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Stanford Jumps Into Cloning Fray
smackthud writes "According to this article in the Minneapolis StarTribune website Stanford University is planning to clone human embryos. Story summary says it all: 'Stanford University announced today its intention to clone human embryos, becoming the first U.S. university to publicly embrace the politically charged procedure. The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research.'" Stanford has released a statement distinguishing what Stanford is doing from reproductive cloning.
The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research.
And why isn't everyone doing this? Oh right, it's against the presidents religious beliefs. Is it really suprising that people would rather pursue research that might aid in a cure for cancer, rather than follow a law set by Bush that stem cell research is against his religious beliefs?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Finally time that someone in the higher echelons of education stand up to the US government.
I feel rather ecstatic about this, someone is finally making a point.
I was rather angry at Bush when he decided to limit stem cell research. I felt that his decision was affected directly by his religious beliefs.
Science and religion don't mix. Looks like someone is finally trying to seperate them.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
I'm not opposed to abortion but this seems pretty weasley (no offense to weasles) way to get out of the abortion issue. Lets just get on with stem cell research and quit playing games. Stanford takes the high road and explain their "clean" procedure (parenthetical quotes are mine):
Creating human stem cell lines is not equivalent to reproductive cloning. The first step in the process of creating a stem cell line involves transferring the nucleus from a cell to an egg and allowing the egg to divide. This is the same first step as in reproductive cloning. However in creating a stem cell line, cells (parts of the fetus) are removed (dismembered) from the developing cluster (fetus). These cells can go on to form many types of tissues, but cannot on their own develop into a human (because they are just pieces of dismembered human tissue).
How is this procedure different from whats going on in the rest of the world? I guess the Christian right wingers can sleep well at night now.
Original post:
"If these ppl do this they should be jailed and bared from science. I hope they are stopped but if its to late and they do it before the feds can stop them, they need to be severly punished. This is life we are talking about we can't allow ppl to just play with it."
Repaired post:
"If these people do this, they should be jailed and barred from science. I hope they are stopped, but if it's too late, and they do it before the feds can stop them, they need to be severely punished. This is life we are talking about. We can't allow people to just play with it."
Why does there seem to be a proportional relationship between the extremity of a fundamentalist and poor grammar?
Intelligence level, maybe? Nah, couldn't be that...
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
I've always been of the opinion that cloning, genetic engineering, etc were Good Things. This is technology that can potentially cure genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease in people who already suffer from it as well as prevent it from ever showing up in the first place. Then of course there is cancer. Imagine treatments that would simply repair the sections of our DNA sequence that MUST be damaged in order for any cancer to form. Forget radiation and chemotherapy that are simply attempts to kill the cancer without killing the patient. Fix the anti-cancer genes in the cancer cells and they kill themselves.
I think that genetic engineering can, in the hands of those who are honest, wise, and well intentioned, also be used to enhance human abilities without trying to alter human nature. Human nature might not be perfect, but I don't trust anyone to try and make it better. This is where genetic engineering gets risky in my opinion, when it gives people with an agenda for who and what mankind should be the tools to warp human beings into their twisted model of human behavior. Just imagine if the looney left or the religious right were to become the keepers of the technology. How many bolsheviks and bible thumpers could they create? There are already enough idiots and brainwashed buffoons in the world without a breeding program to manufacture them.
Anyway I'm glad this is being done by Stanford. Of course you'll hear nothing but screaming from the idiots of the world, but such is the burden of scientific progress. At least nowadays you don't have to worry about the inquisition murdering you for daring to contradict the codified superstition that passes for mankind's understanding of the divine.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I imagine there are plenty of people who would limit stem cell research for non-religious reasons. After all, this quickly degenerates into an abortion debate.
Pro-life reasoning is that human life deserves protection all the way back to conception. Pro-abortion reasoning is that human life deserves protection only after some period of development (varying according to who's talking). Pro-life groups advocate protection all the way back to conception because they see no rational reason to draw the line anywhere else.
It is therefore not necessarily a religious motivation under which Bush limited stem cell research. Not that it wasn't a religious motivation. But an experienced politician at the top of the game knows better than to try to legislate his religious ideas without a separate rational argument.
If you don't want to protect human life as an embryo, why should your human life be protected now? What is your argument that your life is intrinsically more valuable than a human embryo to be used in stem cell research, or the Jews experimented on by the Nazis? Where and how do you draw the line at where the value of human life begins?
The question of when to begin protection of human life, embryo, fetus, child or adult must precede any argument for other uses of potentially adult human embryos, no matter how useful or convenient any use or disuse of the embyo may be. If a human life is deserving of the same rights as any adult or child then no one else has any right to determine how that life is to be spent.
