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Fetuses Provide Stem-Like Cells to Mothers
Flatline5150 writes "Excerpt from this
article on Boston.com: 'Many a pregnant woman has moments when her fetus seems like a little parasite, all take, take, take. But new research suggests that a fetus may also be giving back a lifelong gift: cells that appear to act like stem cells, migrating to diseased organs in the mother and trying to fix them.'"
Getting people pregnant may cure them of cancer?
Doctors are going to have a whale of time!
"Bend over the table Miss Johnson. I'm going to cure your cancer. It may take several doses though..."
I'm not surprised since previous research has shown that a mother's cells can exist in the blood stream of an offspring several years after birth and the mother's blood stream can contain the offspring's cells as well.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Wow, very interesting. I wonder if that has any effect on life expectancy. I.e. is it part of the reason women live longer than men? It would be interesting to see a study comparing mothers versus non-mothers. Although I suspect that the process of raising kids might have a life-reducing impact, counter-acting the overall numbers.
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I'm a guy! Males can't get pregnant! No Fair!
Maybe something like THIS might be possible eventually, though.
-- Kevin J. Rice
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Eating pregnant mothers can be even healthier !
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"Whats abortion do in this case?"
It kills the baby. Next question?
"Derp de derp."
It seems to me as though this debate could possibly end a long-standing conflict about whether fetuses should or should not be harvested for valuable stem cells, which have various and sundry medical applications. This debate has been similar to abortion, but it seems now as though these cells that are produced might be able to be harvested alone, with no harm to the child, the mother, or the pro-life lobbyists. ;) It seems like a bona fide solution which would allow for stem-cell-like research without need to harvest fetuses. The only problem now remaining is how to extract these cells.
>>Many a pregnant woman has moments when her fetus seems like a little parasite, all take, take, take.
Offensive to you only because of your insistence on moralizing a morally neutral phenomenon. In placental mammals, the fetus is parasitic on the mother. There's nothing offensive about that. It simply is the way it is. Your religious viewpoint is leading you to ascribe pejorative values to a biological term that has none.>That seems to be the most offensive viewpoint I think a parent could take towards their child. Surely they could have come up with a better description? The rest of the article is pretty upbeat about mothers, but starting the article off like that is really offensive.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Where's the fetus going to gestate? Are you going to keep it in a box?
Yeah well except most ebryonic stem cells come from unused inventro-fertilization embryos. Ones that would get "thrown away" anyway. They have no chance at actual survival. Because IVF is risky and low yield, they have to try many (I think groups of 4) eggs to reliably get 1, but in some cases, get more. In those cases, they pick one and toss the others. Or in some cases, use them for stem cells.
The reason embryonic stem cells are the niftiest, is because they can be transformed into any other cells. Other stem cells, like those from teeth, blood, etc are usually "stuck" to only turn into a certian subset of cells.
Check out this article on Scientific American
Sure, the stem cells are so appalled that they all jump out of the woman's body.
The article says "...but seem to remain forever in the blood of such women, including those who miscarry or abort."
Life is life. People are people. I personally was a bit upset when I found out I had 12 brothers and sisters sitting around frozen.
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Well, that was the old view of it, but if fetuses contribute stem cells to the mother then they are no longer simple parasites, at least according to my dictionary:
# Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
Why don't you people have a movement that simply refuses to use the results of such research and spare the rest of us of your religious propaganda.
I personally do not want to die of some disease that took 20 years longer to cure because of people who can't distinguish a zygote from a human being.
Read this story and watch the accompanying slideshow. The article basically shows that babies in the womb are as active as those outside the womb.
And this makes them any less valuable because?
The skin cells I shed are dead and were only a temporary part of my being. Designed, implemented and affected to live for some amount of time die and be removed. This is very much different from a child who needs to move 6 inches to be given actual legal rights in this country.
Actually, in some sense, one could argue that the skin cells you shed are much more valuable than a clump of ~75 undifferentiated fetal cells.
After all, your skin cells have served a purpose. They have acted as a barrier to prevent diseases and other chemical and environmental agents from infecting your body, they have acted to help regulate various other functions necessary to your survival. They have proven themselves to be viable, and have served to continue your survival.
Those skin cells, as part of your person, had all the legal rights that you did.
Your "brothers and sisters" were no doubt harvested and preserved with a significant amount of help from the medical professional establishment.
But wait! Your skin cells still contain a complete copy of your genotype, and with various heroic medical contrivances, I could conceivably cause another 'you' to be grown from them. (Don't believe it's possible? That's what they first said about IVF. Wait 20 years.)
So it's entirely possible for one to argue that your shed skin cells are just as valuable as a blastula.
In a box- with some socks. He gives them air, to be fair.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That seems to be the most offensive viewpoint I think a parent could take towards their child
Well then, Mr FroMan (I'm guessing unmarried and childless), prepare to be offended. I know over a dozen mothers in their 30s and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM had that exact feeling at least once during each pregnancy.
It's a natural reaction, because it happens to be true.
I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Slashdot Moderators', but that he can have the right to have babies.
My goodness, it'd be hard for you to be wronger! (-:
The cells at that point are totally human and nearly undifferentiated, which is quite a different thing to being grass cells or whatever. What you're promulgating is exactly the same lie as the "it's only a fish... it's only a reptile..." bullshit which was common a decade or two ago.
Yeah? So what is it that our local maternity hospital almost routinely rescues halfway to term? A ball of grass? A mystery mass of foetal cells? At what point does a baby stop being that mythical lump of cells and start being a baby? It's certainly not at term. And if babies can survive at 20 weeks prem, how about 21?
I have a nephew who was waaaay prem, and aside from the fact that his sister was nearly the same size as him while they grew up ("are they twins?"), you'd never know. He's a normal adult now, the same as you or I.
Get an education - you don't need to be a conservative or a religious bigot to see a fact when one whacks you across the face, and the real-life observation here is that the only difference between a baby in utero and one in Daddy's arms is that the second one is breathing and the first is on a lifeline.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing