Stem Cells Cultivated Free of Animal Contaminants

qewl writes "In a follow-up to this story, researchers at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology have created a new method of growing human embryonic stem cells that has overcome the major obstacle of animal contaminants to their use for human treatments. As President George W Bush has restricted federal funding of this research to limited cell lines existing since 2001, scientists have strived to find ways to keep the lines pure. Irina Klimanskaya and colleagues at ACT grew the stem cells from the beginning on a cell and serum-free mixture called an extracellular matrix. "The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large," Dr. Lanza at ATC said."

Comments

Interesting logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I see... so allowing, for the first time, any federal funding for embryonic stem cells is "restricting."

Re:Interesting logic

[nes11]

Exactly. It's so funny how many thoughtless drones are out there that just can't comprehend that Bush is the first President to ever provide federal funding for stem cells research in the first place.

Re:Interesting logic

[jim_v2000]

But Bush is evil! It doesn't matter if what he does actually happens to be good! It's still bad!

Re:Interesting logic

[ckemp.org]

Perhaps... restricting relative to other countries?

Re:Interesting logic

[erlenic]

Hmm, CBSNews. We're all about the reliable sources here, aren't we?

Re:Interesting logic

[ckemp.org]

Right, well then try this or this, then. Either way, the point is the same: we aren't moving at the same speed as others.

Re:Interesting logic

[geneing]

Please, stop listening to "propaganda". Read the full story is below. I would say that if Gore became president the funding for stem cell research would be much less restricted.

From Wikipedia: "In 1995, Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, prohibiting federal funding of research that involves the use of a human embryo. Privately funded research lead to the breakthrough which made embryonic stem cell research possible in 1998, however, prompting the Clinton Administration to develop federal regulations for its funding. Preparations for this funding were completed in 2001."

Re:Interesting logic

[erlenic]

I'm just saying that recent events have damaged their credibility enough that quite a few people take everything they say with a pillar of salt.

Re:Interesting logic

[BWJones]

Incorrect. Stem cell research has been going on for years in the U.S. and other countries. Bush is just the first president that has said anything about it because stem cell research became politicized round about when he was running for office.

Re:Interesting logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it was called something else before 2000. Since the name change to "stem-cell research fund", yes W was the first to fund it. Before him, 2 other presidents have funded it under a different name.

Re:Interesting logic

[erlenic]

I can't comment on Nature, but NPR is just as liberally biased as CBS.

Regardless, why should we base our own domestic policy decisions on what the rest of the world is doing? We fought a large war to separate ourselves from Europe, and ever since then the meek ones in our country have been trying to undo it. Like it or not, Bush's decision on embryonic stem cell research helped him win the election, so that pretty much demonstrates it as the will of the people.

Re:Interesting logic

[erlenic]

So in the extremely rare circumstances that the media takes a conservative viewpoint, it's "propaganda," but when they take their usual liberal stance, it's news.

Re:Interesting logic

[E_elven]

Well, he did restrict the rules from what Clinton wanted.

Hehe. Thoughtless drones.

Re:Interesting logic

[aussie_a]

Whether this makes you happy or not, the majority of Americans are not amenable to the idea of killing undeveloped babies for medical research.

You know by mentioning this when people discuss using embryos for stem cell research, you make it sound like this is the case. However this isn't the case. They want to use embryos that were killed for other reasons, which they're not allowed to do.

Creating an embryo just to use it for medical research is quite different to using an embryo that is already dead, and wasn't created for the medical research.

Re:Interesting logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't comment on Nature, but NPR is just as liberally biased as CBS.

What the hell is it with you Americans. Most of you seem to decide on being either a democrat, or a rebublican, and then shut down any ability to process data that's not spoonfed to you. It seems like most of you just throw out any information from a person who doesn't agree with you. They're biased, no shit, they're human. Anything stopping you from taking the information they present, checking it against other sources, and making up your own mind on something?

Re:Interesting logic

[TummyX]

Hey, anything CBS reports may be false but it's still accurate.

<delusion type="of grandure">
<signoff>
Courage
</signoff>
</delusion>

Re:Interesting logic

[Leo McGarry]

I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. Embryonic stem cells come from living embryos that are killed in the process of extracting them.

You're been mislead by the meme that's been going around for about 4 years now that embryonic stem cell research depends on aborted babies, but that's untrue. The babies used for embryonic stem cell research come from two sources: Either they're created in vitro purely for their stem cells, or they're created as part of an ethically unsound "mass-production" technique for in vitro fertilization and are subsequently killed for their stem cells later.

Re:Interesting logic

[TummyX]

s/grandure/grandeur

Re:Interesting logic

[MightyMartian]

When you add to this the fact that embryonic stem cell research is not a promising branch of medical research, the idea of using taxpayer dollars to pay for experiments on babies becomes a pretty hard sell.

Apparently anti-stem cell FUD is a pretty easy sell on you. It amuses me how quickly falsehoods and half-truths will be repeated in an attempt to create a Big Lie.

Re:Interesting logic

[geneing]

You take my reply out of context.

Parent said: "allowing, for the first time, any federal funding for embryonic stem cells is "restricting."

I pointed out that this is "compaign soundbite" "spin" "propaganda" - call it what you want. The real story is different. Bush came up with the most restrictive rules for stem cell research funding, short of banning it.

You yourself resort to semi-truths and "spin". You say "These are human babies." These are embryos that would be destroyed anyway. They are not going to become babies, ever. They were not created for experiments by mad scientists. They come from fertility treatment. Why waste them?

I appreciate that many Americans disagree with me (although I'm glad that most of my fellow Californians agree with me.) However, I think they would agree with me if they got the full story rather than "propaganda".

Re:Interesting logic

[geneing]

This is BS and totally out of context.

Parent said: "allowing, for the first time, any federal funding for embryonic stem cells is "restricting."

I pointed out that this is "compaign soundbite" "spin" "propaganda" - call it what you want. The real story is different -- Bush came up with the most restrictive rules for stem cell research funding, just short of outright banning it.

Both liberal and conservative politicians are guilty of spewing "propaganda". I simply expect that intelligent people (/. readers :) wouldn't repeat it. What happened to independent thinking and skepticism?

Re:Interesting logic

[Leo McGarry]

Bush came up with the most restrictive rules for stem cell research funding, short of banning it.

Um. He also came up with the most permissive rules for stem cell research ever. Half-empty, half-full.

You say "These are human babies." These are embryos that would be destroyed anyway.

First, "embryo" is medical jargon. That's why I say "baby." It's a matter of simplicity of language. Second, they would not be "destroyed" anyway. (I think you mean "killed" here.) The ones that are created specifically for stem-cell collection would not have been created in the first place. The ones that were the result of an ethically iffy in vitro fertilization process can be kept on ice indefinitely, and can be implanted in any willing mother with compatible blood factors.

However, I think they would agree with me if they got the full story rather than "propaganda".

A world of arrogance. The thought that people can be fully informed and disagree with you just never occurred, huh?

Re:Interesting logic

[supersnail]

The presidents office today announced that Zoos receiving federal funding must remove any refreneces to discredited Darwinian theory, but, may be allowed to state on which day God created the Species.

Only a matter of time ....

Re:Interesting logic

[mark2003]

Maybe he has been misled in the same way that the involved regulators, lawmakers and scientists have been by this meme over the past 4 years?

But who are educated people to argue with these preachers decrying this - they obviously get their information direct from God - it must be true!

Re:Interesting logic

[Doc Ruby]

Er, where's any reason to say this story is false? Because it contradicts your faith-based news intuition?

Re:Interesting logic

[disposable60]

But that's ... thinking. Something we've been taught to fear - only panty-waist egghead girlymen THINK.

Re:Interesting logic

[Skye16]

I believe that "something" would be "lack of brain cells".

Re:Interesting logic

[Curunir_wolf]

Hey, don't complain. At least it's better than the ubiquitous "Bush's ban on stem cell research" that usually accompanies any discussion.

Re:Interesting logic

[Skye16]

Fuck the people. The people put us where we are, the people deserve what they get. I don't blame the President or the Congress at all anymore. I don't blame lobbyists or any other special interest group. Once the people let themselves be led about like cattle, they deserve to be treated like it.

Re:Interesting logic

[Cat_Byte]

The Clinton Administration published guidelines governing the use of human embryonic stem cells in the Federal Register on August 23, 2000.

Re:Interesting logic

[Cat_Byte]

From here. In November 1998, two different groups of scientists reported the successful isolation and culturing of human embryonic stem cells. Generally referred to as pluripotent stem cells, these cells have the ability to develop into most of the specialized cells or tissues in the human body and can divide for indefinite periods in culture.

What was it called before? I'm curious since 2 presidents before Bush would be around 1986.

Re:Interesting logic

[oliverthered]

I'm sure there are lots of things that were politicised around the time Bush came to office. He seems to have focused on Gay Marriage, Stem cell research and killing Arabs. I expect he still eats pork and shell fish so he hasn't quite dropped back right wing Christian roots.

Re:Interesting logic

[cowsandmilk]

But wait, stem cells made using this technology can't be funded by federal money. Nor could even the development of this be funded by federal money because it involves the creation of new lines. The restrictions may not be limiting, but the funding for existing lines as of some random point in history most definitely did not contribute to this.

Re:Interesting logic

[cowsandmilk]

Whether this makes you happy or not, the majority of Americans are not amenable to the idea of killing undeveloped babies for medical research. Then why do so many people fight for legislation against things such as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer when it is the technology that could replace the need to use human embryos to create stem cells? It still makes no sense to me.

Re:Interesting logic

[The Spoonman]

Anything stopping you from taking the information they present, checking it against other sources, and making up your own mind on something?

Ever think that might be what has already happened? For some of us at least, we've seen the information provided by the major networks, reviewed it with third-parties and, where possible, first-hand knowledge. We've then formed opinions based on that. The problem is, you do this enough, and you start to see that yeah, maybe they ARE biased. And, the problem really isn't that they're biased, but that a) they're TOO biased to be reporting the news or disseminating information to the populace at large b) they present things in ways to influence people to their points of view.

Example, one night I'm watching the news, and they're discussing a company that's being sued by an employee or something. The person presenting the item ended it by saying, "And all calls to the company requesting comments went unanswered" which implied that they had something to hide, and therefore MUST be guilt of whatever they were being sued for. Most of the time, when you see such an item, that's how they end it which once again reinforces that "companies are evil and out to screw you and kill you".

But, this one time, they switched back to the anchor who said, brilliantly I might add, "We should point out that a company that doesn't comment on a lawsuit is doing so because it can jepardize their case. And not providing one does should not present an implication of guilt, but good legal sense."

The reporter then looked at her dumbfounded and said, "Well, yeah, I guess that could be true, too."

I want the news. I want to know exactly what happened, without commentary and without opinion so I CAN make up my own mind. The problem is, that doesn't happend, and apparently CAN'T happen because, as you say, the reporters are human. I, for one, welcome our new robot journalist overlords...

Re:Interesting logic

[Cat_Byte]

I think it all started with the actual front article commentary that was approved by moderators with the little Bush bashing included.

Re:Interesting logic

[Darth Daver]

Curse that George W. Bush for not taking the easy way out! What? Human ingenutiy found a solution to a moral inconvenience? Who would have guessed that someone could use their brain to create a morally acceptable alternative? I will have to rethink this rushing headlong into disaster policy.

Re:Interesting logic

[E_elven]

Point stands.

Just to answer your sig.

1 Democrat in 25 years. He was the most conservative of all of them. So why are the rest moving more left?

They should modify or hide their beliefs to get more votes?

The Democrats (and other parties) shouldn't be asking "How can we be more like the other people" but rather "How can the other people be more like us".

Re:Interesting logic

[KevinIsOwn]

Wow, idiot.
"And all calls to the company requesting comments went unanswered" means just that. The calls were unanswered. The news is trying to explain why they have little to no information coming from the company explaining its position (in other words, explaining why the news story may have appeared slightly biased towards the employee in the sense that their side of the story got all the air time). That is what they should say. You then attached your own implication of guilt. To someone who is actually viewing the news from a neutral standpoint, this means just what the news caster said, that they may just not want to comment because it is a good legal thing to do. Not to mention this is heard all the time on the news. I have read hundreds of stories where a party denied to comment or never answered the reporter's requests for comment.
You are the problem with the media, because you are inventing a bias so that you can believe that your side never gets the air time it deserves.
Not to mention your story is missing all important identifiable details and probably never happened (since humans often remember what they want to remember, rather than an exact account of what acually happened)

Re:Interesting logic

[ebvwfbw]

It may seem that way and it is true to a certain extent just as it is in Europe, Asia, Africa and other places. The twist we have here is a concept that "the other side is lying." You can't believe that study, that was done by {fill in biased group, even if they are not biased}. Sometimes those biased groups have misleading names, for example "the union of concerned scientists", check them out at http://www.activistcash.com. In fact check out a lot of them, it explains a lot. Both sides have people that openly call the other liars, even in book form. Both sides seem very convinced as well.

The people that tend to speak out are the ones that have strong feelings. In order to get those strong feelings they usualy feel that they have been wronged or helped somehow. Perceptions could be totally wrong. Some groups keep issues alive even though they won them long ago lest they not be needed anymore and they loose their income.

In fact both political sides have good things to contribute as well as bad things. Hopefully they try to stop us from doing stupid things. The unfortunate part is sometimes people get into power and want to measure just how powerful they are and winning is the only thing. The only way to get rid of them is when they either retire or die because they can't be voted out, no matter how outrageous they are, Kennedy or Lott for example.

As for Bush, he deserves a feather in his cap. Previously the left said that what was done was impossible. Now we can get pathogen and animal free stem cells. If he didn't restrict things then they wouldn't have even tried.

Re:Interesting logic

[ACNiel]

No one believes someone was plotting some big impregnation center, where some studs continually knock up women, then harvest the embryos like some chicken farm.

You are missing the obvious progression.

The thought is, if you could legitimize abortions just a little bit more by advertising it as helping out research, it might promote more abortions.

Then you might have unscrupulous doctors, family planning centers, etc. pushing abortions they might not have, to make a few bucks off the emryos they are harvesting for research (cash or kickbacks/bribes like drug companies use).

And (on a side note, admitedly) if they fund the research, they are also funding abortions. The research has to get the embryos from somewhere (since noone ever wanted to develop an embryo farm), and they are going to buy them from abortion clinics. "Don't worry Mary Jane, this abortion will be free if you allow us to sell the embryo (to the research firm that has Federal money to pay us with)."

Re:Interesting logic

[snwcrash]

The orignial ariticle only said that federally funding was restricted to the exsisting line. Which in a true statement. Sounds like political quibbling over which thesaurus word to use.

Is there a way to mention the limitation on funding that would not be considered biased? I don't think I could right an article summary that satisified supporters of the provision.

Call things what they are, it's a restriction plain and simple. Conservatives should be happy to call it a restriction, since it supports their moral viewpoint. If you are embarrassed of the public policy and criticism of it makes you squirm than that's your problem, not the posters.

Re:Interesting logic

[snwcrash]

That's why I say "baby." It's a matter of simplicity of language.

Didn't you mean to say Newspeak? Don't try to simplfy, we can handle the big concepts...

Re:Interesting logic

[d3ac0n]

KevinIsOwn, Consider yourself lucky I have no mod points currently. That was the biggest TROLL I have seen in quite some time.

Someone makes a valid point and provides a good example to back up that point, and the first words out of your mouth are "wow, idiot" Which is then folowed up by one of the most nonsensical paragraphs I have ever heard. Perhaps you don't understand this, so I will clarify for you.

The words people say mean things beyond the dictionary definition of the words themselves. This is based on the context, order, and emphasis placed on those words.

The example given by the parent post was a brilliant one, because it happens all the time. Reporters (and other members of the news media) frequently engage in this type of phraseology specifically because it has exactly the effect that the parent post mentioned. And it happens on both sides of the ideological spectrum too. Although more frequently from the left side, partly because there are more left-leaning news media members than right-leaning (by thier own admission, not my accusation). But also because left-leaning news media members seem to be more willing to manipulate thier stories to push thier agenda (Dan Rather, anyone?). So I am sorry. The parent was correct, and made a valid point. You are just a troll.

Re:Interesting logic

[DavidTC]

Me, I'm amazed at all these scientists who insist on researching things with no promise. I mean, in what universe do we fund pointless research, anyway? Don't they have to write up a proposal and justify how they are going to use the funding for some worthwhile goal?

Can I propose an expedition to find the hole at the north pole and climb within and make contact with the people living on the inside of the earth? Could I propose building a giant soda can and mechanical shaking arm that we can put people on top of and launch them into orbit when we open it? Are we really giving scientists money for research that has no promise and is patently stupid?

Of course not. Either the people handing out funding to scientists are idiots, or perhaps they know more human development and the potential of stem cells than the Bush administration.

Guess which one I'm suspecting? ;)

Re:Interesting logic

[Leo McGarry]

Another dumbass with an Orwell analogy. You do realize that Orwell was trying to demonstrate the dangers of insidious euphemism, don't you? Calling a baby an "embryo" merely to dehumanize it and make it more tolerable to slaughter it would fit in exactly with what Orwell was writing about in 1984.

Re:Interesting logic

[MightyMartian]

This is rather like saying "We're going to refuse funding atomic research because we don't have anything useful to show for it" in 1925. The only way you get something to show is via research. It's simply amazing the kinds of junk rationalizations people will use to support an attack on basic research. Besides, the really neat thing about science is that sometimes it's the incidental discoveries made along the road to a major goal that can be just as valuable.

Re:Interesting logic

[snwcrash]

Technically it is an embryo, it's a scientific term. You aren't labeled a "baby" until after birth. That's just they way the terminology works. The word embryo wasn't introduced at some later date to make their destruction insignificant. The fact that it's an embryo, a zygot or a fetus shouldn't make a diference in your argument. Be honest, are you simplifing for us, or trying to make a stronger ethical argument?

Re:Interesting logic

[EggplantMan]

You are totally contrary to your own point. On one hand, you say you want 'just the news', on the other hand you got wood when the anchorperson (surprisingly) said something insightful. So uh, what's your damn point?

IMO, I would rather that both facts and analysis were given with news stories, which is almost never the case. Today, what passes for journalism is simple 'he said, she said' style - publish two dissenting opinions on some topic and now you have a balanced piece! The journalist just lets the talking heads to the work for him/her.

Anyhow, I encourage you that instead of giving up, you should diversify your sources. Also diversify your analysis. There are so many different ways to analyse what's coming in. Some methods I use: the 'this is news?' method. News outlets control the discourse of the day and determine what is relevant for people to know. One interesting trait of news outlets: anything the government wants to say becomes 'news'. I wish I had that ability! What the government does is also unique in that there is usually not much room for a 'balanced' report : the reporter goes to the news conference, and records what the talking heads have to say, and plays it back to the people.

This is especially true of television news. If the issue is particularly contentious, then they get two experts: one from one side, one from the other side. This is because there are only ever two sides to an issue!!(?)

Other techniques involve trying to figure out what preferred world view is behind the 'news report'. What assumptions about the world do they bring to their report? Who are they not talking about? What sort of language is being used with respect to a problem? For example, the US likes to declare war on its problems. Why is it to the government's advantage to use the language of war, say with the 'war on drugs'? Well, to me, it is apparent that all is fair in love and war, so when the government declares 'war' on drugs, I guess any and all measures are reasonable. An alternative way could be to declare 'help' on the drug addicts. But now we are speaking the discourse of 'helping' and it generally changes what your average person would consider to be reasonable in this context. The analyses you can do are endless.

Finally, I will admit that I can only watch a news source for so long when I consider its information to be suspect, or the bias is too strong, or when there is an interaction between those two (which is what I think you mean when you say something is 'too biased'). If the information is suspect, there is only so much analysis you can do until it feels like a waste of time (like say, analysing a soap opera). If the bias is too strong, then they are probably not even reporting the news stories you are interested in (which is the easiest way to be a biased news source: biased by omission). The interactions between the two can be things like purposely omitting relevant information to play on your sensitivities and have you assume some preferred opinion on the matter.

If you are really interested in getting to bottom of the stories you are hearing, maybe you should take a course or two on postmodern analysis. It's definitely an eye opener, and at least for me it formalised and put on a firm footing what my instincts had taught me over the years.

P.S. From what I said above, it should be apparent now that your statement that you want know 'exactly what happened, without commentary, and without opinion' is really the least of your worries. At least commentary and opinion are separated from the object they refer to, but things like the discourse that is taking place already provides a preferred viewpoint simultaneously as information is being provided. For example, when a palestinian blows up an isreali checkpoint, is he a terrorist, or a freedom fighter? You can read reports of the event that more or less contain the same facts but are couched in different language. So what I am saying, is that additional information is tied to the language we use to describe events, and it's inescapable. Information can never be free... even binary information. In a C program 0 is false and 1 is true, in a BASH program 0 is true and 1 is false. AHH! (head asplodes)

Re:Interesting logic

[rotor]

The parent post didn't say that he was the first to allow stem cell research - just that he was the first to allow federal funding for stem cell research.

Re:Interesting logic

[modecx]

Regardless, why should we base our own domestic policy decisions on what the rest of the world is doing?

*cough* We do this ALL the time, and rightfully so. We're a big nation, but we're not big enough to tell the world to go screw themeslves because we're happier playing with ourself.

Basing policy on what's going on in the world is great, and totally sane. Basing the ideals of an entire country on the ideals of the leading majority is dangerous, at best.

Moreover, many of the people that voted for Kerry did so becaus "he wasn't Bush" I fall into this category. He wasn't convincing, and worst of all he was pushing what mostly seemed to be a twist on Bush's rhetoric, though more comprehendable. And even though Bush appears to have speaking problems, and act like a buffoon sometimes, I'm 99% sure that it's a play to the public. Certianly didn't help that they were both members of their secret little club, and both likely related to dracula. Not only were they on the same coin but Bush is the tail and Kerry's somewhere on the edge (but where nobody knows).

Had the shoes been on Dean, or Clark or a half dozen other (more convincing) candidates, well, I think history may have been different. The moment Kerry was elected by the dems, I knew he had little more than a snowball's chance.

Re:Interesting logic

[BWJones]

just that he was the first to allow federal funding for stem cell research.

That is bullshit too. Stem cell research has been federally funded for years. It was just not labeled as such until it became political. Trust me on this one.

Re:Interesting logic

[rotor]

Trust me on this one.

Coming from someone I don't know - ON SLASHDOT. Hmmm. That's funny. Do you have evidence?

Re:Interesting logic

[Leo McGarry]

You aren't labeled a "baby" until after birth.

By whom? "Baby" isn't a technical term. It means a person who's younger than a child. That's all.

The word embryo wasn't introduced at some later date to make their destruction insignificant.

The use of dehumanizing technical jargon is bad whether the jargon was already around or whether it was invented for that purpose.

Be honest, are you simplifing for us, or trying to make a stronger ethical argument?

I'm simplifying for me. I haven't got the foggiest idea where the line is between a zygote, an embryo and a fetus is. All three are words used to describe people in different stages of development, but their use implies a granularity to the process that doesn't seem to exist. There's no instant of transition where a baby goes from being technically an embryo to technically a fetus. It's a very gradual process of development. So the whole terminology issue is very confusing to me.

Let the doctors worry about the technical terms. The one thing we should all be able to agree upon is that from the instant of conception, the thing inside the mother's belly is a person, a young, undeveloped, immature person. A baby.

Re:Interesting logic

[BWJones]

Coming from someone I don't know - ON SLASHDOT. Hmmm. That's funny. Do you have evidence?

Yes. Click on my website link and look at the papers and collaborations. I am a scientist and have been engaged in stem cell research in collaboration with other scientists.

Re:Interesting logic

[d34thm0nk3y]

So your example of bias is a reporter stating a fact (no answered calls) and another reporter pointing out that it was likely on the advice of their laywer?

Re:Interesting logic

[Zak3056]

They should modify or hide their beliefs to get more votes?

Yes to the former, no to the latter. If you want my vote, you're going to have to share--or at least support--a significant percentage of my political beliefs. Is that really so hard a concept to grasp?

Re:Interesting logic

[E_elven]

That assumes your position is 'right'. If I consider mine 'right', there's no reason why I should change to get your vote. You should change and then I would get your vote.

Re:Interesting logic

[KevinIsOwn]

Yes, nonsensical. That's funny. You're right that the words people say mean things beyond the dictionary definitions. However, not all the time. If we constantly assign alterior meanings to phrases that are a standard part of a news report when a company declines to comment then we are going to far. The question is: What did the (previous parent) poster expect the newsman to say? "Our calls were not returned" is as unbiased as it gets. That's reporting exactly what happened. And, as that poster wishes, the determination of what that means about the company is left up to the viewer. Some viewers will say "That awful company, they show their guilt by not returning the newspapers calls!" and others will say "They are being legally prudent" and even others will disregard the phrase and say "Does anyone return phone calls from the newspaper anymore?"

And you're damn wrong. It wasn't a troll. The correct terminology is flamebait.

Re:Interesting logic

[Zak3056]

That assumes your position is 'right'. If I consider mine 'right', there's no reason why I should change to get your vote. You should change and then I would get your vote.

If you consider your position morally superior to mine, than by no means should you change simply to garner my vote. However, you should not sit there and wonder why you keep losing elections if a majority of voters disagree with you!

Your suggestion that the voter needs to come to the candidate, btw, is absurd. If you can convince me of the truth of your arguments, hey that's great for both of us. OTOH, simply saying that your position is right and mine is wrong is no way for you to succeed.

Re:Interesting logic

[cas2000]

> The ones that were the result of an ethically
> iffy in vitro fertilization process can be kept
> on ice indefinitely, and can be implanted in any
> willing mother with compatible blood factors.

so what?

you say that as if you've made a valid and crucial point here - but it's irrelevant.

aren't there enough people in the world? why do we need to care about whether a handful of embyros come to term?

it's just a blob of cells that are no more special than any other (if you disagree then you must consider yourself to be a mass-murderer every time you ejaculate - millions of "babies" killed with only a chance at life for one or two).

btw, i think IVF is a huge waste of money. there's already way too many people in this world, we don't need to spend a fortune making more.

keeping absurdly premature babies alive is also, IMO, wrong - in every respect, ethically, morally, and financially. even if all goes well, they're never going to be healthy, they're going to have bizarre and painful medical problems all their lives.

Re:Interesting logic

[J3Holaday]

Democrats do try and hide their beliefs.(if they have any) They pretty much take whatever side is doing best in the poles.

Re:Interesting logic

[J3Holaday]

He could personally cure every form of cancer, but he would be bad mouthed for putting cancer researchers out of a job.

Re:Interesting logic

[E_elven]

You said that, not I.

I'm merely saying that there's no reason for Dems to move to center to garner more votes. They should move the public to left. Means were not discussed.

Re:Interesting logic

[Leo McGarry]

Dude, you were born 60 years too late. You would have fit right in with the crowd that ran most of Europe in 1943.

Re:Interesting logic

[The Spoonman]

You are totally contrary to your own point. On one hand, you say you want 'just the news', on the other hand you got wood when the anchorperson (surprisingly) said something insightful. So uh, what's your damn point?

Wow, ok...the anchor essentially provided an unbiased view of the report, by actively going out of her way to remove the bias added by the reporter.

you should diversify your sources.

I believe I stated that I do that in my post. That I see what's on the major network's news broadcasts, and compare it to third-party news.

Re:Interesting logic

[The Spoonman]

And, as that poster wishes, the determination of what that means about the company is left up to the viewer. Some viewers will say "That awful company, they show their guilt by not returning the newspapers calls!" and others will say "They are being legally prudent" and even others will disregard the phrase and say "Does anyone return phone calls from the newspaper anymore?"

An excellent point, but flawed. The assumptions are that people a) know enough about the legal system to know you shouldn't talk about pending litigation (not likely) and b) don't automatically assume that companies are "evil" and therefore out to screw everyone.

"Our calls were not returned" is as unbiased as it gets.

But, alas it is not. The actual phrase I believe I posted was "all calls to the company requesting comment went unanswered". There is an implication there..."We tried as hard as we could to get the company to cough up some excuse for their actions, but they refused to answer as if they had something to hide." By not pointing out that pending litigation can't be discussed, you're omitting a HUGE fact not generally known. Omission of facts is usually a good sign of bias. An unbiased end to the reporter's story would have been: "We contacted the company, but they could not provide a comment as they're legally bound to not discuss pending litigation." The comment goes from "the company wouldn't provide a comment" to "the company is legally unable to provide a comment". A subtle, but POWERFUL difference.

And you're damn wrong. It wasn't a troll. The correct terminology is flamebait.

I agree totally there, and a damn fine one it was!

Aborted babies are not human beings

[Dancin_Santa]

They may be human, but without life they are no more "beings" than corpses. We have no qualms about harvesting organs from dead donors, but seem to have some knee jerk reaction to harvesting a few extremely useful cells from dead, young, human flesh.

You can't even say it's a "respect for human life" thing, because if that were the case those babies wouldn't have been aborted in the first place. The ban on harvesting of fetal stem cells is a huge setback to the progress of science.

While this development may be useful in the short term, hopefully in the longterm our politicians will be able to remove the blinders and fundamentalist yokes that they have placed on scientists in this century.

Stem cells save lives. What better way to honor those who died to contribute them than to pass on the benefits of their organs?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[ckemp.org]

Stem cells aren't harvested from babies already aborted. They are harvested from human embryos, "aborted" for the purpose of harvesting. At that point, however, they really are no more than a handful of cells.

See the wiki.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Anonymous Coward]

"What better way to honor those who died to contribute them than to pass on the benefits of their organs?"

Amen, brother. I ask myself the same thing every time I make a nice Baby, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[DLR]

Since you are obviously aware of things the rest of aren't would you please be so good as to inform us exactly when life begins?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Anonymous Coward]

Beats me, but a few iron filings sure aren't an "aborted car"

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[yuriismaster]

I may be able to field this one...

I believe that life begins when the organism in question is able of maintaining homeostasis by itself (ie: without the assistance of a host). When the fetus can breathe, pump its own blood, and regulate it's internal body temperature, then you call it a life. Otherwise, its a parasite (Please do not consider this flamebait)

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[martinX]

Shhh. It's not something we like to talk about. Families hate the thought of that. Can't say I blame them. Gives me the heebees too.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Doctor Crumb]

Point of order: organ donors give their permission before they die.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[mark-t]

It's the notion of "harvesting" that I think offends people the most with regards to stem cell research. For people who are against abortion, it's bad enough that abortion is even allowed (in their view), but allowing stem cell research would result in some people specifically getting pregnant for the very _purpose_ of aborting the baby.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[mark-t]

Long before it reaches that stage, it has a beating heart, and measurable brain activity.

Helpless and dependant on the mother it may still be, but why is it any less alive than a child in its final trimester?

Further, many premature babies require assistance in staying alive after birth. If they aren't alive yet anyways (by your definition it wouldn't be), then what good are they doing wasting this effort? They aren't even "keeping it alive" because it isn't alive yet in the first place (according to your definition).

Dependancy on outside systems cannot be used as a basis for measuring whether or not something is alive.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[erlenic]

So does that make a grown adult who needs an iron lung a parasite? What about people who are exposed to extreme temperature for extended periods of time? They can no longer regulate their internal body temperature, so can I kill them for being a parasite?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[erlenic]

Where did you get that idea? I assume you're referring to the Catholic Church, in which case you're wrong. They do (at least the church does) believe that condoms are wrong, but not that it kills babies.

Also, you fail to realize that Catholicism is one of the only (maybe THE only) pro-life group that has that belief. They're are many other non-Catholic, pro-life people, who have no problem with condoms.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[mark-t]

Possibly... it depends on the processes that were in play which brought those iron filings to where they were.

If it was the process of creating a car which itself was aborted, then technically, yes.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[nacturation]

... would you please be so good as to inform us exactly when life begins?

The correct age is exactly 1/x, where x represents the age when someone is old enough to drive, to start working, to drink, to get married, to view pornography, to have sex, etc. Can you give the exact value of "x" for all those cases?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Lord Kano]

They may be human, but without life they are no more "beings" than corpses.

Aborted babies are dead human beings.

We have no qualms about harvesting organs from dead donors, but seem to have some knee jerk reaction to harvesting a few extremely useful cells from dead, young, human flesh.

We don't mind taking organs from people who have chosen to donate them. There's a huge difference.

You can't even say it's a "respect for human life" thing, because if that were the case those babies wouldn't have been aborted in the first place.

Many of us think that they shouldn't have been. If we have our way, they won't be. That's a part of why I oppose the use of embryonic or fetal stem cells. Instead of people claiming that we want to deprive women of their "rights", we'll be accused of wanting sick old grandmother to die from Parkinson's disease.

The ban on harvesting of fetal stem cells is a huge setback to the progress of science.

What ban? There is no ban. It's perfectly legal.

Stem cells save lives.

Oddly enough, the greatest successes in that arena have come from adult stem cells and placental stem cells. No child had to die to procure those.

What better way to honor those who died to contribute them than to pass on the benefits of their organs?

If you found a dead man in the street, would you be "honoring" him if you took the money and credit cards out of his wallet to pass on the benefits of his wealth?

LK

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

That position can't work because, by that logic, anybody on a ventilator is no longer a human being. Christopher Reeve -- whose poor name has already been dragged through the mud enough on this; it's the cross he had to bear being the world's most famous quadriplegic -- could not breathe on his own, therefore by your reasoning he was not alive.

Premature babies often require the use of a ventilator for some time after they're born. By your reasoning, any baby that required a ventilator would not be alive.

Let's cut to the chase scene here, okay? There is no definition of the moment when life begins that can stand up to scrutiny. There's just no way to unequivocally define it, because there is no moment when life begins.

Let me say that again: There is no moment when life begins.

We all learned in high school about the theory of biogenesis, right? It's the principle that life comes only from other living things. It doesn't arise spontaneously. Rocks don't turn into turtles. It's a basic principle of biology. (The opposite of this theory, the theory of abiogenesis, is given as an example of a scientific theory that was once believed but that we now know to be false.)

Am I alive? Yes. Is my liver alive? Well, it's not an independent organism, but it's alive, sure. If you cut off its blood flow, it dies, so yes, it's clearly alive.

Is an embryo alive? Yes, obviously. It's not independent, but it's alive. If you cut off its blood flow, it dies. The cells that compose it cease to function, and it dies. So yes, an embryo is alive.

Life doesn't begin. It's a continuum, passing unbroken from mother to baby and so on through generations.

So it's long past time we stopped looking to science to tell us when life begins. Science has answered that question unequivocally: Whenever the first cell formed, maybe billions of years ago, life began, and it's been going ever since. (How that happened, nobody has the foggiest idea. But clearly it did, so either God did it or space aliens made it happen or some natural process that we don't understand yet happened and life was the result. Take your pick; they all end up in the same place.)

The question of when life begins isn't one for science. It's one for our values.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[ortcutt]

Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics council, once noted that:

If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Lord Kano]

It's a continuum, passing unbroken from mother to baby and so on through generations.

How about 'from parents to offspring', mothers can't do it alone and neither can fathers.

The question of when life begins isn't one for science. It's one for our values.

That's the wrong question. We shouldn't be asking "When does life begin?", we should be asking "When can a life be protected under the law?". That question can be answered.

LK

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

How about 'from parents to offspring', mothers can't do it alone and neither can fathers.

Last time I checked, the baby comes out of the mother, not the father. And incidentally, it's a baby, not an "offspring."

we should be asking "When can a life be protected under the law?". That question can be answered.

Actually, when you phrase it that way, the moral imperative is clear. Life must always be protected under the law. And it's not just moral, either. The 14th amendment to the Constitution demands it.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[ohithere]

Stem cells are commonly harvested from fertilized embryos, long before they enter the fetal stage. The whole point and promise of stem cells are that their DNA has not differentiated any of its expression/repression of genes. We all know that your DNA is the same throughout your body, but what makes a difference is what genes are expressed in each cell. That is what leads to cell differentiation in the body and the main reason why stem cells are so powerful. These plain, all encompassing cells can be grown in certain controlled conditions in order to obtain whatever kind of cells your body needs, theoretically. The problem with using an old stem cell line is that with each separation, the DNA mutates a litle bit. A couple of base pairs are cut off of each end of the DNA strands with each cell division. This loss of base pairs from the end of each strand of DNA during the replication of DNA are what eventually lead to the aging of cells.

About the rejection of cells by the body, your body decides whether or not a cell is "natural" from the genes that are expressed by the cells as well as different proteins that come out from the surface of cells. At no point does a macrophage enter a cell and check every little bit of DNA to see if it "matches" or not. Why would they be able to do organ transplants if that were the case? With a larger number of stem cell lines to choose from, there may be a greater chance for cells to be similar to each other.

Keep in mind that there are many places to harvest stem cells, from many stages of human life. There are the embryonic stem cells, fetal stem cells, placental stem cells, childhood stem cells and adult stem cells to choose from. However, as the body ages, a smaller percent of cells in the body are actually stem cells. Now, say you harvest the stem cells of an adult seeking treatment for a medical condition and send them to a lab to grow. Do you have any idea of how much difficulty there would be in setting this up on a large enough scale to treat diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's? Do you know how long it would take to grow enough stem cells to be a viable treatment for a patient? Now, if you could establish cell lines with the thousands of frozen embryos are there frozen at fertility clinics around the world with no hope of ever becoming a child, you could create enough cell lines to be able to treat anyone. THAT is the power of the embryonic stem cell.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[jmawhorter]

I think your question is not the right question. The question to be answered is not when "life" begins but when a human organism's existance begins. Life is clearly a continum: a sperm and egg are both alive and so is a zygote and at no point in between can those cells be called dead. However, a new human organism is clearly present from the moment of conception on. Any remaining confusion about that has been cleared up the understanding we now have of genetics. At every point after conception, there is objectively a unique, autonomous (i.e. self-regulating and self-directing) organism of the human species in existance. Certainly it is in a highly dependent state and far from "fully" developed. However near complete dependency continues for at least the first few years after birth (and often reoccurs with advanced age) and developmentally a newborn human is still very far from the level of development of an adult human. Given that, we certainly can identifity exactly (at least to the minute) when the existance of a human being begins.

That said, I don't think this is the heart of the disagreement regarding the use of embryonic stem cells. The question is not whether an embryo is a human being. The question is, are we going to treat all human beings equally regardless of their level of development, depencency, characteristics, etc. ?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Lord Kano]

Last time I checked, the baby comes out of the mother, not the father.

That has nothing to do with the issue that I was addressing. Mothers alone do not create new life. Parents together do.

And incidentally, it's a baby, not an "offspring."

It's both.

Actually, when you phrase it that way, the moral imperative is clear. Life must always be protected under the law.

If that was truly the case, it would be illegal to disconnect ventillators.

If the end of life is legally judged by the cessation of brain activity, there is no reason why the start of life shouldn't be judged by the beginning of brain activity.

Somewhere between 7 and 12 weeks after conception is when that activity begins. At that point, we're dealing with a complete but small scale human being. There is no justification for killing such a person.

LK

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[drinkypoo]

The solution is not to allow people to make money or otherwise directly profit from stem cells being harvested from their abortion. IE they don't get any say in how they are used. That would take care of the motivation to have children so you can get them aborted and get something out of it.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

If that was truly the case, it would be illegal to disconnect ventillators.

In the vast majority of cases, it is. The exceptions are very, very strictly defined by law.

If the end of life is legally judged by the cessation of brain activity

It's not. There are numerous criteria, and the specific combination varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The absence of a heart beat is always involved, the lack of spontaneous respiration is usually a component, and the failure to respond to reflex stimuli is often included. (Pupils don't contract when exposed to bright light, that sort of thing.)

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TummyX]

The opposite of this theory, the theory of abiogenesis, is given as an example of a scientific theory that was once believed but that we now know to be false


bullshit. is this some sneaky way to prove creationism?

By your arguments, sperm is "alive". The question then is not whether something is alive but what can we ethically do with certain types of life. From my perspective, sSome life is more important than others (humans vs bacteria for example).

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[cot]

"There are numerous criteria, and the specific combination varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The absence of a heart beat is always involved, the lack of spontaneous respiration is usually a component, and the failure to respond to reflex stimuli is often included. (Pupils don't contract when exposed to bright light, that sort of thing.)"

Cows meet all of those criteria.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

is this some sneaky way to prove creationism?

What? Did you never take high school biology? You know, the experiment with the piece of meat in the bell jar? The one that high-school textbooks use to disprove abiogenesis? Have you not gotten to that year yet?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

Cows meet all of those criteria.

Right ... congratulations. You've just proven to everyone's satisfaction that cows are alive. Let's throw you a fucking parade.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[cot]

Do a little reading, you're confused.

Abiogenesis, in its most general sense, is the hypothetical generation of life from non-living matter. Today, the term is primarily used in the context of biology and the origin of life. Some confusion exists on this topic, because early concepts of abiogenesis were later proven to be incorrect. These early concepts of spontaneous generation (referred to here as "Aristotelian abiogenesis" for clarity) held that living organisms could be "born" out of decaying organic substances, et cetera, which we now know does not occur.

...

The modern definition of abiogenesis is concerned with the formation of the simplest forms of life from primordial chemicals. This is a significantly different thing from the concept of Aristotelian abiogenesis, which postulated the formation of complex organisms. Different hypotheses for modern abiogenetic processes are currently under debate; see, for example, RNA world hypothesis, proteinoid, Miller experiment.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TummyX]

What the fuck are you on?

It's like sitting there looking at a lump of clay for 10 years and then claiming that abiogenesis is impossible.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

Right. I'll take that as a "no."

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[cot]

I thought your criteria wasn't just for life but for whether we should be allowed to end the life in question.

I mean, it's inarguable that an embryo is alive, it's just a question of whether we should be allowed to kill them or not. It's pretty tough to argue that killing ANYTHING is morally wrong, or we'd all starve to death.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

I mean, it's inarguable that an embryo is alive, it's just a question of whether we should be allowed to kill them or not.

Why is that a question? An embryo is obviously alive, as you say. An embryo is also obviously a human being. I mean, it's not going to grow up to be a salmon or a hummingbird or a hydrangea bush.

So why is the question of whether we should be allowed to kill people even a question? Isn't the answer obvious on its face?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Punchcardz]

The more commonly used term nowdays is "Spontaneous Generation" for what you are describing.

Abiogenesis is the frequently used term for the idea that life may have started on it's own sans an outside creator.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[cot]

The point is that the criteria you were quoting are UTTERLY RETARDED when applied to the general case of the worthiness of life.

Also, having human DNA isn't an automatic "you're worthy" pass, or i'd be a lot more worried about the dead skin cells i'm leaving about. Yes, I have about as much concern for a few celled embryo as i do for dandruff. After a few months, it's a different story.

So this few celled organism has human DNA? There's more DNA in the dust on my desk. It's intelligent? I guarantee it's not as intelligent as a pig in the first few months, and pigs are tasty. There are counter examples for every argument you'll make but the one you truly believe and won't say - you believe it has a soul given to it by God and therefore deseves to live. I can't counter your faith other than to say keep it to yourself.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[cot]

Feel free to provide a better reference AC!

The hilarious thing is that when you google it, the term seems to be most commonly used by fringe crackpots, so it really says something about the guy who originally used it here.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[DrXym]

And in fact scientists have been growing VATS of cultured tissue for decades.

Where is the outcry that each and every day gallons and gallons of cells propogated from the late Henrietta Lacks are shipped out around the world to be experimented on?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

The point is that the criteria you were quoting are UTTERLY RETARDED when applied to the general case of the worthiness of life.

Um. You do know that we were talking about the criteria for assessing death, right? No heart beat, no spontaneous respiration, no reflex. These are some of the criteria doctors use to determine when you're dead. They have nothing to do with "the worthiness of life."

Somebody asserted that the definition of death was somehow contingent on "brain activity," and I was explaining that that's not true. I explained that doctors use several overlapping criteria to define death, and then you jumped my shit about how cows are also alive. Any of this ringing a bell?

Yes, I have about as much concern for a few celled embryo as i do for dandruff.

Sigh. That's disappointing. Maybe someday you'll change your mind. I certainly hope so. I hate the idea that I live in the world where people aren't bothered by the idea of killing babies.

There are counter examples for every argument you'll make

What argument? I'm not the one arguing. I'm telling you that in my opinion, killing a baby is something that requires no argument. It's not acceptable, period. This is, to me, as obvious as the day is long. You disagree, which is fine, I guess, it being a free country and all. But it still makes me sad.

you believe it has a soul given to it by God

Actually I'm an agnostic, but thanks for expressing an interest.

keep it to yourself

This bothers me, too. I don't have an opinion about God one way or the other, admitting my own infinite ignorance on the question. But it doesn't bother me to hear somebody talk about God. Why does it bother you?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[jadavis]

Well, somebody makes a decision at some point, and somebody makes money at some point. The person who makes the money will try to influence the person who makes the decision. There is an obvious conflict of interest there. You can't just magically seperate the two with a law.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

I must have missed that class seeing as every highschool in the world must teach the same syllabus.

Well ... yeah. Basically, they all do. I mean, we all learn arithmetic, we all learn to read and write, and we all learn that life does not arise spontaneously from inorganic matter in nature.

How about you provide a link to some "proof" that abiogenesis has been 'disproved'.

Sigh. No, I don't think I will, for the same reason that I wouldn't provide a "link" to the fact that two and two make four or that water rolls downhill.

Look, since you're so blindingly ignorant of your basic biology, do you at least remember your Shakespeare? Remember Hamlet? "If the sun doth breed maggots in a dead dog," Hamlet says, then he interrupts himself. "Have you a daughter?" he asks Polonius, who replies that he does. "Let her not walk in the sun," Hamlet says. "Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive."

See? It was once believed that maggots grew spontaneously from the corpses of dead animals. We now know this isn't true. We all know that this isn't true, because we all did the same experiment in high school biology class. We all took two pieces of meat, and put one in a dish by an open window and the other in a bell jar with an air-tight seal. We all observed maggots in the uncovered meat and none in the covered meat, proving that maggots do not generate spontaneously. Seriously, everybody knows this. How did you manage to be so ignorant of basic biology?

This is especially true considering that scientists have constructed simple lifeforms in the lab.

Um. You do know that that's never happened, right? You've been badly, badly misinformed.

there's no reason to believe that any "magic" was passed on by the molecules

Nobody said it was magic. All anybody has ever said on the subject is that life does not spontaneously arise from inorganic matter. It's never been observed, it does not happen in nature. You can keep that piece of meat in that bell jar forever, and maggots will never appear.

What does this mean? That life arises only from life. But surely there had to be a first cell, right? Well, that's one theory, yes, and in that case some process must have resulted in the creation of that cell. We have no idea what process that might have been. We can't even begin to guess.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[PsiPsiStar]

Since he was talking about life in general, parent to offspring is more appropriate, given that some life forms reproduce asexually, and most life forms are not human. Similarly, offspring implies the organism for its entire life while "baby" has far more specific connotations.

Of course, offspring still applies to humans. Don't be a jerk and try to correct someone when they haven't said anything incorrect.

Actually, when you phrase it that way, the moral imperative is clear. Life must always be protected under the law.

If a guy masturbates, should he be arrested for murder?

If a doctor takes blood cells from someone's finger and that person gives consent, should the doctor be arrested for murdering the blood cells?

Many embryos are spontaneously aborted by the human body due to genetic abnormalities. Those lives can be preserved if doctors proscribe mandatory anti-aborfactants for all expectant mothers. Should fail to take such medicaton be considered child abuse, murder or neglect?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[jadavis]

It'd be overtly clear that they're trying to turn their religious beliefs into legislation that affects us all.

Actually, the people that want to affect us all are the people that want to tax all Americans to support their morally questionable research. You can do as much private research as you want.

Not all pro-lifers are religious. Everyone draws the line at a different place. If you spend taxpayer money supporting research in conflict with many people's moral values, you are not respecting their values.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[bintrue]

All anybody has ever said on the subject is that life does not spontaneously arise from inorganic matter. It's never been observed, it does not happen in nature. You can keep that piece of meat in that bell jar forever, and maggots will never appear.

I bet what you mean to say is:
"It's never been observed by a human"
"It doesn't happen any of the known environments on earth"

I think you are thinking a little to small. Humans don't know everything. That much I know.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[commodoresloat]

And asking where God came from just shows me that you don't get the idea at all.

Which idea is that? God, or Occam?

Asking where God came from is precisely what proves his point; the number of required assumptions actually multiplies when you introduce a whole new host of assumptions like that.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Maset]

Irreversible loss of all brain function. Coma, loss of all cerebellum is not brain dead.

Irreversible loss of all body functions.

An aborted fetus has an irreversible loss of all body functions... if a future procedure makes available the chance to transplant that fetus then this argument will become a lot less forceful.

A bunch of embryonic cells, as do the skin cells you lose from skin peeling every day, both have the same ability to pass on their genetic information given the right circumstances.

BTW, how do you feel about a huge amount of life science research utilising cells taken from a dead lady without her previous permision. Many many cures and treatments have come from this. FYI, I find the way that these cells were harvested abhorrent and egotistic.

March on Christian Soldier

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[SenseiLeNoir]

True say.. i am hardly "very" religious (and I am Hindu.. not christian)

But I strongly disagree with abortion (except in cases of rape, but even then, i woudl leave that descision up to the victim, and not advice either way).... Maybe its because.... i nearly was aborted myself (due to questionable advice given to my mother, who luckily had her own mind in the end)

Also..... It is not hyprocritical, that htose who get to discuss the rights and wrongs of abortion, are those who are born....

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Enry]

Am I alive? Yes. Is my liver alive? Well, it's not an independent organism, but it's alive, sure. If you cut off its blood flow, it dies, so yes, it's clearly alive.

Is an embryo alive? Yes, obviously. It's not independent, but it's alive. If you cut off its blood flow, it dies. The cells that compose it cease to function, and it dies. So yes, an embryo is alive.

So what you're saying is that an abortion is akin to having your liver, kidney, appendix, gall bladder, etc. removed.

I don't seem to remember protesters outside the hospital where my wife had her gall bladder removed two years ago.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Epistax]

Life doesn't begin. It's a continuum, passing unbroken from mother to baby and so on through generations.

Well I have two things to contend. Firstly (and most importantly/obviously) is that life does not have to come directly from other living things. In another XXX years I'll assemble an amoeba for you atom by atom, then a more complicated creature. Now while this would be me indirectly creating life, it shows that given the right conditions the same could happen with the absence of me. Could a badger assemble itself? Absolutely. Probably won't though. Also you suggest that a first cell formed. Perhaps not? Perhaps there were a few environments especially conducive to producing cells and not all cells have a single parent. Perhaps once there was a first cell but it and its brood died, then later more cells appeared. At any rate it's pretty silly to think that at one point one cell was created "unnaturally" (or whatever term we want to use) and then never again. Also you said there is no moment when life begins, then you neatly specify this cell as that moment.

Secondly I have to wonder if life does pass unbroken from mother to child, generation to generation. I'm interested in knowing what's considered of the frogs that freeze solid then revive. Are they alive when solid? Then I argue that soil is alive because it is merely in between states of being one creature or another. I also ignorantly wonder about things like seeds, pollen etc.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[micromoog]

Otherwise, its a parasite

Free Mac Mini referral (5 Gmail invites per completer)

Some people remain parasites.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[mdwh2]

That position can't work because, by that logic, anybody on a ventilator is no longer a human being. Christopher Reeve -- whose poor name has already been dragged through the mud enough on this; it's the cross he had to bear being the world's most famous quadriplegic -- could not breathe on his own, therefore by your reasoning he was not alive.

I think the important point in the original post was "without the assistance of a host". Now I wouldn't say that something which is a parasite is non-living (clearly parasites are still living things), but it does seem a reasonable answer to the question "When is it okay to have an abortion?".

People who need machines to live don't come under this - the issue is being dependant on a living host. And if it ever happened that technology advanced such that fetuses could be kept in an artificial womb, then I can imagine some people arguing that abortion should no longer be allowed, and instead the fetus should be transferred to the artificial womb.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[LiENUS]

The process was not observed, and it has never been recreated.

Actually they have recreated all steps of the proces but the final one. Given ~100 years scientists probably could recreate all steps.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[mdwh2]

A sperm cell is obviously alive too. A sperm cell is also obviously a human being. I mean, it's not going to grow up to be a salmon or a hummingbird or a hydrangea bush.

So why is the question of whether we should be allowed to kill people even a question? Isn't the answer obvious on its face?

Every man on the planet should be charged with the mass murder of millions of human beings!

Add to that, any woman is guilty of murder every month that they didn't get pregnant.

And any child who had an injury is guilty of mass manslaughter - think of all those poor dead cells.

Or perhaps something having human DNA isn't the same as being a "human being"?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[FauxPasIII]

> That would take care of the motivation to have children so you can get them aborted and get something out of it.

Unless you're motivated by wanting to save lives by donating embryonic stem cells. I'm not female, but if I was you'd better
believe I'd be doing everything I could to provide tissue for embryonic stem cell research. I'm a cancer survivor, so this
is NOT an issue I take lightly.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TGK]

Cows don't have a heart beat and can't breathe? Hmmmm.... in that case my grandfather's cattle may require medical attention.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[RML]

Correction: A Homo sapiens embryo is obviously a Homo sapiens. Whether or not it is yet a human being is quite debatable, since "human" has additional connotations involving intelligence and free will. I find it hard to believe that an embryo at the stage under discussion in stem cell research - technically, a blastula - with no nerve cells at all, let alone brain function, has either intelligence or free will. So in that sense, it's not yet human, although in appropriate circumstances it might become human.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TGK]

I'm going to assume that you object on religious grounds as there is a 90+ % corolary between objections to abortion/stem cell research and strong Christian religious tendencies.

It's assumed that an embryo will grow to be a human being, that killing the embryo somehow counter acts the divine will of God and that by doing so we end what was to be human life.

How arrogant is that... really? Humans can take action that preempts the divine will of God? What audacity it must take to belive that our actions could even begin to have any impact on the will of an all powerfull all knowing God.

From the Christian point of view, this is a God who has parted seas, flooded the world, turned some chick into a pillar of salt, destroyed cities, impregnated a virgin... not like that, cured the sick, healed the lame, raised the dead, turned water into wine, and fed the hungry with some kid's sack lunch.

And against that will and power you honestly think that a doctor utilizing 19th century technology is going to prevail? Sure.

Abortion/stem cell protest aren't about concern over people's lives or the will of God. IF they were we would hear a lot more about other sins, Gulttony, Adultary, and Averice to name a few. No, this is about controling people.

I'm gonna go donate to planned parenthood now.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

That's a classic fallacy committed by armchair "scientists." You're assuming something that hasn't been observed. "Just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen," you say. Well, yes, that's exactly what the scientific method does mean. If we haven't seen it, there's no evidence to support it. And we've been looking for a long, long time.

Is it possible that abiogenesis occurs on other planets or something? Sure, it's possible. But it's also possible that I will sprout wings and fly, that water will spontaneously turn to wine, or that the sun will fail to rise tomorrow. But we have no evidence to believe any of these things. They're all completely unsupported by the facts.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

Nice straw man. You're either an idiot, or you're desperately not funny. At this point, I haven't the foggiest interest in guessing which.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[John Newman]

but allowing stem cell research would result in some people specifically getting pregnant for the very _purpose_ of aborting the baby

No, it wouldn't. EVER. I'm stunned at the level of misinformation on this topic. Embryonic stem cells do not come from a fetus/baby. They come from a fertilized egg that has gone through a handful of cell divisions.

In natural developmental terms, if that fertilization had occured inside the woman, the embryo at this point wouldn't have even implanted yet. I don't think you can even call a woman pregnant before implantation. About half of natural fertilizations don't make it past this point, anyway (see the quote from the Harvard prof above). Those lost embryos are never noticed because it's not until some time after implantation - long after the time to collect stem cells has passed - that it's even possible to detect that the woman is pregnant. So any production of stem cell for therapy will have to occur in vitro, just like IVF. There is no chance of any of those eggs ever developing into a human, unless they're implanted into a woman, and even then the odds are against them. And if we're willing to create (and mostly waste) fertilized eggs in order to create life, what's so horrifying about using them to save life?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

In another XXX years I'll assemble an amoeba for you atom by atom

Amoebas have been assembling other amoebas atom by atom for billions of years. No one has ever successfully assembled an amoeba, or any other living thing, without the use of another living thing. While you might think such a thing would be theoretically possible, there is no reason to think it would be practically possible. For instance, how would you handle the metabolic problem? You can't just clip an entire amoeba together out of atoms like you're building it out of legos and then just expect metabolic processes to start all by themselves.

There is no reason to think that it will ever be possible to build cells atom by atom, just like there's no reason to think it will ever be possible to create atoms from nothing or to create an engine that operates at 100% efficiency.

Also you suggest that a first cell formed. Perhaps not? Perhaps there were a few environments especially conducive to producing cells and not all cells have a single parent.

That contradicts what we know about life on earth. We know that all life ever observed is composed of the same compounds in the same ratios. Given what we know about reproduction, the only explanation that fits the fact is that all life descended from a single cell.

But you're right when you say "Perhaps not." We have to be honest about what we know. We know that the planet is covered in a vast diversity of life that's all composed of the same compounds in the same ratios. We know that there's evidence that more complex life forms evolved from simpler life forms, though we've never observed it. So we conclude that all life is descended from a single cell. We don't know it for a fact, but we think so.

It's also entirely possible that all life was created by God, or that it was seeded on this planet from another planet ... where it was created by God, or descended form a single cell, or whatever. Or that time is cyclic and that life never had a beginning or an end. We just don't know for sure. All we have are theories, some of which explain the facts better than others.

Are they alive when solid?

Obviously, because when unfrozen they resume metabolic processes.

Then I argue that soil is alive

Obviously not, because left alone soil does not come to life. That's the whole idea behind the theory of biogenesis.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Enry]

You're the one that made the comparison. I'm just taking it to its logical conclusion. Ad hominem attacks don't help you either.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

I think the important point in the original post was "without the assistance of a host".

Ventilator = host. Hell, for that matter, nurse to clean out his trach tube = host. Without either, he'd have died.

it does seem a reasonable answer to the question "When is it okay to have an abortion?".

You're asking the wrong question. The right question is, "Given that babies are alive, why should it ever be okay to have an abortion?"

the issue is being dependant on a living host.

Why does it have to be a living host? I thought the question was whether a person was able to survive on its own. Is it possible that you're just moving the line until you find one that delineates between unborn babies and adults, even adults who require life support measures to stay alive?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

If the criteria is intelligence and free will, then the mentally ill or brain-damaged are not alive.

Like I said elsewhere, there is no criteria you can offer that can stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

I'm going to assume that you object on religious grounds

As I wrote elsewhere, I am an agnostic. You are attempting to construct a straw-man argument. This embarrasses us both.

It's assumed that an embryo will grow to be a human being

Assumed? Sure, I guess. In the same way we assume that gravity will hold us to the surface of the earth and that we assume that water is wet. "Assumed" is entirely the wrong word here. It's not an assumption. It's an indisputable fact

killing the embryo somehow counter acts the divine will of God

I'm not interested in arguing religion, as I have none of my own. But yes, as I understand it, that's the basic religious objection to killing people.

Abortion/stem cell protest aren't about concern over people's lives or the will of God.

"Protest?" I don't understand why you'd use the word "protest." Again, that's entirely the wrong word. Nobody is protesting anything.

However, you're right that the disagreement isn't over health or religious issues. It's over ethical issues, which have nothing to do with either of those arguments.

No, this is about controling people.

There goes that straw man again. If you ever reach the point where you're interested in having an actual conversation rather than slinging straw-man arguments at people, let me know.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

Do you know what "straw man" means? You said, "So what you're saying is," then you declared something stupid that is obviously not what I was saying. You did this in an attempt to discredit my position without actually discussing my position. It's a rhetorical trick.

Since you didn't know this, I'm coming down on the side of "idiot" now.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[DavidTC]

If I wasn't posting here, I'd mod you up. I lose more cells when I sneeze.

Something I don't understand...if sixteen cells are a 'person', than aren't existing stem cell lines 'people'?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[DavidTC]

Well, we could always take the donor's DNA, put it in a human egg, and clone him, and then use those stem cells.

I mean, that should get rid of the 'this could become a person' argument, right? It already did become a person!

Why do I have the feeling I'm about to be lynched?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TGK]

Very well, I made no attempt to construct a staw man argument but simply advanced a few points based on statistical figures on abortion and the pro-life movement.

Ok, we'll do this without involving religion.

Your first assertion: an embryo is obviously alive.

Allright, so it's alive. So was my salad last night. Being alive isn't any terribly convincing reason not to kill something. It's kind of a moot point. You can't exactly kill something that's not alive now can you?

Your second assertion: An embryo is also obviously a human being

This you're going to encounter some resistance on. If an embryo is a human being allready, what does it grow in to? Moreover, this distinguishing characteristics between a human and cow embryo are pretty minimal, particularly at the early stage that we're talking about. Sure, the human embryo will grow into a human and the cow embryo into a cow (assuming all goes well) but we're not talking about what will be (or rather might be) we're talking about what IS.

Your third point: I mean, it's not going to grow up to be a salmon or a hummingbird or a hydrangea bush.

Well that's a given. But it's not necessarily going to grow up to be a human either. Given that the abortion has allready occured, or more likely that the fertilization procedure is over and the remaining cells are ready to be disposed of, they're not going to grow up to be anything.

So lets set this up. Clearly you have moral objections to stem cell research. Ok, fine. Lets take this out of context. Stem Cell research has a lot to do with in vitro fertilization. Is this procedure also objectionable?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[LiENUS]

Actually the 100 years was time for things to randomly come together. The processes have all been done already we just havent done them from start to finish because it would take longer than most people live to do them from start to finish.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Enry]

I took two statements of yours. VERBATIM. I followed those thoughts through to the logical conclusion.

liver=not independent, but alive
fetus=not independent, but alive

therefore liver=not independent, but alive=fetus
therefore liver=fetus

Or did you not take discrete mathematics?

Normally your comments seem to make sense. In this article you've just gone what I would consider "around the bend". You don't like abortion? Fine. I can deal with that. I'm just trying to figure out how your mind works.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

Allright, so it's alive. So was my salad last night.

Your salad wasn't human. Do we really have to talk about the difference between human life and other life? I mean, how much ignorance are you going to pretend to possess here?

If an embryo is a human being allready, what does it grow in to?

An older, more mature human being. Duh.

this distinguishing characteristics between a human and cow embryo are pretty minimal

Um. Except the fact that one is human and one is a cow. I guess the answer to my question above is "a whole lot of ignorance."

it's not necessarily going to grow up to be a human either

What? Human babies do, in fact, grow up to be humans. You knew this already, right? You've had the birds-and-the-bees talk, I presume?

Given that the abortion has allready occured

You are ignorant of the subject under discussion. Embryonic stem cells are not recovered from aborted babies. They're harvested from babies that are created in vitro, sometimes specifically for the purpose of producing stem cells and sometimes as part of an unethical mass-production in-vitro fertilization technique.

Clearly you have moral objections to stem cell research.

Again with the straw-man argument. Have you not been paying attention, or are you just trying to discredit me? I have zero objections to stem-cell research. I have massive objections to killing babies to get to their stem cells. And you should, too.

Stem Cell research has a lot to do with in vitro fertilization. Is this procedure also objectionable?

This is not complicated. Let me make this very simple. It is wrong to create a baby only for the purpose of killing it later. If you grow a baby in a lab for the purpose of killing it and harvesting its stem cells, that's morally wrong. If you manufacture dozens of babies with the intent of only implanting a few in their mother and freezing (and eventually killing) the rest, that's morally wrong, particularly when you consider that the only reason for doing it is to save money.

Why are you pretending not to understand these incredibly simple ideas?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

I followed those thoughts through to the logical conclusion.

Except, you know. Not. You started with something I said, then claimed I was saying something I did not say, in order to try to discredit what I did say.

This is the textbook definition of a cleverly implemented straw-man argument.

Or did you not take discrete mathematics?

You do realize that this is not a math problem, right?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[RML]

The mentally ill and brain damaged are certainly alive. So are trees and fluffy bunny rabbits and the bacteria in your gut. So why you bring "alive" into it I don't know.

As for whether they have intelligence and free will... I'd say in most cases short of actual brain-death, yes. Debatable? Certainly. Do I want to debate it? No, not really.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Enry]

Except, you know. Not. You started with something I said, then claimed I was saying something I did not say, in order to try to discredit what I did say.

Read: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man .html

I did not distort what you said, I quoted it verbatim. Or did I quote you incorrectly? Maybe my X server has a broken cut-and-paste function?

You do realize that this is not a math problem, right?

Well, that proves you really don't know what you're talking about. *plonk*

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TGK]

Allow me to correct your grevious and numerous errors.

Your salad wasn't human. Do we really have to talk about the difference between human life and other life?

Did you finish reading the post before you replied. That helps, it really does.

I mean, how much ignorance are you going to pretend to possess here?

You bandy about the word "strawman" but seem to have forgotten your latin. Should I translate "ad hominem" for you?

Um. Except the fact that one is human and one is a cow.

Now you're being purposefully evasive. What determines what something is? What characteristics make it human? Don't tell me that it will grow into a human and that thus is it human, that's circular and invalid.


I guess the answer to my question above is "a whole lot of ignorance."

See previous terse reply about ad hominem attacks. Shouting "you're ignorant" a lot does not make your opponent ignorant nor does it make you terribly bright.

You are ignorant of the subject under discussion. Embryonic stem cells are not recovered from aborted babies.

And yet later on you tell me that killing babies to get stem cells is wrong. Of course they're not harvested from aborted fetuses. There's no technical reason why they couldn't be, but at the moment they're not. Just because it's not being done, doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss the possibility that it will be.

They're harvested from babies that are created in vitro, sometimes specifically for the purpose of producing stem cells and sometimes as part of an unethical mass-production in-vitro fertilization technique.

Yes, of course they're harveested from in vitro zygotes. Of course, I said that earlier and you didn't read it then either. I'd challenge you to produce one shread of documentation indicating that anyone has been producing zygotes specificly for the purpose of harvesting stem cells. I won't hold my breath.

Again with the straw-man argument. Have you not been paying attention, or are you just trying to discredit me? I have zero objections to stem-cell research.

First off you seem to have little or no understanding of what a straw man argument is. My first post, which you attacked as a straw man made some assumptions about you because you provided few details. A straw man argument, in contrast, it an intentionaly distorted version of your opponent's argument. I mention that you seem to have moral objections to stem cell research (I should have said embryonic stem cell research). This isn't a straw man argument either! It's an over generalization (to be sure) and one which I'm correcting now. You on the other hand seem to be overutilizing the very argument that you're rejecting. By calling my argument a straw man when it clearly is not, you mischaracterize it and then discredit it based on your own definition of the phrase. In fact, lets just drop the rhetorical jargon. If I mischaracterize you, correct me. Don't assume malice where a simple mistake will suffice.

I have massive objections to killing babies to get to their stem cells. And you should, too.

Please cite sources. Name one baby (your words, not mine) killed to get stem cells.

It is wrong to create a baby only for the purpose of killing it later

In vitro fertilization does not grow any zygotes with the purpose of killing that specific zygote later. However, only the most viable zygotes are implanted. Were we to do things your way, the zygotes would be fertilized one at a time and disguarded until a viable one is generated. Would these disguarded zygotes be an acceptable source for embryonic stem cells? Is any form of in vitro, either in the present incarnation or under your somewhat more financialy whimsical system ethical in your world view?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

I did not distort what you said, I quoted it verbatim.

You wrote: "So what you're saying is that an abortion is akin to having your liver, kidney, appendix, gall bladder, etc. removed."

It's a straw man. Plain and simple. Why are you trying to deny that?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

Should I translate "ad hominem" for you?

If you'll look closely, you'll see that I was actually giving you credit. I asked how much ignorance you were going to pretend to possess. Was I mistaken? Are you really this ignorant?

What determines what something is?

What? The idea of a species is not a new and revolutionary one. It's one you should already be comfortable with. A cow is a cow and a person is a person.

Don't tell me that it will grow into a human and that thus is it human, that's circular and invalid.

It may be circular, but it's also the definition of a human being. A human being is the child of another human being. As opposed to being, you know, the child of a cow. Which is called a calf, if you're wondering.

Yes, of course they're harveested from in vitro zygotes.

Oh, god. First it was "fetus," but then people saw pictures of actual fetuses and realized that they're just very young babies. Then it became the even more jargony "embryo," but now that's starting to give way to the massively jargony "zygote."

All to avoid saying the word "baby."

A straw man argument, in contrast, it an intentionaly distorted version of your opponent's argument.

Are you suggesting that you should get a pass because you merely accidentally distorted my position? I don't buy it. First, your statement is still bullshit whether you meant for it to be or not. Second ... I don't believe for a second that you weren't acting deliberately. I read your comment. I saw what it said. You didn't just trip and land funny on your keyboard. You meant exactly what you said, right up to the second when you got called on it.

By calling my argument a straw man when it clearly is not, you mischaracterize it

Oh, please. You're not fooling anyone with that "I know you are but what am I" crap.

Name one baby (your words, not mine) killed to get stem cells.

Are you an idiot? You know as well as I do that the babies killed for stem cells have not yet been given names. What does that have to do with anything? Do you think that people without names aren't technically alive? My mother didn't give me my name until eight hours after I was born. I was legally "Baby Lastname" for the first eight hours of my life. Would it have been okay to kill me?

Were we to do things your way, the zygotes would be fertilized one at a time and disguarded until a viable one is generated.

Bingo, except for the "disguarded" thing. (Invest in a Mac. It's got a built-in spell-checker.) There is zero excuse for "discarding" (i.e., killing) a baby.

Is any form of in vitro, either in the present incarnation or under your somewhat more financialy whimsical system ethical in your world view?

Of course in vitro fertilization is ethical. Create one or more babies, implant them into the mother. You know, just the way we used to do it before it became a commercial enterprise and we created a whole country of baby assembly lines to automate the process, like injecting creme filling into Twinkies.

You pretend to be ignorant of ethics. You pretend to be ignorant of rhetoric. I'm sick of your pretending. No more being difficult just for the sake of being difficult.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TummyX]

That's a classic fallacy committed by armchair "scientists." You're assuming something that hasn't been observed. "Just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen," you say. Well, yes, that's exactly what the scientific method does mean. If we haven't seen it, there's no evidence to support it. And we've been looking for a long, long time.


I am a scientist.


Is it possible that abiogenesis occurs on other planets or something? Sure, it's possible. But it's also possible that I will sprout wings and fly, that water will spontaneously turn to wine, or that the sun will fail to rise tomorrow. But we have no evidence to believe any of these things. They're all completely unsupported by the facts.


No, the facts indicate that life began on this planet. It wasn't "always" here. Most scientists believe the big bang or something similar started the universe -- at a time where life as we know it didn't exist. All this implies that life began at some time from non-living matter.

The fact is, life is made up of certain molecules and there is no reason why the structure of these molecules can't be written down on paper by one person and then constructed at some time in the future by another person (with the ability to construct atom-by-atom).

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Leo McGarry]

No, the facts indicate that life began on this planet.

Appeared on this planet, you mean. We have no evidence that it began here versus being in some way transported to here, like on a comet or something.

Precision of language is important.

All this implies that life began at some time from non-living matter.

You infer that life began, you mean. Precision of language is important.

The fact is, life is made up of certain molecules and there is no reason why the structure of these molecules can't be written down on paper by one person and then constructed at some time in the future by another person (with the ability to construct atom-by-atom).

One of those is a fact. The other is sheer fantasy. Precision of language is important.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[binarybum]

"The foundation of most pro-life people's beliefs on abortion are religious in nature"

hmm. I find this a little hard to believe. My guess would be that there is a strong correlation between pro-lifers and Christianity, but you're arguing causation. As far as I am aware, a belief that life begins at conception is not biblical or taught as Christian dogma.

Do you have any empirical backing for this bold statement?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[(void*)]

Precision of language when you have no effective way of distinguishing the scenario of life began on earth or was transported here, is useless.

This is the kind of precision of language that leads to endless, senseless debates. Senseless debates over semantics.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[(void*)]

OK, let's talk about precision of language. What hypothesis about abiogenesis does this eliminate?

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[TGK]

Ok, so in vitro fertilization is ethical as long as we don't create the zygotes in clusters and then inplant only the most viable into the mother.

Of course, it's really pretty easy to tell if a zygote is going to be viable shortly after creation. By that argument, in order to avoid "killing babies" as you put it, we should ask mom how many kids she wants and develop zygotes one at a time until we have the required number of viable zygotes.

The problem with this is that by doing so you are still destroying zygotes. Sure, they might not be likely to develop into children, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily impossible. By making the decision not to implant them however, we -=know=- that it is not their destiny to become children.

Why are these lives so much less valuable than the ones which were marginaly more viable? Where is the cut off point? Where can we draw that line?

Even ignoring that point, there are a host of other problems with what you suggest. If every clump of human cells that might someday develop into a child is human and should be accorded the rights and protections of being a person we've got a massive problem on our hands. Most fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus. We have the technology to increaes the odds that those eggs will implant. Should we be doing this? After all, our lack of action is killing children

If preventing the development of a group of human cells into a child is unethical is it also unethical to prevent the interaction of two cells that would otherwise form that group? Is Birthcontrol ethical?

I'm not pretending and I'm not pretending ignorance. These issues that you seem to belive are so clear cut are not as clear cut as you'd like to think. At every stange of "human life" (if you want to call it that) we can take a step backwards and say "what about now."

The problem is that we have to draw a legal line somewhere. It may be an uncomfortable line, but it must be drawn. Personaly, I don't have a problem with this procedure. As a religious person I don't think that the loving God I belive in would infuse a clump of cells with any of the characteristics of being human that I identify with. (Sentience, a soul, etc).

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[LiENUS]

Look up Miller and Urey's expiraments, Sydney Fox's expiraments and Manfred Eigen's arguements.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[CptNerd]

And require the person treated to remain on immunosupressive drugs for the rest of his life.

Adult stem cells taken from the person being treated, even if it is more difficult to produce the "necessary" quantities, does not have the problem of rejection.

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[mdwh2]

Well I was only talking about what I thought that the original poster was arguing - that abortion is okay when the fetus is dependant on a living host, rather than any host. I won't argue that point any further as it is not my personal way of arguing when abortion is acceptable - but I find it hard to believe that you cannot see a difference between a living host and a machine. The point is not whether it makes a difference to the fetus, but that it makes a difference to the person who might be the host.

The right question is, "Given that babies are alive, why should it ever be okay to have an abortion?"

Sure, there are plenty of ways to rephrase a question, I'm not sure what your point is. Though I think your way is a lot less general than mine, since it focuses solely on the issue of whether something being "alive" matters when it comes to abortion (short answer: clearly it doesn't, otherwise we'd be worried about eating plants, as others have pointed out in this thread).

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[Reene]

Oh, god. First it was "fetus," but then people saw pictures of actual fetuses and realized that they're just very young babies. Then it became the even more jargony "embryo," but now that's starting to give way to the massively jargony "zygote." All to avoid saying the word "baby."

And "baby" is an emotionally loaded word used by people that want to make others feel bad for getting abortions or donating embryos to science. Let's be honest here.

Medically, the words "zygote", "embryo", and "fetus" refer to very specific things and stages of development. Sorry, but until it's born, a "baby" even at full-term is for all intents and purposes a "fetus". For all the accusations of feigned ignorance you fling around you sure do a lot of it yourself. Or perhaps you really didn't know the difference and I'm actually teaching you something. Oh joyous day...

Re:Aborted babies are not human beings

[DLR]

Despite your predjudice this question does not involve faith, it's about science. At what point is an unborn human life worth protetcting? And you can't answer it. Neither can anyone else, through science. Because science, as worth a pursuit as it it, is unable to answer many of these questions. Can science define a thought, not brain activity but an actual thought? What makes one thought different from another, what differentiates Einstein's e=mc^2 from Bobo's mumbling and drooling in the cornor?

The problem is that science is great for observing the world around us, but it can't answer any of the more "complex" questions regarding our existance.

Well

[guardian653dave]

At least they're getting somewhere, even if its a bit out of the way

Before the trolls come out...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) George Bush was the first president to fund embrionic stem cell research. Part of this was timing (Clinton was the only one prior that could have), part of it was presure, but he deserves some credit.

2) There is no restriction on adult stem cell research whatsoever.

3) The only restriction on embrionic stem cell research is that federal funding is limited to existing lines. Private research is unencumbered, and no legislation against it is likely. The funds are limited as a result of ethical issues which are not limited to religious people, and are not permanently banned (All it'll take is another executive desicion).

Now that that's been cleared up, hopefully this thread can be filled with meaningful discourse...

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[ikkonoishi]

Meaningful discourse?

On SLASHDOT?

You must be new.

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[ortcutt]

Oh. I guess the totally unnecessary restrictions that he put in place are OK then.

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[jadavis]

A restriction on murder is also unnecessary, but that doesn't mean it's not morally desirable.

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[ortcutt]

The criminalization on murder is necessary because it is wrong. Embryonic stem cell reseach, on the other hand, could help to save people's lives. The embryos which produce the stem cell lines are not morally significant.

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[jadavis]

The embryos which produce the stem cell lines are not morally significant.

Many people disagree with that statement. Perhaps we should not confiscate their money to subsidize this research?

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[Ironsides]

Embryonic stem cell reseach, on the other hand, could help to save people's lives.

Research on Adult Humans, on the other hand, could help save people's lives.

Re:Before the trolls come out...

[ortcutt]

I just feel bad for people who would want to equate research on thinking, feeling, breathing people with research on cell lines from 10-cell blastulae. It's almost as if you don't understand what was wrong with the Nazi experiments on holocaust victims.

Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

These methods necessitated by the Bush Administration's stance on growing new stem cell lines (even though the generative material is being thrown out every day) means that the solutions will be so patent-encumbered it isn't funny. You wanna live longer, be prepared to pay an arm and a leg.

Re:Patents

[erlenic]

...be prepared to pay an arm and a leg.

As opposed to the current situation, were we ... pay an arm and a leg?

Re:Patents

[ByteMangler_242]

...be prepared to pay an arm and a leg.

Yeah, but with stem cells, you can afford it. Just grow a new arm and leg later. It's like a payment plan!

Cool!

[RyanFenton]

It's very cool that we're overcoming these obstacles. It's just too bad these are the obstacles we have to overcome to get to useful public (not private) research.

It's kind of like the current general up-beat news about the middle-east. It's great that democracy appears to be on the rise - but that does NOT imply wisdom in what lead us to the current circumstances.

We just have to move foreward as best we can, and hope we can grow beyond our limitations.

Ryan Fenton

Animal free

[kristopher]

At least animal rights activists must be happy. Then again don't they fight for the animals right to say no? Unless of course you give them a glass of wine, then this mixing of cells will be unavoidable given the natural love between human and animal within certain southern states.

Example of Dronig below

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pope visits Washington and President Bush takes him for a ride down the Potomac on the presidential yacht. They're enjoying themselves when a gust of wind blows the Pope's hat (zucchetto) off and out onto the water. The Secret Service begins to launch a boat but Bush waves them off saying, "Wait. I'll take care of this."

Bush steps off the yacht onto the surface of the water, walks out a ways and picks up the hat. Back on board, he hands the hat to the Pope amid stunned silence.

The next morning the Washington Post carries the story complete with photos under the heading BUSH CAN'T SWIM.

Re:Example of Dronig below

[erlenic]

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a post more deserving of positive moderation.

This is exactly the kind of stuff that the media would do.

Re:Example of Dronig below

[ortcutt]

My impression of the Mainstream Media is that they are more than happy to give Bush a reach-around whenever he wants one. The sad thing is that you need to watch a fake news program to see anyone who doesn't drink the administration kool-aid.

Re:Example of Dronig below

[Vitriol Angst]

It's more like, Bush plows into a schoolbus full of kids, desperate to escape the ensuing flames, he starts throwing bodies onto the blaze. The next days headliens read; "Heroic Bush puts out fire, saves bus driver."

You think a few timid questions about the economy is the press being hard on the President? When you don't here about negotiations with Canada, Germany and Chile to stop war crimes suites so our President, Cheney or Rumsfeld can visit, you have a press that is asleep or complicit.

I really don't have the stomach to talk about Neil Bush's $15 Billion windfall from the savings and loan debacle of the 1980's. The $25 million to Bush's oil company from the Bin Laden family--or how they traded oil with Saddam even during the embargo, his new drivers license after 72 arrests, the abortion he gave his socialite girlfriend, the banking his family did with Buchenwald or the protecting of Nazi bank accounts 10 years after WWII. The incredible profits all members of his family have made on weapons sales or the connection all his cronies have with the Carlysle Group.

Has he even been to any veteran funerals yet? Has he pushed one policy that didn't rob returning vets or old folks?

Why didn't he order jets to shoot down planes for 2+1/2 hours during 9/11 -- oh I'm sorry, move on.

Why did Bush only pick up votes where electronic voting machines were installed (OK, generalization, but statistically, it was shown it was the only factor that could account for his "win").

I could go for days covering crap that you never heard of and sound like a tin foil hat wearer. Unfortuneatly, I'll have to wait for that stupid look on Republican faces when the Northwest is a desert and we have snow at the Equator and we have attrocities we can't ignore, and people scraping by in another great depression, and they stand their, rubbing their eyes like waking from a deep sleep saying; "I didn't know". It is inevitable. Some will of course be waiting for the rapture that never comes, they'll be saying; "OK, we hastened the end of the world--now what?" Oh no, abusing the planet and your fellow man does not get you a free ride to heaven, no matter how much you pray.

OK. Flame over. Just pisses me off when people whine about Bush never getting a break no matter how great he is. When has he ever done anything right? I mean, besides the total screwups like "No child left behind" that are whitewashed and the books cooked. We might here of a few freedom uprisings in the Middle East--but that was inevitable because there is plenty of resentment against tyrannical rule in the Middle East. They are just taking advantage of our threatening presance. If Russia had invated Iraq, they would be doing the same thing. They can fix elections as well as we can.

This is good news...

[jone1941]

But let's not miss the bigger reality. If we do not allow scientists access to funding in promising new fields, some other country will. Sitting back and trying to feel out the "morality" of new scientific research is simply going to put the U.S. behind the numberous countries willing and able to look past there "beliefs". Just my $0.02.

Re:This is good news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's just charge into researching something that may or may not have moral implications and then carp about anyone who tries to get us to stop and think about it for a second. And nevermind the fact that adult stem cell research has been showing much more promise without the moral questions.

Re:This is good news...

[ortcutt]

I'm still trying to understand what the moral implications are of using stem cell lines from blastulae sitting in in vitro fertilization clinics, when those blastulae will either be thrown out or used to help people.

Re:This is good news...

[jadavis]

It creates conflicts of interest that could result in the additional production of embryos for harvest.

If someone embezzles $10M and gets caught, we can:
(a) Throw them in prison.
(b) Not.

In case (b), is there really a chance he will commit another crime? It's not like anybody will let him near that kind of money again. So, should we let him loose? No. It's about incentives. We incarcerate him so that other people avoid embezzling for fear of prison time.

If you can pick whatever point in time you want -- disregarding all that previously occurred -- of course you can avoid the whole moral dillema.

Re:This is good news...

[CptNerd]

If we do not allow scientists access to funding in promising new fields, some other country will. Sitting back and trying to feel out the "morality" of new scientific research is simply going to put the U.S. behind the numberous countries willing and able to look past there "beliefs".

Other countries did, back in the 1930's and 40's.
A lot of valuable information was learned about how much the human body can stand dehydration, food deprivation, and physical exertion.

Re:This is good news...

[DavidTC]

So, to avoid conflicts of interest you...restrict federal funding? WTF? IVF clinics aren't going to be doing the research, and they don't get federal funding anyway!

If you're afraid of embryos being sold, the obvious and sane solution would be to ban the sell of them. Absolutely no one would have a problem with that. (I'm really baffled as to why this hasn't happened.)

Exactly like, duh, we ban the sale of human organs, in fact. You could probably just amend those laws.

In fact, by banning federal funding, you've pushed research out to labs that are less worried about pissing the government off, and thus more likely to start buying embryos.

Do Republicans actually think about what they are doing?

Re:This is good news...

[jadavis]

...solution would be to ban the sell of them

As I said in another post, somebody has to make a decision somewhere along the line, and somebody will make some money out of the deal. The person who makes the money will try to influence the person that makes the decision. A law doesn't magically change that. And as long as the federal government is providing funding, it will encourage the breaking of that law even if it did exist.

I think it's unlikely that people are being grown entirely for their organs. I think it's much more likely that embryos will be produced for the purpose of stem cell research, law or not.

In fact, by banning federal funding, you've pushed research out to labs that are less worried about pissing the government

Are you suggesting that there is greater demand for embryos when the government is not funding research upon them? That doesn't make any sense. The demand for embryos will be much higher if federal money is subsidizing the research.

Re:This is good news...

[DavidTC]

As I said in another post, somebody has to make a decision somewhere along the line, and somebody will make some money out of the deal. The person who makes the money will try to influence the person that makes the decision. A law doesn't magically change that. And as long as the federal government is providing funding, it will encourage the breaking of that law even if it did exist.

No, it wouldn't. That's absurd. Organ transplanting gets a lot of federal funding, and because of that government oversight, very little sale of human organs happen. Because of the government, illegal organ sales happen entirely seperate of the legit donation system.

And, no, with government funded research, often no one makes any money. Um, DUH. If companies were making money from it, they would be funding it! We wouldn't need to!

But no one makes any money off of unpatentable therapies. NO ONE. That includes all surgical techniques and any likely results from stem cell research. You can patent certain drugs, but you can't patent 'curing a patient using stem cells in this way', and thus no private industry is likely to fund it. That sort of research is only funded by the government and some large hospitals and universities.

I think it's unlikely that people are being grown entirely for their organs. I think it's much more likely that embryos will be produced for the purpose of stem cell research, law or not.

Erm, it's not 'grown' that's at issue there, it's killed that's at issue with regard to selling organs. I thought that was obvious, but I guess some people don't know that.

Are you suggesting that there is greater demand for embryos when the government is not funding research upon them? That doesn't make any sense. The demand for embryos will be much higher if federal money is subsidizing the research.

Yes, and the government oversight will be a hell of a lot higher, also. You can't step up a embryo purchasing system at a government-supported lab, just like you can't set up an aspirin manufacturing plant, the government wants to know everything you're doing with the lab and federal funds. If there was Federal funding of stem cells, there would be ten or twenty lines created that scientists could get stem cells from, after filling out miles of paperwork.

But you can trivially set an embryo purchasing system in private industry, especially as our 'morality' leader hasn't even bothered to outlaw the sell of them. Without any sort of oversight at all.

Luckily, like I said, there's no profit to going in the stem cell research business, and thus no private lab is likely to do that. And if they did they'd only have to buy a few embryos before they had enough, so it's unlikely anyone would set up any sort of supply business.

Of course, that logic only works because, despite the Republican retortic, private industry is not going to step up and fund stem cell research.

Re:This is good news...

[jadavis]

because of that government oversight, very little sale of human organs happen

First off, the moral issue (for me anyway) is not whether someone sells something, the moral issue is whether there is an incentive to make organs available where they wouldn't have been available before.

Even though there is huge demand for organs, people in the United States aren't murdering eachother to sell organs, nor are they raising new humans for the purpose of organ harvesting. It's not realistic to expect that will happen soon, either, in part because the people with the organs are likely to complain before they are harvested.

However, it is realistic to think that human embryos will be created for the purpose of harvesting. An embryo can't complain.

And, no, with government funded research, often no one makes any money.

Then why need funding? The government funding goes to someone. People want to be funded for research if they are not already, and people want more funding if they are already funded. "Profit" is mostly just an accounting term to recognize when something is a good investment and when it's not. It's not equivalent to making money. Lots of people make money from government funds, and it doesn't matter that it's not called "profit".

What amazes me is that the argument for government-funded embryonic stem cell research seems to be that it is not morally questionable. But the mere fact that we're in disagreement means that it is morally questionable. So, how about we not take people's money if they are morally opposed to the research anyway? Obviously, a significant portion of the U.S. is against it.

A New Beginning

[MrAsstastic]

My friend who works with me at the chip fab clean room has been working in his spare time on such a process. This next generation hybrid wetware has no problem utilizing the extracellular matrices for eukaryotic cell adhesion and migration, but problems have been encountered regarding proliferation and differentiation. Once his research is complete I'm going to wire it on and jack into the net.

Re:A New Beginning

[Chrontius]

Someone's been watching Johnny Mnemonic, haven't they?

stem cell progress

[loraksus]

"The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large,"

Well, isn't that nice.

Seriously though, if this shows anything, it shows that progress will continue on this subject, regardless of federal funding regulations, or indeed, any legal restrictions in a single country.
If something can be used in the name of medical progress, it will be used, ethical arguments and regulations be damned.
You can't stop progress...

Re:stem cell progress

[Leo McGarry]

You know, if I pulled out the quote from the top of your comment and replaced it with something from Dr. Mengele, the result would be basically the same.

Are researchers who extract stem cells from undeveloped babies equivalent to Dr. Mengele? No, I personally don't think so. But I'm humble enough to concede that I might be wrong. It's possible --just possible -- that the next generation will look back on the slaughter of embryos as a crime against humanity on the same level as the Holocaust. The fact that we don't, the fact that our morality lets us excuse it, doesn't mean that it's not killing on a massive, massive scale.

Our kids might think it's no big deal, and they might think it's an atrocity. We just don't know.

We have a responsibility as human beings to try to make the best decisions we can in all situations. Crying "you can't stop progress!" when the subject under discussion is as morally ambiguous as this one is irresponsible in the extreme.

Re:stem cell progress

[jmawhorter]

You can stop "progress".

As a clear example, significant medical and scientific advancement was made under Nazi rule in Germany. Unfortunately, it was made at the expense of the suffering and death of innocent human beings. Needless to say, that "progress" was thankfully brought to an abrupt halt.

It just goes to show that progress doesn't mean improvement and it doesn't justify all means used to achieve it.

Re:stem cell progress

[loraksus]

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to make the argument that stem cell research is good or bad.
I'm just stating that if progress (define it as you will, ultimately it is defined by those doing the experimentation) can be made, it will be made. Especially in medicine. It seems that rationalization of [insert controversial thing here] is really easy to do in medicine and there will be someone out there - twisted fuck or not - who will do it.

And really, let's not kid ourselves, if Mengele's records had survived, the medical community (or at least a portion of it) would end up using the results if they were of any actual scientific value (kind of an big assumption, I know.)
I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but if Mengele's documents were found tommorow, and it was discovered that the cure for cancer was contained within, someone would use the material, no matter how many people were opposed to it.

As for the actual good/bad aspect, I'm sure we are already on our kid's "evil" lists for a couple thousand things already. We don't give half a shit when it comes to abortions (well, some of us do), or, for that matter, chemical leaks that kill thousands, ignorance of famine or even genocide (no, not the WW2 kind, the more modern African kind). Frozen embryos that will just remain on ice and probably thrown out in a couple of years if nothing is done with them...

Re:stem cell progress

[Leo McGarry]

I'm just stating that if progress (define it as you will, ultimately it is defined by those doing the experimentation) can be made, it will be made.

Um. I know you were stating that. And I'm arguing with you. Didn't you notice?

Step one: Let's stop calling it "progress." Calling all experimentation "progress" attaches a positive connotation that's not warranted. Some experimentation results in progress, some doesn't. So let's call it what it is: Experimentation.

We have rules of ethics that govern experimentation on human beings. You can't use a human subject in an experiment without his informed consent, for instance. There might be volumes to be learned from experimenting on unsuspecting people, but we don't do it. Period. We just don't.

There's another fundamental rule of ethics: We don't kill people in order to experiment on them. That rule applies equally to babies and adults.

Some people have become confused about that rule because they don't see embryos or fetuses as people, but they are. So the rules of ethics clearly tell us that we shouldn't kill them in order to run experiments on them (or, in this case, their cells).

You're arguing that we shouldn't bother trying to maintain ethics because somebody going to do the experiment anyway. That's obviously circular reasoning. If we maintain ethics, nobody will do the experiment, because it's unethical. See?

One of the best ways of maintaining ethics is by enforcing it through funding restrictions. We don't offer public funds for experiments that involve killing babies and harvesting their cells.

Incidentally, I think you're a little confused about your history. We have extensive records of Mengele's experiments. We know all about his, and the Nazi's in general, high-altitude tests, sea-water drinking tests, mustard gas tests, deliberate infections of prisoners with malaria and yellow fever and other diseases, and other even more disturbing experiments. All this stuff came out at Nuremberg.

And frankly, your referring to the murder of unborn babies as "throwing out embryos" disgusts me. How can you be so glib?

Re:stem cell progress

[loraksus]

So in your view, we should just pretend experimentation, et al on "banned" subjects won't happen? I suppose we could if we thought every person out there will be ethical but the thing is, you see doctors do unethical (and illegal) stuff all the time. Just because it is a law / ethical guideline, it doesn't stop everyone.

And, again, I'm not trying to argue to throw ethics out the window, just saying that it is bloody naive to assume that someone won't violate them. By all means, set up standards, et al, just don't act shocked, grab your chest and collapse, when someone violates them.

Sure, you can deny federal money to people doing x, but this case clearly shows that people will do x, even if they don't get federal money, or have to do x on foreign soil.

And most of Mengele's records, 2 train car loads (I know you said extensive, but this takes it to another order of magnitude) were destroyed. Yes, a fair bit stuff came out at Nuremburg, but I'm sure we missed a couple things, Mengele had a lot of time.

And frankly, your referring to the murder of unborn babies as "throwing out embryos" disgusts me. How can you be so glib?

Because it happens on a fairly regular basis and there really isn't any way to sugar coat it.
There isn't any use in denying that it happens, and while I could say "the genocide of thousands of children", I'm going to stick with medical convention and use "an embryo that was put in the biohazard bin".
Sounds perhaps a bit too PC, but I prefer that to "murder of unborn babies". Less inflamatory.

It all really depends on what your definition of a human life is. If you want to define it as "egg meets sperm", fine, but if you define it as such, you must realize that most "pregnancies" don't complete. In fact, these "babies" die on a fairly regular basis and in numbers far greater than seen in labs. Whether this is due to them dying before implantation, or not implanting, or miscarriage in the more traditional sense, the fact is that most don't make it.
If that weren't true, the argument would be vastly different, but if nature / God / what have you "murders" millions of "babies" every day, I find it difficult to turn around and say what we are doing is evil and unethical.

Re:stem cell progress

[Leo McGarry]

So in your view,

Sure sign of a straw-man argument. I didn't read any further.

Re:stem cell progress

[loraksus]

Mmkay. Tell me. Is ignorance really bliss?

Re:stem cell progress

[powdered toast dude]

Some people have become confused about that rule because they don't see embryos or fetuses as people, but they are.

You imply that all who disagree with you on this topic are confused, and you imply that societal rules exist without ratification (implicit or explicit) in the collective.

On the topic of when a growing set of embryonic organic matter becomes an autonomous human life (i.e. "a person"), not everyone agrees with you -- or with me for that matter -- including many educated people who are quite lucid and not confused at all.

Further, a society's "rules of ethics" are fluid in nature. They're not dictated by any one viewpoint, but rather by compromise and consensus. You're certainly welcome to define your own, and defend it vigorously, but you have no business telling any other person what his or her set of ethics should be. The ethics of a society are agreed to collectively, and the fact that there is so much disagreement on this issue is the reason there is so much debate on it.

I welcome the debate, and remind you that neither you nor I are "right" no matter what the outcome.

$0.02,
ptd

The Immortal Cell

[Kraemahz]

The CEO of Advanced Cell Technologies (Dr. Michael West) has a book called the Immortal Cell. It's very good, I'd recommend it to anyone. This is a man who has been working his whole lifetime to find the ultimate cure to death and disease. It's a shame so few people recognise the long-term possibilities of stem cells.

Who has the blinders on now?

[DrKyle]

People don't have a problem with organ donation (for the most part) because 1: It is a decision made by the person who's organs they are to donate them and 2: It is obvious that the donaters life was not created for the purpose of donating that organ.

Contrast this with aborted tissue and you will see there are HUGE differences, can you guarantee that if aborted tissue is OK'd by the goverment that eggs won't be fertilized for the sole purpose of aborting and harvesting them? I find it so amazing the lengths people will go to to devalue human life, blaming religion for hindering science. I'm sure some of the people reading this will think I'm a crazy prolifer too, well I'm not, in fact I have a PhD in genetics and understand better than 99.999% of the population the potential benefits of stem cell research. Stem cells ARE going to be the miracle cure they've been hyped up to be, but unlike scientific revolutions where lives are not at stake, we need to make sure to take the time to consider all the ramifications our decisions will have to ensure we don't end up doing a lot of harm just to speed things up a few years.

Re:Who has the blinders on now?

[DrKyle]

I didn't know Christians had a monopoly on all those things. Thanks for the insight A.C.

Re:Who has the blinders on now?

[meadowsp]

Other people have done it, so that lets the christians off?. Thanks for your blinding insight Dr Kyle.

Re:Who has the blinders on now?

[CrimsonAvenger]

What with executing people who claimed the earth was round or that the we weren't the center of the universe

Alright, I'll bite. Who was executed for claiming the earth was round, or that we weren't the center of the universe?

Mark me as curious, since I don't recall reading of such in any of the histories I've read.

Re:Who has the blinders on now?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Giordano Bruno.

Re:When life begins is not related to the issue

[DLR]

What I am trying to do, although I should have done it less sarcastically, is get people to think. Do we know the millisecond life begins? No, not even the day. So the preconceived notions of the parent post are what I am questioning, and inviting him (or anyone else) to defend. I don't expect many takers, because they don't know.

Meanwhile in Russia...

[TheNarrator]

Here goes the karma sacrifice.
The Russians, who are quite clever, have figured out how to use non-embryonic stem cells to cure spinal cord injuries.
Article

Six spinal patients of one of Russian private clinics agreed to participate in a special experiment, which was based on the above-mentioned method. Patients' own stem cells were injected in the place of spinal cord rupture. A positive result was registered with five of the volunteers: they could feel their legs, even move them a little, pelvic organs retrieved their functions too.

You know that it's interesting that this guy has treated people with stem cells and cured spinal illnesses with the patient's own stem cells! Meanwhile people are talking about embryonic stem cells which haven't yet cured anybody yet. I'm not a doctor but won't these embryonic cells be rejected because they've got different DNA then the person being treated?
I don't really care either way on the abortion issue but this whole thing makes me think that the side effect of successful embryonic stem cell research will be to reward people montetarily for having abortions or at least make people feel good about aborting.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[metlin]

I was just about to point out to that article.

In fact, Russian scientists recently found a way to repair damaged retina using stem cells.

More information can be found here.

From the article:

"...that propose treating laser-burned retina by means of transplanting nerve cells from the human brain stem into the eye. Transplants can survive in the injured eye, migrate to damaged areas, and stimulate the regeneration of retina."

w00t!

If this comes by, then it would indeed be a giant leap for application of stem cells. The question, ofcourse, is how easy are the donor stem cells to acquire. Perhaps some of the bio geeks on Slashdot could enlighten us :-)

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[EvanED]

I'm not a doctor but won't these embryonic cells be rejected because they've got different DNA then the person being treated?

I'm not a bio person, but I'm pretty sure the DNA doesn't matter, it's just the external structures. (Uh, sort of like you can link different implementations of the same function with different signatures without changing anything if you want to think of it that way.)

Sort of like with blood donation, all that matters are the structures on the surface of the blood cells. If you put cells with type A structures in someone who doesn't have them normally, their body will reject it. Same with type B structures. So if you put O blood (neither A nor B structures) in someone it will never reject it (ignore Rh positiveness), and if a body expects both (type AB) then it won't reject anything.

I suppose it *could* work differently with stem cells, but all the other rejection issues I know of have to do with external structures.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[Frogbert]

Well what if you took their DNA and put it into growing stem cells, effectively cloning you, then there would be no problems with your body accepting the stem cells.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[IvyMike]

The Russians, who are quite clever, have figured out how to use non-embryonic stem cells to cure spinal cord injuries.

This would be great news. But you're going to have to provide a link to something a little more reliable than Pravda before I start celebrating. Results 1 - 10 of about 1,250 from english.pravda.ru for alien.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[Mant]

My understanding was that you would take cells from the victim, use them to make a clone embryo, and extract the stem cells from that.

Hence the same DNA.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[TheNarrator]

The article was sourced from Novosti a respected Russian news agency. Archive articles are subscription only but I found a link in the Google cache to the origional article Here

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[Kiryat Malachi]

Most of the DNA doesn't matter, as most of it doesn't code for the blood type. In that sense, the DNA is totally unimportant; all that matters for a blood transfusion is that the type and factor are correct.

Stem cells may or may not differ, I don't know (I suspect they will, at least insomuch as organ transplants often have severe rejection issues), but your argument is misleading for blood transfusions.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[cruachan]

Bit of a generalization this, but embryonic cells do not express the cell markers found on the surface of adult cells, so they are not rejected by the animal they are transplanted into. This is one of the main reasons they are so promising to work with.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[dTb]

But when the stem cells differentiate into the target tissue type, why don't their extracellular structures cause rejection then?

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[Vitriol Angst]

Embryonic stem cells have not adopted a DNA pattern yet. The importance of them is because they are not rejected and can be used for any sort of cell.

That's why this only worked by re-injecting the persons own cells. Yet this is just a story, it has not been independantly verified. There are a lot of anectdotal cases like this, but I would wait before getting too hopeful on any of them. You can find similiar stories of faith healers from the last decade. Suffering people will grab at any hope.

It would be nice if it were so easy. But it probably isn't. That is why it takes a lot of government money (long-term, not profit motivated) to get basic research done.

The other issue is; is it better to throw embryonic stem cells in the garbage or use them to help people? Because that is what is happening. The embryonic cells are produced every day in clinics trying to help couples get pregnant. So they stay frozen, thow them away, or use them for research. Thought you'd want to know.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[John Newman]

I don't really care either way on the abortion issue but this whole thing makes me think that the side effect of successful embryonic stem cell research will be to reward people montetarily for having abortions or at least make people feel good about aborting.

That is a stunningly misplaced fear. Abortion has nothing, zero, nada, ZILCH to do with embryonic stem cells. Even if a woman was interested, by the time she could know she was preganant, the fetus would be long past the stage at which stem cells appear.

Stem cells are harvested from a fertilized egg that has gone through a handful of cell divisions. In the body, that egg would not have even implanted itself yet. And it's not just a matter of timing; an embryo has to go through a variety of differentiations to prepare itself for implantation, which make getting completely undifferentiated stem cells from it impracical/impossible. So any creation of embryos for stem cells has to happen in vitro, just like in IVF.

I'm not a doctor but won't these embryonic cells be rejected because they've got different DNA then the person being treated?

That, by contrast, is a very insightful fear. Yes, if you're implanted with tissue or an organ grown from someone else's stem cells, you're going to be taking anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life. Just like with tissue/organ transplants today. There are probably fewer risks with transplanting contaminating immune cells (a major source of problems for transpantees today), but the fundamental problem - that your own body will attack the tissue as non-self - remains. The solution, unique to embryonic stem cells, is the ability to grow them from your own cells and produce perfectly genetically matched tissue to put back into your own body. That is the role of therapeutic cloning.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[DavidTC]

Ha! Good luck with getting that past the religious right.

This has nothing to do with aborted babies

[qewl]

I have no idea what you're talking about, but embryonic stem cells are harvested from left over in-vitro cells (and harvested at the blastocyst stage) that would otherwise be discarded. This has nothing to do with abortion or fetuses!

Immortality?!?!

[PornMaster]

Imagine what *that* would do to the Social Security system!

misinformation...

[Cryptnotic]

harvesting a few extremely useful cells from dead, young, human flesh.

Stem cells are not dead. If they were dead, they wouldn't be potentially useful.

Stem cells save lives.

Name one person who has been saved or even helped in any way by any kind of stem cell therapy, ever. You can't, because that person doesn't exist. Not only that, but an adult will most likely reject stem cells from another person the same way that a donor organ is rejected. So the most promising techniques would be taking adult stem cells from person A, isolating them, growing them to larger numbers in a lab, then re-implanting them in person A to replace damaged tissues. That doesn't involve any infants, fetuses, or embryos, so research on that type of thing is perfectly eligible for federal funding from tax money. So why isn't that research being pushed by the pro-stem cell activists or research companies who want the tax-supported research grants?

Re:misinformation...

[ppanon]

the most promising [?] techniques would be taking adult stem cells from person A, isolating them, growing them to larger numbers in a lab, then re-implanting them in person A to replace damaged tissues ... So why isn't that research being pushed by the pro-stem cell activists or research companies who want the tax-supported research grants?

I seem to remember it's because adult stem cells are not as versatile as infant stem cells. They cannot be used to repair nerve damage for instance, so they are useless for treating spinal injuries. While some research is being done on the difference between adult and infant stem cells in the hope that it may be possible to give the former the flexibility of the latter, that research is a long shot.

But you're right about the foreign tissue rejection with infant stem cells. I believe what would be done in actual therapies is replacement of the DNA in the embrio cells with the patient's DNA (similar to cloning) to avoid immune rejection. This is why, when the U.N. worked on developing a binding treaty prohibiting human cloning, the Bush administration fought so hard to remove the exception for cloning in therapeutic treatments. The conflict caused the framing committee to claim consensus was not possible and the result is that the treaty was instead replaced with a non-binding recommendation without the therapeutic exception. (Aim at foot, Fire!)

So "most promising techniques" is only your interpretation. While it may be more easily achievable for treating some conditions, it may also be unable to treat more serious conditions like paraplegia or quadraplegia.

Re:misinformation...

[jadavis]

None of those are embryonic stem cells.

I think most reasonable people agree that all stem cell research shows some promise. The real question is whether that hope outweighs the questionable moral grounds of embryonic stem cell research.

And yes, they are questionable, or else this would be a very boring /. discussion.

President Bush

[jeffkjo1]

It is important to note that while President Bush has limited federal funding for stem cell research, that is all he has done. There is no federal ban on stem cell research, the only ban is on federal funds being used in such research. Our country's medical companies and educational institutions are free to do their own research.

Re:President Bush

[ortcutt]

Why does that make it better? The lack of federal funds limits research almost as effectively as a ban on the research. There is simply no reason not to develop new clean lines of embryonic stem cells. Fertility clinics produce many embryos and only implant at most a few into any woman. The rest are just going to be tossed in the trash. Wouldn't it be save peoples' lives with those cells and not waste them.

Re:President Bush

[jadavis]

educational institutions are free to do their own research

As long as it's not a federal grant.

I'm not disagreeing, but since you mentioned school, I wanted to clear that up.

Re:President Bush

[poot_rootbeer]

Our country's medical companies and educational institutions are free to do their own research.

Unless those educational institutions rely on federal funding for any of the OTHER research they are doing.

A research university is a big place. Given the choice between proceeding with stem cell research and losing funding for two dozen other ongoing projects, they would be fools not to favor the two dozen other projects.

The result is that the field of stem cell research is being neglected. I'm sure there are private organizations that would be more than happy to fund the research, if only there were any lab facilities willing to risk financial devestatation in order to conduct it.

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[ortcutt]

No. It's conservative people that don't get it. No one disputes that the embryos are living organisms. The question is whether embryos are morally-significant persons. I made this point up thread, but if you really think that blastulae with 10 cells are morally-significant, then you need to face up to our nation's biggest medical emergency, the millions of blastulae which are naturally miscarried every year.

Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics once noted that:

"If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined."

How is this new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did this two years ago as an undergraduate research project. Growing stem cells on an artificial ECM (extra-cellular matrix) is what everyone does. In fact, researchers use ECM to try to control what the cells will eventually differentiate into (ie. neuron or smc). This is what tissue engineering is all about and has been done this way for many years. NOT NOVEL. There are thousands of more interesting stories to post than this. Lets try to get something that has been discovered at least this century if we're gonna call it new.

Catholics..

[Cryptnotic]

This is more toward the grandparent poster:

There are also many Catholics who do not believe everything the Church says without thinking about it and there are many who quietly disobey the official Church teachings without fear of punishment from God. There are many Catholics who know about Martin Luther, who wrote that no one, no Church, can stand in the way or be required between a man (or woman) and God. And of course, there are Catholics who know that following Catholicism isn't the only way to live your life, and thus they are free to listen to everything with a "grain of salt", so to speak.

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[Hhhhh]

Agreed, they should worry about them.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[RsG]

And I have a clue-by-four with you name on it...

Embryonic stem cells do not come from abortion. Got it? They come from fertility clinics that specialize in IVF. When you do in-vitro, there are leftover fertalized eggs that usually get flushed. These eggs are the only source of embryonic stem cells in use.

Let me make this absolutly clear to you. NO abortion is involved, since no pregnancy occured. Conception (in this context) occured in a test tube, and the embryo was subsequesntly discarded.

Which raises the question; why do stem cell researchers get the hatred of the religious fundamentalists but IVF clinics do not? After all, the researchers are working from the castaways from the clinics. I've been told that some more logical religious conservatives have a problems with IVF for this very reason, what with the idea that life begins at conception, but they aren't the ones going apeshit on stem cells.

Bush and his support base are being hypocritical in finding fault with stem cell reseach while ignoring IVF; either they should oppose both on equally strong ground, or they should stand in the way of neither. The right-to-lifers are essentially being given a bait and switch in order for the repubs to gain a voting bloc, there is no moral basis to Bush's opposition, and never has been. A leader with an inconsistant set of values has no right to try and stand on non-existant moral high ground, period.

duh...

[Cryptnotic]

I don't really care either way on the abortion issue but this whole thing makes me think that the side effect of successful embryonic stem cell research will be to reward people montetarily for having abortions or at least make people feel good about aborting.


That's why the pro-abortion people are in support of embryonic stem cell research.

Re:duh...

[brunes69]

The idea that stem cell research will either hurt or harm the abortion "cause" is ridiculous. People are going to have abortions regardless. They have had them for hundreds of years, and will continue to have them, no matter what the law says. You don't need any incentive to make people have abortions.

And no one is going to go out and purposefully get pregnant and abort the child to make money, since no money would ever be paid, due to an ample supply of cells from the people I outlined in my previous point.

Where's the -1 informative option???

[Cryptnotic]

We can't let the truth get out there. It will be damaging to our position.

Mod this guy down, for Ford's sake!!!

Re:Where's the -1 informative option???

[ortcutt]

What about -1 offtopic? The things that are allowed are off-topic when the necessity of the restriction is what is under consideration.

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[ortcutt]

Should it be the most urgent public health emergency?

RTFA

[hung_himself]

They were able to grow primary cultures (from the embryo) on ECM whereas from what I gather you used ECM to differentiate cells that had already been cultured on feeder cells. A big deal if you are trying to avoid any contact at all with animal cell.s

Also it is hard to tell from the article but it also seems to imply that transferring stem cells on ECM was a recent step. I assume that if undergrads can grow stem cells on ECM, they must mean that being able to maintain totipotent undifferentiated cells on ECM was only done recently.

Geron already has a patent on feeder-free stem cel

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't anything new.
Geron already has a patent on growing feeder-free stem cells.

ACT is just trying to get some attention.
but Geron is way ahead of them technically.

been following both companies for years now.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[jadavis]

Bush and his support base are being hypocritical in finding fault with stem cell reseach while ignoring IVF; either they should oppose both on equally strong ground, or they should stand in the way of neither.

An interesting point, and some anti-stem cell people are surely confused about the topic.

However, IVF is not taxpayer funded. Period. You can do IVF, and you can do stem cell research, but not with my money. If you think it's so promising, start up a private stem cell research fund and I'm sure the legions of stem cell research supporters will donate left and right.

Many people in this country feel that stem cell research is on questionable moral grounds. The argument that "it was dead already" doesn't hold water. Encouraging more research creates demand for stem cells, and many Americans don't want to create such a conflict of interest.

IVF is less questionable for many Americans because the purpose of a fertility clinic is to create human life, not destroy it. There do not appear to be any conflicts of interest which would encourage the destruction of life.

And yes, I realize that some people expect lives to be saved by stem cell research. Then those people must weigh the issues morally for themselves whether it's a good idea or not. Many people have weighed against it, and so I don't think we should be spending their money to do it.

The original source of that joke

[kevinatilusa]

was a similar comment made by Lyndon Johnson ("If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim").

Interesting that people are now modifying that quote to talk about bias form the Liberal side now.

Re:The original source of that joke

[CrimsonAvenger]

Interesting that people are now modifying that quote to talk about bias form the Liberal side now.

Why is that interesting? Typical is more like it. Criticizing the President (whichever Party, party, or viewpoint) is an artform that is not quite as old as the Presidency (I've never heard of any criticism of Washington, but starting with Adams, it's been an ongoing thing).

Keep firmly in mind that both sides of EVERY issue are biased. And that both sides have a firm interest in making the other side's bias clear, while claiming a total lack of bias.

I'm biased. You're biased. Everyone else posting to this or any other thread here or anywhere is biased. Otherwise, why bother posting?

Sometimes biases are obvious (the Pope is obviously biased in favour of Roman Catholicism, for instance - and if he's not, it's time for a new Pope. Teddy Kennedy is obviously biased in favour of "anything the Republicans don't like", etc.), sometimes not so obvious (there are people who will play the role of "Devil's Advocate" in any discussion, just to make the discussion interesting - we frequently call them "trolls").

Re:The original source of that joke

[(void*)]

A devil's advocate is not a troll. A troll is someone who is FISHING FOR A RESPONSE. A devil's advocate can keep the discussion interesting, without being TROLLISH. Playing devil's advocate with oneself a sensible way to think. Trolling yourself is just masterbation.

Re:The original source of that joke

[CrimsonAvenger]

No, a Devil's Advocate is not a Troll. But I have seen posts that I considered to be those of a Devil's Advocate labelled "Troll", so obviously the distinction is not so clear as you seem to think.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[RsG]

Ok, glad to see someone reasonable responding.

First off, understand that I am not american. The taxpayer funding is your issue not mine (assuming you're from the 'states which I guessed from your post - correct me if I'm wrong). My issue is not "teh bush is stopping medicine!", my issue is what I percieve to be moral hipocracy.

The idea that IVF creates rather than destroys life is valid, but someone who was resolutly opposed to the destruction of fertalized unimplanted embryos would and should oppose IVF as much as, if not more than, stem cell research. I don't care what belief system that person adheres to as long as they adhere to it honestly, and Bush & co are being moraly dishonest.

It's not even that the politicians are taking a side without giving careful consideration to the full moral implications (everyone does that to a degree), it's that they're _lying_, and spreading FUD and BS. The reason is typical of politics; get people worked up about a moral issue in oversimplified form, and them promise to "fix" the issue if you're elected - I doubt Bush even cares about the moral implications of this reseach, he just wanted to get into office, and he spread lies about stem cells to do it.

The person who I responded to said that it was wrong to get stem cells from aborted fetuses. I agree, that would cross a line. But it's not what's actually done, and it's people like the present US administration that spread that particular misinformation. I have no problem with the legit right-to-lifers - I disagree with their point of view, but will respect it. But this isn't an abortion issue, and never has been, yet the public has been so inundaded with misinformation that half the posters in this topic seem to think that embryonic stem cell's are culled from abortion, which simply isn't true.

I can tell from the tone of your post that you don't approve of stem cell research on the basis of a slippery slope, and over the question of an embryo's human status. You've taken the position that IVF is fine, since it is more benefitial to life than it is detrimental, whereas you do not agree that the same applies to this reseach. Fine, I disagree with you but I can at least respect your point of view since you are being honest and logically consistant in your morals. But I'm not primarily arguing for the morality of stem cell reseach here, I'm just peeved at the amound of bullshit the general public has swallowed on this issue and am trying to point it out.

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[jadavis]

Lots of death happens all the time. A lot of medical research has gone into preventing miscarriage, as a matter of fact.

The point is that some people do not want to federally subsidize more death.

I have no idea what is "morally significant" vs. "morally insignificant". Either something is right, or it's wrong. Many factors are in play, such as the possibility of medical advances with embryonic stem cells. However, each person makes a decision for themselves: right or wrong.

And if a significant number of people in this country find it to be wrong, why do we confiscate their money for research they don't believe in?

According to Jewish tradition...

[hqm]

Let me say that again: There is no moment when life begins.

According to Jewish tradition, a fetus does not become a viable human being until it graduates from medical school.

Re:Wrong!

[commodoresloat]

Ah! I knew the truth was out there. I want to believe!

Moulder

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[ortcutt]

Not everything is right or wrong. If I eat potatoes for dinner, that isn't either right or wrong. It's just morally neutral. What I am claiming is that blastulae are morally insignificant in that if we let them die or use them to start stem cell lines, that act isn't right or wrong; it's morally neutral.

NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

Actually, when you phrase it that way, the moral imperative is clear. Life must always be protected under the law.

If a guy masturbates, should he be arrested for murder?

He's obviously talking about NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE.

He's obviously not talking about eating fruit -- the death of non-human plant life.
He is not talking about masturbation, or even spitting -- both actions by an individual that destroy some of their *own* cells.

So please don't be a jerk and purposely twist what this person is saying.

An embryo or foetus in it's mothers womb, or a birthed baby, is AN INDIVIDUAL HUMAN LIFE.

If you disagree, consider:

- YOU WERE ONCE ALL THREE - embryo, fetus, baby
- BUT YOU ARE AN INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING TODAY.
- AT WHICH POINT DID YOU BECOME AN INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING
(For arguments sake, consider it was when you took your first breath)
- NOW GO BACK ONE HOUR FROM THAT POINT
- IN WHICH WAY ARE YOU NOW LESS OF A DISTINCT INDIVIDUAL, LESS OF A HUMAN?
WORTHY OF MURDER?
- KEEP GOING BACK SOME MORE...

If you are honest, you will see where this process leads -- that the only *safe* time to labels cells as not an individual human life is *before* the conception occurs.

If not, where is the arbitrary line in the sand that you draw?

The embryo and fetus in the mother's womb is A HUMAN LIFE, IT IS *NOT* HER BODY.

Even in cases of incest or rape, if conception has taken place, destruction of the pregnancy is the destruction of an individual human life - i.e. MURDER without just cause. Or do you think the son should pay for the crime of the father?

> Many embryos are spontaneously aborted ...
> can be preserved if doctors proscribe mandatory anti-aborfactants ...
> fail to take such medicaton be considered child abuse, murder or neglect?

No. It has been always acceptable to, in cases of extremely serious illness, to deny treatment other than nutrition and shelter and leave the future of the life in God's hands.

Or is the failure of a parent to approve the *forced* separation of conjoined twins, that would definitely kill one of them, approval for murder?

In the September 22 ruling, three Appeal Court judges ruled that the case came down to an issue of self-defence -- the right of the stronger twin to be released from a sister who would eventually kill them both.
[CNN Article]

Welcome to this retrograde new world: where the "self-defense" of the "stronger" individual is the foundation of the law and the arbiter of life and death.

A world where the stronger mother can abort her newborn - for any reason.

So is it any wonder that we now begin to hear this: "Study: Newborn euthanasia underreported"
[CNN Article]

People who forsake mercy should not expect it from God.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

Correction:
OLD: /A world where the stronger mother can abort her newborn - for any reason./
NEW: /A world where the "stronger" mother can kill her unborn child - for any reason./

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[mdwh2]

If you are honest, you will see where this process leads -- that the only *safe* time to labels cells as not an individual human life is *before* the conception occurs.

As you say, "KEEP GOING BACK SOME MORE". What about the sperm and ovum? They're living individual human cells too.

If not, where is the arbitrary line in the sand that you draw?

Well personally I base it on sentience rather than life. I don't see that this is necessarily arbitrary - it's why we give rights to animals (even though they're not human), but not plants.

And realise that your decision to draw the line at conception is just as arbitrary as anyone else's - life doesn't "begin" anywhere.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[Kehvarl]

alright, I'll go back to an hour before my first breath. as far as I can recall, I was not aware of anything, certainly not aware of a sense of self. Without a sense of self I can't really be an individual human bieng can I? I was rather more of a parasite than anything else.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[Leo McGarry]

An hour before your first breath? The exact same thing was true an hour after your first breath. You were not aware, and you were completely dependent on another organism to stay alive.

In fact, the same things were true for most of the first year of your life.

I'm pretty sure the suggestion that it's okay to kill six-month-old babies for medical research wouldn't go over too well.

This is what I meant when I said there's no criteria that anyone can offer that can stand up to scrutiny. Whatever criteria you establish, we'll situations where those criteria are met but killing the person in question is clearly unacceptable.

That's why we need to stop trying to establish criteria for life. It's a sham. We need to stop talking about this as if there were objective, scientific truth somewhere at the bottom of it and start talking about values.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[PsiPsiStar]

The grandparent poster was refering to general principles relating to all life.

The parent poster yelled at the grandparent for not calling "offspring" "babies".

He's obviously talking about NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE.

The Grandparent obviously wasn't, though, and his thread determines the context for the conversation.

Though to take up your subject explicitly, neither you nor the parent provide clear scientific guidelines for "individual" or "human" which is relevant considering conservative opposition to stem cell research.

A stem cell line in the lab is like a human. A stem cell in your body is not. Leaving a child to die is neglect. Allowing an embryo in your body to die 'naturally' is not. Or so the current legal standards run.

The simple fact is that most of our morality is predicated on whether somthing is human or not, and fails to address why humans get priveledges and animals don't. Unless, of course, you're using a talmudic standard where animals take on rights as they contribute to society.

But if an organism is created with a single human gene, is it human? What about two human genes? What about if half of its genome is human. Saying "Don't do it" is only going to work for so long. Eventually it will happen and we'll have to interact with such creatures in some sort of moral context.

I'm trying to point out that those advocating "biblical" morality (which doesn't even have any consistant biblical basis) are simply not using any kind of consistant standard, and tolerating "death of a human life" in one case while discouraging the same fate for the same life in another.

No. It has been always acceptable to, in cases of extremely serious illness, to deny treatment other than nutrition and shelter and leave the future of the life in God's hands.

Try that with a human child and you may be considered guilty of neglect.

Welcome to this retrograde new world: where the "self-defense" of the "stronger" individual is the foundation of the law and the arbiter of life and death.

Stronger here, meaning more likely to survive. This is not Nietzche.

Or is the failure of a parent to approve the *forced* separation of conjoined twins, that would definitely kill one of them, approval for murder?

In morally ambiguous cases like this, I would prefer the decision to be in the hands of the family involved, rather than in the hands of an arbitrary state. If a parent does force the separation of conjoined twins, resulting in the early death of one and the prolonged life of the other, when otherwise both twins would have both died, I would not ask that anyone be tried for murder.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

> What about the sperm and ovum? They're living individual human cells too.

Destroying them is fine.

Please don't be careless in your thinking. I said:
AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

> And realise that your decision to draw the line at conception
> is just as arbitrary as anyone else's - life doesn't "begin" anywhere.

Nope, that's the point at which you can first say, these cells belong to a different human being - distinct from the mother and the father.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

Firstly, see the other poster's insightful response about "an hour after your first breath...".

Secondly, you don't know what a baby senses.

Last, since when did "sense of self" become the arbiter of life?

What if an accident knocked you unconcious? At this point, you have...
- no awareness of anything
- no sense of self

Does that make it is fine for the paramedics who arrive to treat you to say:
"Currently, he has no sense of self. Choice!", and then stab your neck and extract your vital organs for sale on the transplant market?

Of course not!

Then why would you DENY an unborn child the same protection?

Heck, the same conditions crop up in non-REM (non-dreaming) sleep also. Is it Ok to murder you when you're asleep ... as long as your eyelids aren't fluttering?

Answer your conscience.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[Kehvarl]

I didn't say anything about sens of self indicating live. I said you're not an individual human being without a sense of self.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[mdwh2]

Please don't be careless in your thinking. I said:
AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

Yes, they're living, human, and pretty individual if you ask me.

Nope, that's the point at which you can first say, these cells belong to a different human being - distinct from the mother and the father.

The problem here is that a sperm or ovum only have half the DNA of normal cells, so they cannot be considered identical genetically to the parent. And if you consider that to be enough, the problem is that the sperm or ovum still contains those 23 chromosomes of the parent when it joins to make a zygote. So I still don't see some magical life starting event here - just a series of stages that are all part of life.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

> > AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE
> Yes, they're living, human, and pretty individual if you ask me.

Well, but a sperm cell is not:
AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* *LIFE* ...in it's entirity, is it? After all, after some guy jerks off, most of him is still alive and not flushed down the drain, yes? So how come you don't understand this? Surprising.

> > Nope, that's the point at which you can first say, these cells belong
> > to a different human being - distinct from the mother and the father.

> The problem here is that a sperm or ovum only have half the DNA of normal cells,
> so they cannot be considered identical genetically to the parent.
Uhhh, what has this got to do with anything? We already agree that both sperm and unfertilized ova can be destroyed.

The point is the fertilised ovum is an individual human life. It HAS got all the GENETIC characteristics of the baby that will develop from it.