There are few things I know within the core of my being. The idea that cloning etc. is somehow inherently wrong just isn't one of them. For me to believe it is wrong would require some evidence to that effect, or at least a valid argument against it. I'm sorry, but appeals to emotion just don't cut it.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I'm not sure I follow you. WHAT exactly are they doing that makes them criminals? You say that they are playing with life and the implication is that it is somehow wrong. Isn't playing with life exactly what biologists and medical researchers have been doing all along? I guess you'd rather we do without things like anti-biotics and vaccines, both of which were created/discovered by the process of playing with life that you seem to have a problem with.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I have some questions for those who freak out about the prospect of human reproductive cloning. What's wrong with human reproductive cloning? I always hear about the nebulous heavy ethical problems but the problems are never articulated or discussed. I do understand that 95% of the people in the US say they wouldn never use reproductive cloning. If that is so, then what do they have to fear from the 5% who would? It reminds me very much of the controversy surrounding in vitro fertilization. Most people were freaking out about "test tube babies!". Funny how reality is much less sensational than the fears of the uneducated masses. Human reproductive cloning can be a valuable, helpful procedure for some people, just as in vitro fertilization is.
Your use of the word "Pro-abortion" gives your position away immediately. No matter how rational you try to make yourself sound, you kill your argument by using such rhetoric.
To answer your question, you are not a human being until you have a functioning brain. An embryo is not a human but rather human tissue with the potential to become a human. Potential is not actual. I have a penis therefor I am potentially a rapist. I am not a rapist, however.
The difference is not as subtle as you believe.
I'm glad that Stanford has stepped up and decided to defy Bush's stance on stem-cell research. This is one of the most promising areas of Biology, and it's absolutely ridiculous to cut it off.
:)
I don't quite remember at what point biologists declare a zygote to be an actual embryo; the last time I touched Developmental Biology was 2 years ago. However, if I remember techniques correctly, we can stop division when the zygote is at the 8-cell stage, possibly sooner. I believe the blastula stage (hollow ball of cells) is generally considered to be the real "start" of an embryo, but again, my recollection is a tad hazy.
I think a lot of the misconceptions being tossed around related to cloning are quite interesting. I only hope that people will realize one day that the concept of the "mad scientist" is more than a little ludicrous, and that cloning human beings is quite a ways off, as is the concept of producing genetic "supermen". Of course, the media, being sensationalist to begin with, will continue to misrepresent the facts, and the general populace will continue to be misinformed.
That's not to say that when I'm done with my Biology degree (and probably my Ph.D. too) that I'm not going to attempt to take over the world with an army of cloned gorilla-men, but that's a different story altogether.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
"Added bonus: it doesn't involve creating a life just to destroy it and harvest parts."
Maybe I am cynical, but I really can't see the problem. Well, I can see why some people see it as a problem, but I can't really understand them.
My view on this is that as long as the blob of cells frow which the scientists "harvest" the stem cells isn't sentient, the problem doesn't exist. It is like picking a flower or using a beetle for the sake of science. A non sentient mass of cells beeing sacrificed for a better life with less suffering for an allready suffering human beeing is not much of a problem in my book.
I really don't care much for the viewpoint of the blob of cells beeing "a potential human life". If we walk down that path we might end upp where we want to condemn preventives and equals. Imho, resarch on embryonic stem cells is not even as bad as an abortion, since aborted featueses often (always?) are more developed than the ones used for stem cell resaerch (btw, I am not against abortions). Some might argue that the featuses do respond to stimuli and pain and therefore shouldn't be used. Well, so does beetles and flowers. We still wouldn't hesitate to use them for the sake of science.
Regarding bone marrow stem cells. Yes, there are studies showing that they might have the same potential as embryonic stem cells, but afaik no conclusions have still been drawn and embryonic cells still have the most potential, even though some drawbacks have recently been discovered there too.
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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
Why is Reproductive cloning bad? I have yet to hear a coherent argument against it. What will the existence of a clone do? Cause the breakdown of time and space. The fact is a clone would be no different than a twin, which by the way are certainly considered separate legal entities, no issue there.
1. It is completely well-defined, which is useful for legal-purposes.
2. It is the point at which the infant ceases to be parasitic on the mother's body. One can reasonably suppose that there should be limits on how much a being--even a sentient one--is entitled to impose upon somebody else's body.
These concerns vanish when you are dealing with an early embryo such as is used for stem cell production. There is no debate about whether or not it is sentient, because it doesn't have the neural equipment. All it possesses it the potential to develop sentience in the future, maybe (a large fraction of embryos are defective, and will not go to term regardless)--a property that it shares with the sperm and the ovum (and potentially, as cloning technology improves, with every cell in the body).
Even a retarded person is sentient, so no. Perhaps there are some people so profoundly retarded that it could be argued that they lack sentience, but even if it is ethically acceptable, it does not seem good legal policy to allow such exceptions to be made, especially when the value of making such an exception is very slight. As far as people in irreversible comas, this is already done, and seems ethically quite reasonable.---It would be hard to argue that a newborn is sentient.---
Are YOU sentient? Can't you see how ridiculous this example is: comparing the sentience of a new born to something that doesn't even have a NERVOUS SYSTEM? While I think the parent goes overboard in his definition of sentience, you go overboard in the opposite direction.
---That said, when you do what they are doing at Stanford you create life that has the potential for sentience---
A pile dog crap has the potential for sentience: a mother eats it, digests it, and the nutrients become part of the baby she's growing inside her. Same difference. It's _existing_ sentience that's the problem, not potential. Everything all the way back to the beginning of time might as well be potential.