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Stem Cell Symposium
Hypharse writes "The newly created Cable Science Network(who literally strives to be C-Span, but for science) has opened with a very informative session on Stem Cells. I have had great hope for this network since stations supposedly for science like the Discovery Channel and PBS have become much more show than substance. If this symposium is an example of their future offerings I would be very happy."
Doesn't God insert soul into an ovum during the fertilisation? I thought that was the only reason why people consider single cells "young humans"? No one says that few cells without any neural system can be conscious, feel pain or anything. But religious people believe it has a soul which inherits the original sin and if the soul disconnects from that body before it is baptized, the original sin is not forgiven and the sould cannot go to Heaven, and that is why it is better that living people die (pregnant women, Parkinson's disease victims, etc.) than embryos because those living people have already had a chance to have their sins forgiven. Isn't it true?
What makes a human being?
What endows it with rights?
And are you sure that all human beings have the same rights?
In the United States, adults are indeed endowed with a plethora of rights. Foreign nationals in the country--be they Saudi Arabian, Chinese, Mexican, British, or Canadian--are subject to arbitrary detention and deportation. ("Papers, please!") Criminals have been deprived of certain rights--freedom of movement, possibly even the right to their own lives--for the benefit of the rest of society. Children have a sharply circumscribed set of rights. Their parents or the state are empowered to make decisions on their behalf (including with respect to medical procedures), and to direct their actions.
So to equate an embryo with a human being, and then blithely state that they are endowed with the full rights attendant to that status is a tad imprecise.
A much more complicated question is the one of what constitutes a human being in the first place.
As I read it, the parent has a very clearcut definition which suits him or her. Spermatazoans are not human, ova are not human. Once sperm fertilizes egg (bam!) that single fertilized cell is a human being.
Okay. What if that bar is too low, or too high? What if--apologies to Monty Python--every sperm is sacred? I imagine that most Slashdot readers probably feel that sperm is disposable, but why should that be so? Every one is half of a potential baby; the same can be said for every unfertilized egg. This takes us to the strict Catholic doctrine that birth control is murder, and fornication for pleasure a sin.
Going the other way things get quite complicated, too. After sperm meets egg, it still has a rough ride ahead. The newly-assembled embryo has to make its way from the oviduct to the lumen of the uterus, and eventually implant itself in the unterine lining. It undergoes several divisions during this process, and takes five or six days to do so.
All through these early stages, the embryo is very vulnerable, and a significant fraction of them never make it. Indeed, spontaneous abortions in the first week or two are quite common. The body probably disposes of about half of all fertilized embroyos, either because a genetic defect is detected, or just because conditions aren't right--or plain old bad luck. Really, the body itself is quite cavalier about expelling embryos is doesn't like or doesn't want. (These early terminations are sometimes referred to as "chemical" pregnancies, because often only sensitive biochemical tests can reveal that they took place. The mother's period might be a bit late that month.)
Jump ahead to about week 12. The major internal organ systems have appeared, though their function is for the most part quite limited. The fetus is a couple of inches long. At week 14 or so, eyelids, some musculature, fingernails, and sex organs have formed. The fetus begins to make spontaneous movements (albeit far too weakly for the mother to detect) and is about three inches long. The earliest surviving premature baby was born at about 22 weeks, if my memory serves. (There is a 50% chance of survival with extensive medical intervention at about the 26 week mark.) A full term pregnancy is about 40 weeks in length.
A lot of people are content to not really think of the fetus as a "human being" until it has achieved some minimum level of development. Some peg it to the development of certain internal or external features (often around the end of the first trimester) while others apply a (shifting) target based on when a fetus is likely to be able to survive on its own. Maybe we should choose an early stage--the formation of a blastocyst (around the sixteen-cell stage) or the formation of the placenta (about four weeks, IIRC)?
Then of course there's the question of in vitro fertilization. Common practice in many places is t
~Idarubicin