethics," but the reply isn't that different between the two cases:
I'm going to challenge you to come up with a set of rules for us to follow, which incorporate the entire US population's collective set of ethics (and morals, just for good measure), without either limiting anyone's freedom or forcing anyone to do something they find morally or ethically repugnant. Note that the population under discussion includes a wide variety of Christian faiths, Islamic faiths, Hindu, assorted Asian and African and Native American religions, plus atheists and agnostics who don't practice any religious behavior but do have their own morals and ethics, and a whole lot more. And I'll tell you in advance that you can't do that -- there's too much internal inconsistency in the data set.
The only possible resolution I see is to have the minimal set of rules which are required behavior (another post of mine on this topic discusses this), and otherwise allow the individuals to decide within their own framework what they will or will not morally and ethically do. Otherwise, you're in the position of forcing your morality on others, and I can tell you in advance that's not going to work. Aside from constitutional issues, people aren't going to sit still for it.
But that requires people to be responsible for themselves, which is an unpopular notion at the moment, especially in some religious circles...
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Please understand that these "foaming-at-the-mouth radical right-wingers" are simply being consistent. If you believe human life starts at the point of conception then this kind of research is at the expense of ending an innocent human life.
And though you might not agree with the belief, can you see why someone who takes such a stance would not be able to tolerate the behavior of people with the other view? To them they are standing by while human lives are being taken by the thousands.
Brian Macy