> And if you consider that to be enough, the problem is that the sperm
> or ovum still contains those 23 chromosomes of the parent when it
> joins to make a zygote. So I still don't see some magical life starting
> event here - just a series of stages that are all part of life.
Nope. See above.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

You are wrong again.

Most psycholigists say that a young baby has no sense of self.
But everybody sane would agree that a baby is an individual human being.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

Dude,

You directly quoted him and replied. And your verbal attack on him was wrong.
> The Grandparent obviously wasn't, though,
> and his thread determines the context for the conversation.

Enough! Tortured justifications don't make a wrong right.

> neither you nor the parent provide clear scientific guidelines
> for "individual" or "human" which is relevant considering
> conservative opposition to stem cell research.

I have no objections to stems cells per se, or even to human cloning. But I am concerned about protection of life in the process of extraction of these cells. Consider this description: a set of cells with DNA distinct from it's mother and it's father, that represents a distinct human being. This description fits:
- you
- me
- a fetus
- an embryo
All deserve the same level of protection of life.

If stem cells could be obtained from a fetus in a pregnant woman, with absolutely no harm done to the fetus (and there was a great benefit to society in this being done) who could object to that?

> A stem cell line in the lab is like a human.
I'd hesitate to call it that. Actually, it is NOT "like a human" at all. Rather, it is like this: if Nazi medical researchers in death camps murdered inmates and cultered their liver cells, the use of those cell lines for ongoing research, would be analogous to the situation today.

> A stem cell in your body is not.
A stem cell in the body is just a cell.

> Leaving a child to die is neglect. Allowing an embryo in your
> body to die 'naturally' is not. Or so the current legal standards run.
And so they should.

> The simple fact is that most of our morality
> is predicated on whether somthing is human or not,
> and fails to address why humans get priveledges and animals don't.
Because that's the way it works currently. But you, on the other hand, seem to be intent on lowering the treatment of unborn humans to the level of animals, instead of working toward the opposite.

> Unless, of course, you're using a talmudic standard
> where animals take on rights as they contribute to society.
Eh?

My position: It is fine for us to kill animals as long as it is done with a minimum of violence, and no malice or cruelty to the animal.

> But if an organism is created with a single human gene, is it human?
> What about two human genes? What about if half of its genome is human.
Oh! the mind-flex-challenge. No problem...

> Saying "Don't do it" is only going to work for so long.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying "you can't do it" - you can't create a half-human, half-chimp living, breathing organism. It's too complex for you.

What you can do is introduce human cells, or parts thereof, in another animal. Like, say, a rat. But the animal is still non-human. That rat won't post on Slashdot. It is 100% rat, and no one would confuse it as human.

If something resembles a human, it deserves protection as a human.

> Eventually it will happen and we'll have to interact
> with such creatures in some sort of moral context.
Firstly: I don't think so.
Secondly: Lets address EXISTING problems first, and worry about non-existent concerns later - during the hyperspace jump to sector 42.

> I'm trying to point out that those advocating "biblical" morality
> (which doesn't even have any consistant biblical basis)
(It is consistent - you don't understand it.)
> are simply not using any kind of consistant standard,
> and tolerating "death of a human life" in one case while
> discouraging the same fate for the same life in another.
Eh? Death of human life is always something not wished for. All I can say is don't be fooled by certain types of wolf-in-sheep clothing conservatives who love nobody except themselves and those who love them.

> > It has been always acceptable to, in cases of extremely serious il

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[Kehvarl]

I think they would agree that a baby is a human. as to individual, that depends on what you mean by that. I don't consider anything that isn't self aware to be an individual.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

I have said: "Individual human life."
The meaning of Individual here is "distinct" or "separate". It is meaning #2 specified here, and I have used it as an adjective that qualifies "human life".

A baby is an individual human life - plain and simple.

Quoting your first response:

> Without a sense of self I can't really be an individual
> human bieng can I? I was rather more of a parasite than
> anything else.

Since psychologists say young babies have no sense of self, this would permit killing of babies. As the other poster also pointed out, an unborn child is not any different from a baby.

Jesus Christ said "Do to others as you would have them do to you"

Remember you yourself have no sense of self when unconscious.

You, a baby, a fetus, an embryo -- all deserve the same protection by the virtue of being an "individual human life". NOT due to "sense of self" - a fluffy, ill-defined concept.

Listen to your God-given conscience.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[PsiPsiStar]

We all learned in high school about the theory of biogenesis, right? It's the principle that life comes only from other living things. It doesn't arise spontaneously. Rocks don't turn into turtles. It's a basic principle of biology. (The opposite of this theory, the theory of abiogenesis, is given as an example of a scientific theory that was once believed but that we now know to be false.)
-- end context--

Enough! Tortured justifications don't make a wrong right..)

Enough yourself. It's not a tortured justification. His "it's a baby, not an offspring" comment was inappropriate in reference to a thread on biogenesis and abiogenesis and the continuous nature of life.

I have no objections to stems cells per se, or even to human cloning. But I am concerned about protection of life in the process of extraction of these cells. Consider this description: a set of cells with DNA distinct from it's mother and it's father, that represents a distinct human being. This description fits:
- you
- me
- a fetus
- an embryo
All deserve the same level of protection of life.

Lets address EXISTING problems first, and worry about non-existent concerns later - during the hyperspace jump to sector 42.



Fair enough. Taking your defintion; It's now possible to clone animals, and theoretically possible to clone a human from an adult (non-embryonic) stem cell. While some animals are more 'clonable' than others, the biggest barrier to human cloning is desire, not technical abilty. At what point would that cloned stem cell become human? It seems irrational to me to argue that it would be human before it started to differentiate into the various adult cell types; nerves, muscle, etc. at the very earliest, since before then it would be functionally equivalent to another adult stem cells in the human body. This is one reason why I reject the "life begins at conception" cannard which has been repeated endlessly. If taken to its logical conclusion, it would equate cells inside the body with individual human beings because they are capable of becoming human beings. Putting an adult stem cell into a lab does not transform it into a human being. Similarly, you are not allowed to kill a twin as long as his other twin remains alive, so the notion that death is the destruction of an entire genetic set wouldn't work (identical twins being natural clones). The current legal standard is based on degree of differentiation of the cell towards a self-sufficient individual rather than preservation of a certain unique set of cells. This useful standard is being deliberatly blurred by people trying to introduce their "life begins at conception" line. If this standard is adopted, it will inevitably increase the arbitrariness of the law by creating a standard which, by its nature, cannot be applied uniformly in all situations.


I have no objections to stems cells per se, or even to human cloning.

Same here. What I object to especially is the catagorization of cells, particularly undifferentiated cells, as human, which is a view some are attempting to push, claming through some leap of logic that their views are religiously grounded.

I don't believe in the morality of abortion of a differentiated fetus, but I believe even less in the morality of state interference into people's medical choices.

If stem cells could be obtained from a fetus in a pregnant woman, with absolutely no harm done to the fetus (and there was a great benefit to society in this being done) who could object to that?

Embryonic stem cells are obtained from undifferentiated embryos, thus the name. By the time an embryo is a fetus, it's past the stage when it would typicaly be used for stem cell research. Pluripotent stem cells can be recovered from umbilical cord tissue. Pluripotent stem cells can also be obtained from adult tissue, but it's currently very diffic

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[PsiPsiStar]

represents a distinct human being

A little circular, don't you think? Defining a distinct human being as that which is a distinct human being?

This just goes back to the whole *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* argument from earlier. The debate begins with the question of what exactly is an individual human. You can't use the definition of the word to define the word.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[Kehvarl]

Listen to my what?

More seriously though, I don't really think I'd care very much if I was murdered while unconscious, or if I'd been killed prior to developing a sense of self. So what is the problem precisely?

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[Kehvarl]

You know what, my other post sounds rather argumentative. ignore it.

thanks

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[PsiPsiStar]

Consider this description: a set of cells with DNA distinct from it's mother and it's father, that represents a distinct human being.

A little circular, don't you think? Defining a distinct human being as that which is a distinct human being?

This just goes back to the whole "*INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN*" argument from earlier. The debate begins with the question of what exactly is an individual human. You can't use the definition of the word to define the word.

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

You have a valid objection.

Modified description then, of an *individual* *human* life:

"Consider this description: a distinct set of cells which, collectively, given only nutrients and time, will exhibit the characteristics you and I do"

Of course, that you and I are humans is axiomatic.

This would fit:
- you
- me
- a baby
- a fetus
- an embryo
- cloned embryos and fetuses

Since you value your life, you would extend the latter the same protection extended to you, when you were as weak as they are.

This description does not fit:
- cells excreted when we shit or spit
- stem cells lines cultured from aborted embryo body parts
- a transplanted cornea
- liver cells cultured from a donor, dead or alive

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

> Enough yourself. It's not a tortured justification.

Tortured without mercy, even as it groaned to be put out its misery.

> His "it's a baby, not an offspring" comment was
> inappropriate in reference to a thread on biogenesis
> and abiogenesis and the continuous nature of life.
Earth to PsiPsiStar! Earth to PsiPsiStar! Come in PsiPsiStar!

Did I address the "it's a baby, not an offspring" comment? (Answer: no)
Do I care about it being inappropriate? (Answer: no)

What do I care about? What do I think was inappropriate?

Answer: (reposting my post)

Actually, when you phrase it that way, the moral imperative is clear. Life must always be protected under the law.

If a guy masturbates, should he be arrested for murder?

He's obviously talking about NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE.

NOTE: EVERYTHING IS IN CONTEXT. YOU QUOTED HIM. I QUOTED BOTH OF YOU. NO INSERTIONS.
Now, do you remember the other guy's post? See how he responds to the person who claimed the question of *when* life can be protected can be answered? Consider whether the US constitution talks about protecting the life of individual sperm cells?
Is it STILL not GLARINGLY OBVIOUS to you that he is talking about NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE?

As I said. Enough!

> the biggest barrier to human cloning is desire, not technical abilty.
Wrong. There are restrictions (and licenses) but the biggest barrier is technical ability.

> At what point would that cloned stem cell become human?
Obviously when it is functionally equal to a human fertilized egg.

> It seems irrational to me to argue that it would be human before
> it started to differentiate into the various adult cell types; nerves, muscle, etc
> . at the very earliest, since before then it would be functionally equivalent
> to another adult stem cells in the human body.
Oh, would it really? And you know this how?
If it is functionally equivalent to adult stem cells it is an ADULT STEM CELL
If it is functionally equivalent to a fertilized human egg, it is a FERTILIZED HUMAN EGG.
It may be both -- for eg: a fertilized human egg IS A TOTIPOTENT STEM CELL

> it would equate cells inside the body with individual human beings
> because they are capable of becoming human beings.
Yes: see, "fertilized human egg" above.
I am a human. I am male. No one tells me "Oh, you're a male - you can't be human". Not even feminists.

> Putting an adult stem cell into a lab does not transform it into a human being.
Of course.

> Similarly, you are not allowed to kill a twin as long as his other twin remains alive,
> so the notion that death is the destruction of an entire genetic set wouldn't work
> (identical twins being natural clones).
Correct.

> The current legal standard is based on degree of differentiation of the cell towards
> a self-sufficient individual rather than preservation of a certain unique set of cells.
Yes. But by induction you can go back all the way to an egg - PRIOR to fertilization
is the only safe place to say "Destroy this cell"

> This useful standard is being deliberatly blurred by people trying to
> introduce their "life begins at conception" line.

> If this standard is adopted, it will inevitably increase the arbitrariness of the
> law by creating a standard which, by its nature, cannot be applied uniformly
> in all situations.
Of course it can be. It's this "degree of differnetiation" nonsense that cannot be applied uniformly.
And in fact is not applied uniformly. Standing in your corner - fools with consciences
so seared that they cannot see anything wrong in partial-birthing a 8 month old unborn
child, puncturing its neck, and sucking it's brains out.

> particularly undifferentiate

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

OK.
Regards,
SC

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[PsiPsiStar]

Did I address the "it's a baby, not an offspring" comment? (Answer: no)
Do I care about it being inappropriate? (Answer: no)

You addressed my entire post, saying "your attack on him was wrong." You did not specify a particular portion of my response.

So yes, you did address that portion of his comment, because it was part of my "attack" on him.

Consider whether the US constitution talks about protecting the life of individual sperm cells?

I don't recall the constitution making any comment about embryos, or pontificating about when life begins. That document isn't too helpful in a conversation on when life begins or when an individual gets their rights. If you think it says anything about conception or sperm or embryos, you're reading into things way too deep.

But keep using that 'ol caps lock key. It's mighty persuasive.


> the biggest barrier to human cloning is desire, >not technical abilty

Wrong. There are restrictions (and licenses) but the biggest barrier is technical ability.

I presented a simple dichotomy between desire and ability. Legal restrictions are manifestations of desire ( in the negative sense ) rather than ability. If we wanted to (as a country/world/etc) we could lift the restrictions. And there are over 100 nations which have no restrictions. And UN resolutions are not binding.

http://www.globalchange.com/clonenews.htm

If you think that there are technical barriers which prevent somatic transfer from successufully creating human clones some time in the near future that could survive at least until, say, a month after birth, then cite a valid scientific source. It will be awful hard for you to prove a negative, and there's plenty of evidence that it would occur in the next 5 years if it was pursued with any ambition. People have succeeded in cloning amphibians and mammals and there have been some claims of human clones using this technique (not properly substatiated due to privacy demands, but not regarded as impossible by the scientific community). Simple statements of "Wrong" with no evidence don't convince me of anything. While I don't work in the field currently, I have an undergrad degree in biotech. I do have some familiarity with what kind of acheivements may be likely in the near future.


> At what point would that cloned stem cell >become human?
Obviously when it is functionally equal to a human fertilized egg.


But "functionally equal to a human egg" is not clear.
I'll assume, based on your earlier comment, that you mean "somthing that could be implanted in a womb and develop into a human, but not somthing that would require any other process whatsoever besides simple implantation to become human?" So a cell that required an electric shock, or a coat of vaseline or anything other than simple implantation would not be functionally equivalent to a human.
i.e. if we had to put vaseline around a cell to make it equivalent to a fertalized egg, it would not be equivalent to a fertalized egg.


> It seems irrational to me to argue that it would be human before
> it started to differentiate into the various adult cell types; nerves, muscle, etc
> . at the very earliest, since before then it would be functionally equivalent
> to another adult stem cells in the human body.
Oh, would it really? And you know this how?


"Know" would be too strong a word. It implies a scientific fact, rather than a moral standard. However differentiation is when a group of cells starts to be an individual.

An undifferentiated embryo can become any number of individuals. Reducing that number is not killing. The cells in an undifferentiated embryo created in the lab can also grow and divide forever and never become an individual. Embryonic stem cells are not any predetermined number of individuals. Only individuals have rights. Individual cel

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

> > Did I address the "it's a baby, not an offspring" comment? (Answer: no)
> > Do I care about it being inappropriate? (Answer: no)

> You addressed my entire post, saying "your attack on him was wrong." You did not specify a particular portion of my response. ...
> So yes, you did address that portion of his comment, because it was part of my "attack" on him.

O, thou great believer in context, how is it your pride now blinds you to it!

- My original reply did NOT say "your attack on him was wrong".
- My second reply is where I said:
"You directly quoted him and replied. And your verbal attack on him was wrong."

Do you see the context yet?

> > Consider whether the US constitution talks about protecting the life of individual sperm cells?
> I don't recall the constitution making any comment about embryos...

Don't take your eyes off the ball. Does the US constitution aim at protecting your *sperm* *cells*? . No? Then lay off the poor guy - he was right, and you and your strawman analogy were blazingly wrong.

To make it obvious again, here is the beginning of our conversation again:

Actually, when you phrase it that way, the moral imperative is clear. Life must always be protected under the law.

If a guy masturbates, should he be arrested for murder?

He's obviously talking about NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE.

Again:

He's obviously talking about NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE.

> But keep using that 'ol caps lock key. It's mighty persuasive.
You're right !

You hold on to your "No shouting on the internet" attitude, I'll keep using the 'Shift' key for maximum effect.
Remember - this is a public discussion. If you aren't amenable to logic, most other people are.

> > > the biggest barrier to human cloning is desire,
> > > not technical abilty

> > Wrong. There are restrictions (and licenses) but the biggest barrier is technical ability.

Cloning that results in anything close to birthing a baby is technically very difficult.

As for this....
> http://www.globalchange.com/clonenews.htm [globalchange.com]
I don't know the details, but if an egg cell can clone itself (eg: identical twins), I'm skeptical how important this breakthrough is. In fact, the same page you pointed me to says as much, further down:

"Dr Patrick Dixon, an author and expert in the ethics of human cloning, dismissed the idea that today's announcement marked a breakthrough.

He said: "Except in tissues like the brain, there are huge problems with rejection of these embryonic stem cells if they are introduced into adults.

"It is very difficult for them to grow properly and very difficult to control them," he said. "The idea that this offers a real breakthrough is based on a scientific nonsense.

> If you think that there are technical barriers which prevent
> somatic transfer from successufully creating human clones
> some time in the near future that could survive at least until,
> say, a month after birth, then cite a valid scientific source.
Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_ cloning#Risks_o f_growing_a_cloned_embryo_to_term
However, the majority of scientists, including Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep at the Roslin Institute, claim that there are many further complications to reproductive human cloning in its current form. Aside from the ethical questions involved, the scientists claim that it is simply too risky.

> It will be awful hard for you to prove a negative
> , and there's plenty of evidence that it would occur in the next 5 years ...
Hyuk. You just proved it for me -- that the ba

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[PsiPsiStar]

>O, thou great believer in context, how is it your >pride now blinds you to it!

I took your words literally. And I find it very strange that you talk about pride, considering the tone of your posts. I've tried to have a civil conversation with you, and brush off your insults and condecension, your rudeness and your deliberate misinterpretation of my position. I have answered your jibes with plain evidence.

Take a second to read your posts and imagine if I had answered you in the same tone that you've written to me, how would you view me then? Logs and splinters come to mind. I can't think of any way to express my disagreement with you without you calling me "proud" or accusing me of things that I would not do, and that you would know that I would not do, if you took more than a moment to consider what I have said. Apparently the only way a person can avoid the sin of pride in your eyes is to agree with you. Hardly a humble stance.

But yes, context is important. It determines the meaning of our statements. The meaning of somthing like "I don't agree" is determined entirely by the context.

Likewise "your attack on him was wrong" is determined entirely by context.

Did you mean to say "You directly quoted him and replied. However your disagreement with his view of individuality is wrong?" Saying "and" implies that you're refering to the quote and reply. I get the feeling from your subsequent posts that this isn't what you meant.

It's hard to discuss things with you since you seem more geared towards invective than clarification. If you're not sure what someone said, clarify before disagreeing with them. It will save you a lot of arguments.


Don't take your eyes off the ball. Does the US constitution aim at protecting your *sperm* *cells*? . No? Then lay off the poor guy - he was right, and you and your

strawman analogy were blazingly wrong.


You're still refusing to follow my logic. The Constitution aims at protecting individuals, but does not lay down the definition of individual.

Here's the logical process that you seem to be using.

1. You define individual.

2. You assume that anyone discussing individuals uses your definition.

3. You use anyone discussing "individuals" to support your definition of individual, even if they've given no indication that they share your definition.

#2 is repeatedly the weak link between #1 and #3 and you've made this mistake over and again.

At the time the constitution was written, some people did honestly believe that sperm cells were individuals. The constitution wasn't concerned with when individuality began, however.

So you can't use it as evidence to support your view of when individuality began.


You hold on to your "No shouting on the internet" attitude, I'll keep using the 'Shift' key for maximum effect.


What effect? Honestly? But it doesn't matter. I'll consider your reasoning and ignore any jibes or personal attacks.

Remember - this is a public discussion. If you aren't amenable to logic, most other people are.


I'm amenable to logic whenever it isn't circular, or doesn't assume what it attempts to prove.

Cloning that results in anything close to birthing a baby is technically very difficult.

Very difficult? Yes, it would take a large number of attempts. Even a normal birth takes a few attempts sometimes. And the cloned baby would probably not be healthy. That's the big problem. Is cloning possible? Yes, by every indication I've seen. It may already have been done. I'm not refering to Raeliens.


"Dr Patrick Dixon, an author and expert in the ethics of human cloning, dismissed the idea that today's announcement marked a breakthrough.

He said: "Except in tissues like the brain, there are huge problems with rejection of these embryonic stem cells if they are introduced into adults.

"It is very dif

Re:NOT DESTROYING AN *INDIVIDUAL* *HUMAN* LIFE

[sonamchauhan]

> I took your words literally.

You wilfully misinterpreted them, and deceived yourself in the process.
I quoted you and the original poster once, and *everything* has been based off that exchange.

> And I find it very strange that you talk about pride, considering the tone of your posts. I've tried to have a civil conversation with you, and brush off your insults and condecension, your rudeness and your deliberate misinterpretation of my position. I have answered your jibes with plain evidence.

Well, pride is something every person struggles with, or should struggle with. I know I do sometimes. And I have taken due care in my set of posts to neither malign you unfairly, nor let my pride impact my argument. If you look at the series of posts I made in this article, you will see corrections I posted (2 or 3 I think) when I found I was wrong. For example, my circular definition of human that you rightly pointed out.

But I tell you the truth - I find it truly appalling to see you so given over to the intoxicating thought of being right, fact don't carry across. I have conveyed that feeling in my posts.

You are a proud person. Pride is a useless emotion.

> Take a second to read your posts and imagine if I had answered you in the same tone that you've written to me, how would you view me then?
Well, if I was as blazingly and consistently wrong, _I_ would want similar correction. No logs and splinters come to mind. Just a shamefacedness and humility I would have at holding onto falsehood that long as to be rebuked in so forceful a manner.

> Apparently the only way a person can avoid the sin of pride in your eyes is to agree with you. Hardly a humble stance.
Another strawman analogy. See example above re: my correction to the circular definition of human.

>
Likewise "your attack on him was wrong" is determined entirely by context.

> Did you mean to say "You directly quoted him and replied. However your disagreement with his view of individuality is wrong?"

Aha. FINALLY. A question!

I meant: Your attack of his quotation was wrong.

(Though most of your post attacking him was wrong, this is what I meant.)

What you've done here is cling to a perceived wrong, when there is none attempting to deny the fact that you are wrong.

> If you're not sure what someone said, clarify before disagreeing with them. It will save you a lot of arguments.
Doctor, heal thyself.

> You're still refusing to follow my logic. The Constitution aims at protecting individuals, but does not lay down the definition of individual.
You're beginning to sound like gates at the times of the anti-trust questioning.

> Here's the logical process that you seem to be using. ...

> 2. You assume that anyone discussing individuals uses your definition.
Then why would I try to convince people otherwise. Please steady yourself.

> 3. You use anyone discussing "individuals" to support your definition of individual, even if they've given no indication that they share your definition.
Goodness, you're not referring to the anti-abortion testimony of those doctors to Congress do you?

> #2 is repeatedly the weak link between #1 and #3 and you've made this mistake over and again.
2 of *your* 3 links are broken.

> At the time the constitution was written, some people did honestly believe that sperm cells were individuals.
At the time the constitution was written, some people didn't believe blacks were human. Some still don't. So?

> The constitution wasn't concerned with when individuality began, however.
No, it was more or less obvious. An unborn baby was an individual. Hence laws against abortion.

> So you can't use it as evidence to support your view of when individuality began.
Goodness, see above!

> > You hold on to your "No shouting on the internet" attitude, I'll keep using the 'Shift' key for ma

Right...

[cameldrv]

Those are some nice republican talking points. Meanwhile, look at the situation. Most early stage medical research is funded by the NIH in the U.S. The lines that are eligible funding are practically useless due to viral contamination. Thus, for all practical purposes, the major source of potential funding for embryonic stem cell research has been cut off. Bush's ban was clearly religiously motivated, and I know of no non-religious person that thinks a clump of cells has moral status.

What the actual effect of Bush's ban has had is to push funding for this research to the states, which is highly inefficient, because now you have professors moving to different universities in order to be eligible for state funding. Furthermore, you have state politicians trying to decide how much funding this research should get, in a completely uncoordinated manner. Also, you now have some citizens paying taxes for research that benefits the entire country, while others get a free ride.

This would not have happened under a Clinton, Gore, or Kerry administration, and the ethical objections are certainly not held by a majority of the population.

Re:Right...

[Perl-Pusher]

What the actual effect of Bush's ban has had is to push funding for this research to the states, which is highly inefficient, because now you have professors moving to different universities in order to be eligible for state funding.

1) The purpose of the Federal government as laid out by the constitution is not for funding medical research at colleges.

2) California passed an initiative to fund Stem Cell research, something that the state cannot afford. I guess they forgot why Govenor Davis got recalled? Moneybags Bill Gates and Barbara Streisand both lobbied Hard in California for it. The amount of funding passed by the state could hhave been funded by only Bill Gates himself using his Charity Fund, the amount in that fund would have funded the research for the next fifty years.

3) Ever heard of private grants?

4) For the last time you moron, he didn't ban it! He is the only President to fund this research. When was the last time any government funds came with absolutely no controls or strings attached? You have been swallowing the Democratic Party Kool-Aid. What Bush did would have been praised by Democrats if Clinton had done it.

Re:Right...

[TGK]

1.) The purpose of the federal government is fairly fluid, but it's good that you've been able to resolve this very complex constitutional issue for us. "Congress shall make all laws necessary and proper..." Lots fits under that, it's complicated. Don't insult us all by making dogmatic statements because you can't be bothered to investigate details.

2.) California passes a law that costs a lot of money but might save a lot of people and it's derided as partisan politics by Bill Gates and Barbara Streisand. The US Congress and President puts tax cuts into place that cost the US billions upon billions of dollars and it's what? Good economic policy?

3.) Private grants are few and far between. Most high end research gets done on the government's dollar. I wonder how far the Manhattan Project would have gone on private grants.

4.) The Clinton administration certainly allowed and funded stem cell research. In fact here is an article from what would appear to be a rabbidly right wing site decrying that the Bush administration didn't do enough to GET RID of stem cell funding programs enacted under Clinton.

Sounds like while I've been drinking the Kool-Aid you've been doing lines with W. Democrats have historicaly applauded advances in science and medicine as they help people. It would seem that Democrats are for that... helping people as it were.

Re:Right...

[cameldrv]

1) The purpose of the federal government is not the issue here. It is a given that the NIH funds medical research. The only question is which types of medical research they fund. If Bush were proposing to abolish the NIH, or cut stem cell funding for monetary reasons, this would be an issue, but that's not the reason he restricted stem cell research

2) Gray Davis was not recalled over stem cells. The stem cell initiative passed, and Arnold, who won the election supported it.

3) Again, not relevant -- the issue is which projects the NIH should fund, not the availability of private money.

4) It is the job of scientists and administrators at NIH to make funding decisions based on scientific grounds. Since stem cell funding was restricted by the Dickey Ammendment (Republican) in 1995, Clinton had been working on NIH regulations to allow stem cell research. When the NIH was about ready to come out with the regulations, Bush decided to put in the additional restriction that there would be no funding for lines created after the announcement. Had the Clinton plan been followed through in the natural way under a Gore administration, there is no question that new lines would have been allowed. Government funds always come with restrictions, the question is which restrictions are placed on them. The restrictions Bush placed on stem cell funding are unwarranted and religiously motivated.

Re:Right...

[Perl-Pusher]

The US Congress and President puts tax cuts into place that cost the US billions upon billions of dollars and it's what? Good economic policy?

You assume it's the goverments money to begin with. Reduce spending, do you have a clue how much pork is attached to any funding initiative just to get it passed? That includes the Bush Administration, don't spend what you ain't got. You have to pay sometime and that is always done with taxes sooner or later.

Private grants are few and far between. Most high end research gets done on the government's dollar. I wonder how far the Manhattan Project would have gone on private grants.

A search on Guidestar of Stem Cell research yield 23 organization with a total private funding of almost 1/2 a billion dollars. American citizens and corporations fund billions of dollars for medical research. Last year the Jerry Lewis Telethon netted a $60.500.000. The Manhattan project was for a weapon of Mass Destruction, I'm sure you could get Osama Bin Laden to provide funding today. That was a stupid analogy.

The Clinton administration certainly allowed and funded stem cell research. In fact here is an article from what would appear to be a rabbidly right wing site decrying that the Bush administration didn't do enough to GET RID of stem cell funding programs enacted under Clinton.

Nice propoganda, but "allowed" and actually "funded" are two different things. Clinton allocated no funds whatsoever.

Re:Right...

[Perl-Pusher]

Gray Davis was not recalled over stem cells. The stem cell initiative passed, and Arnold, who won the election supported it.

Gray Davis was recalled because California was going Bankrupt. That is what I stated, California can't afford it!

3) Again, not relevant -- the issue is which projects the NIH should fund, not the availability of private money.

4) It is the job of scientists and administrators at NIH to make funding decisions based on scientific grounds. Since stem cell funding was restricted by the Dickey Ammendment (Republican) in 1995, Clinton had been working on NIH regulations to allow stem cell research. When the NIH was about ready to come out with the regulations, Bush decided to put in the additional restriction that there would be no funding for lines created after the announcement. Had the Clinton plan been followed through in the natural way under a Gore administration, there is no question that new lines would have been allowed. Government funds always come with restrictions, the question is which restrictions are placed on them. The restrictions Bush placed on stem cell funding are unwarranted and religiously motivated.

Again when has government money ever been free from political strings. That is the problem with government funds, they always have strings attached. Whether they are restrictions on who's state gets the funds or any other political consideration. Where the government funds, the government dictates. That's why I don't advocate Federal Spending for these types of issues. I'm not Republican, I'm Liberatarian.

Re:Right...

[snwcrash]

Well, states usually invest in research in order to fuel growth of a given industry. In the 70s/80s/90s silicon dominated and made California rich. Biotech is a promising field, and I imagine a strong investment would lead to a good growth in the industry, and good economic benefits to the hosting state. If California doesn't gain the lead somebody else will (like the EU)

Re:Right...

[rotor]

I know of no non-religious person that thinks a clump of cells has moral status.

Well, consider me the first I guess.

To call this "Bush's Ban" is somewhat misleading - what you call "republican talking points" are actually quite true. Bush opened up funding for the research, and I disagree with him for doing so. Interestingly enough, countries like France and Germany have opened up funding in the same way - after Bush did. Before that, they didn't fund embryonic stem cell research either.

Also, you might want to quote numbers from responsible sources if you're going to say that these objections are "certainly not held by a majority of the population." I haven't seen (or looked for admittedly) numbers to substantiate that.

Re:Right...

[Geoff-with-a-G]

I know of no non-religious person that thinks a clump of cells has moral status.

[Raises hand]
Then that's a failing in your knowledge. Slashdot user "Leo McGarry" posted a bunch of comments above this thread, outlining his opposition, and the fact that he is agnostic.
Regardless of the points he made, I personally am atheistic, not merely agnostic, and I am uncertain about the legal and moral issues involved.
You seem to have reached a point in your mind where "everybody, or at least all people who aren't dumb, agree with me" and that's a problem. You need to be exposed to a larger vareity of people.

This would not have happened under a Clinton, Gore, or Kerry administration, and the ethical objections are certainly not held by a majority of the population.

That's an interesting assertion, and setting aside the hypothetical actions of Gore and Kerry administrations, could you explain how you know that the majority of the population agrees with you? They elected Bush twice, and even if you still maintain issues with the first election, 51-49 vs. 49-51 hardly makes this a one-sided issue. The population of the US seems fairly divided on this, and other issues, to me.

Re:Right...

[Ironsides]

Well, consider me the first I guess.

Just for my notes Atheist, Agnostic, not a strong believer or other? I am serious here as I am considering referencing this in future posts.

Re:Right...

[rotor]

Agnostic.

Re:Right...

[Ironsides]

Thank you.

Story about nothing..

[Sox2]

This is not a break through. People have been growing these cells on ECM for ages (typically come from mice - I rather suspect the ECM they are using is Matrigel, a propietry ECM harvested from a mouse tumour cell line). Wake me up when somebody derives and cultures these cells without any animal derivatives at all.

Haven't you even been listening?

[bloggins02]

One is destined to become a child

No, NO, NO. You don't even have to "open your mind" to understand this, just freakin' pay attention! The embryos we're talking about here are from failed IVF trials. They aren't destined to become children, they're destined to be incinerated.

the other is destined to be grown in a petri dish and then harvested like a crop of corn

Which is, obviously, much worse than burning it to a crisp and throwing it away, forgotten forever.

Re:Haven't you even been listening?

[GreyWolf3000]

It's really sad that, despite all efforts, people will forever tie embryotic stem cell research to abortion.

I don't think people choose to embrace such ideas dogmatically because it's "easier" for them (i.e. they don't have to think critically). Sadly, I think the reason is that they are taught to embrace all ideas dogmatically.

What philosophical leader (this problem goes way beyond religion) ever taught that critical thinking and reasoning must be avoided? The decision to accept one premise by faith does not mean that conclusions should be drawn by faith as well.

Hello, McFly...

[walgurf]

Why does it always HAVE to fall back to the Imperial Federal Government to fund everything with MY money?

Let it be done by private organizations, who are faster, more efficient, and FAR more effective.

Re:Hello, McFly...

[Ironsides]

This is the dividing line between the definition of Conservative vs. Liberal (by the "dictionary" definitions) [note: this is different from Republican vs. Democrat]. A Conservative thinks that things can best be done by private corporations/individuals, small government pretty much no interfering with anything unless it is necessary. A Liberal thinks that government can do everything the best as it has the most access to money, organization and so on.

In practice it is a bit different, depending on the individual.

Stem Cell research has not been limited

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush has simply limited federal funding. Private research is not restricted in any way. Should American Tax dollars go towards something that a very large subset of the popualtion does not support?

I do not believe Bush has an agenda here. He is just doing his job.

Re:Stem Cell research has not been limited

[geoffspear]

Good argument. Let's get rid of the military right away.

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[martysdomain]

it will be if they have to use contaminated stem cells

Re:When life begins is not related to the issue

[mdwh2]

Life doesn't "begin" anywhere, since living things are involved at every stage. Even before conception, the sperm and ovum cells are living.

People who are against any form of abortion by saying "life begins at conception" seem to miss this point in my opinion - if killing any form of living cells is bad, then that includes embryos, sperm, and a bunch of skin cells I might scrape off my arm.

The only important thing which can be said to "begin" as far as I can see is consciousness. Whilst we can't be sure when exactly it begins, we can be reasonably sure of some stages where something is not conscious, for example, when a brain has not yet developed, or when its complexity is still on the level of that of an ant (at least, no one ever defends against killing ants on the basis that they are sentient).

Fighting an uphill battle doc.

[glrotate]

When the prevalent norm in American society is me first, second, and third, you just have to look at many of the replies to your entirely sane post to see that even if stem cell therapy evolves into outright fetus harvesting, people won't give a damn. If stem cells offer the hope of putting hair back on their head or getting rid of the wrinkles, I think any talk of ethics is going to fall on deaf ears. Not to draw too close of an analogy to abortion, but if we as a society have decided that's it's perfectly acceptable to flush kids down the toilet because raising them would be too much of a hassle, why would we even bother with ensuring all credible alternatives to fetal stem cell therapy had been exhausted first?

Re:Fighting an uphill battle doc.

[Ironsides]

Prevalent norm? Not sure I agree with that. I know many people that help out. To go from my point of view, I would rather have the option of helping out rather than being forced through taxes to help out. I.E. The moment the government stops forced charity through taxes, then I will start giving more money to various charities.

As for the other groups of people (and I am included in parts of this): Habitat for Humanity, the (Boy and Girl) Scouts, Churches (multiple religions/denomintations), MDA and others.

From what you say, and if it has gotten to this point I will have lost all hope in the US, we (in the US) are no better than Hitlers Nazis who used prisoners, Jews, Blacks, Gays, Gypsies and others for scientific experments.

One more time for the folks that didn't get it.

[hackronym0]

Public funded research is supposed to be stuff that will benefit our society as a whole. The people who have the say on what gets funded are the groups that review the government grant proposals. These are people who are really knowledgeable about the various topics, usually with Ph.D's and other great credentials.

Why anyone thinks that they should be able to tell other people how to live, in what manner that they can procreate, and when to decide to have or not have a child, is really beyond me. Now if someone asks your opinion, you are free to give it. But part of the reason why our country gives us so many freedoms is because that freedom is an important part of our society. We are free to make our own choices and our own mistakes. So people might not agree with the ideology, but it is they who have the problem. Otherwise, their freedom to express their opinion should be taken away!

I wish people had the insight to see that public funded research is one of the main ways to make sure that the research is done right!

If the megacorps do all the research, then they get all the benefits and the profit. They are not going to just give out cures or information or anything.

Unfortunately, the people reading here are not the ones we have to worry about or convince.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[mrphish697]

In all the years I've been on slashdot, I've never seen an argument so well thought out, so willing to listen, and so intellectually consistent . Good work, jadavis and RsG.

Practical meaning

[elgatozorbas]

"The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large."

Imagine: a population of Brundleflies...

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[Rostin]

Which raises the question; why do stem cell researchers get the hatred of the religious fundamentalists but IVF clinics do not?

Ignorance. And I don't say that in an insulting way. I don't consider myself a "religious fundamentalist," but I understand that it's a matter of degree and most /.ers would disagree with me about my self-assessment after a conversation covering the pertient issues. Anyway..

Most Christians (like most people generally) aren't in a position to really understand how IVF works. And even when they are, they mostly aren't accustomed to thinking through the moral implications as Christians.

Having said that, opposition to IVF is growing among Christians, you just have to have your ear to the rail to know about it. It isn't widespread enough to make the national news, yet.

Re:IVF is ethically iffy?

[beanlover]

I think the "iffy" part comes from the fact that these other babies (did I just "out" my position? :) ) created as part of the process become abandoned if the folks going through the IVF process get what they wanted before those other babies (oops I did it again) are implanted.

I see your point about using them instead of "wasting" them but folks who are on the side of pro-life consider human life to be more than just a cluster of cells. All human life has dignity and rights. The destruction of that life for whatever reason goes against those rights.

I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for saying they have rights...whatever...I don't care.

Yep. Embryonic stem cells will be obsolete soon.

[r00t]

Using embryonic stem cells is just plain dumb.

Soon enough, somebody will figure out how to
turn just about any cell into a stem cell. The
result will be a perfect match for the patient
of course, so no need to worry about rejection.

Later, somebody will modify one of these to be
totally generic. They'll wipe out all the DNA that
produces surface features that cause rejection.

Pravda.ru is a TABLOID

[ftzdomino]

Sexual contacts with aliens occur frequently
Aliens live underground

Re:Pravda.ru is a TABLOID

[TheNarrator]

Pravada.ru is a mix of tabloid and legit news. I referenced the original newswire source over
in this post.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[Muad'Dave]

Let me make it absoloutly clear to you.

• Many people equate conception with the beginning of life.
• The definition of abortion is the "discarding" of an in-utero embryo.
• The act of "discarding" an embryo terminates it's biological functions.

Ergo a discarded embryo, regardless of it's location (in a test tube or in utero) is equivalent to murder.

Just because you have strong views doesn't give you the right to be preachy.

Re:IVF is ethically iffy?

[Leo McGarry]

It's ethically iffy because, in order to save time, some IVF practitioners have decided to mass-produce embryos in the lab, then implanting some and storing the rest.

There's no medical reason to do it this way. It's purely a cost expediency factor. And the idea of creating a dozen babies with the intent right up front of killing 11 of them is extremely iffy. In fact, I personally think it goes farther than iffy. I think it's criminal.

There are two solutions to the problem. Stop the practice, or invest money in developing the technology and protocols for embryonic adoption.

Capitals are always appreciated.

[TheSpoom]

Because we *are* morons. Thank you for yelling as we wouldn't have read otherwise.

</sarcasm>

Free of animal contaminents?

[RagingChipmunk]

Free of animal contaminents? OH WHAT A RELEIF! I have been dead set against stemcell use, but, now that its been cleared of animal contaminents, my vegan conscious is now freed to spread some juicy embryonic stem cells on my morning toast!!

MMMmmmm gotta love technology!

Wow... and this during wartime.

[Concern]

Apparently yes. How about this: an even trade. No federal funding for stem cell research, no federal funding for oil wars in the middle east. Let Haliburton get private funding if they want it so bad.

Stem cells from embryos headed for the medical waste bin are "sacred" and we protest that the government should not pay for stem cell research, even though it could literally revolutionize medicine. Meanwhile the lives of unambiguously alive, adult men and women in our military (and we quietly footnote, foreigners as well) are bravely sacrificed in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction (no, not in Iran, which actually has them), freedom and safety (no, not in Sierra Leone, or China, which make Iraq look like Virginia), to stop Osama from striking again (no, not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, where he actually is)... wait, are we still pretending its not for our energy supply? Not for nothing, but...

How we fight such a dubious war while crying crocodile tears over embryos we destroy by the truckload daily at IVF clinics... while still claiming to be moral, even religious crusaders is inexplicable to me. But this is the moral vortex we live in now. How anyone thinks they keep it straight I have no idea.

So yes, of course the government controvertially sacrifices lives with "confiscated" cash every day. Stem cell research would be a relief, frankly. This is leaving aside that our supposed care over embryos is often an insincere facade for culture warriors that were only recently opposing birth control the same way.

Replace the word embryo

[Xuther]

with the word jews and see how your question sounds?

That is why liberals don't get it.

For the record I'm mostly centrist, people like you are why I lean slightly right.

Re:Replace the word embryo

[ortcutt]

That's an idiotic argument. It ignores the difference between a 10-cell blastula and a thinking, breathing, feeling person. It's a failure to appreciate what is significant about a person's life that leads people like you to think that somehow a 10-cell blastula which is indistinguishable from a sea urchin blastula is somehow morally significant. I'll be convinced that you aren't just putting the blinders on when you are as concerned about the sea unchin blastulae as you are about human blastulae.

Re:IVF is ethically iffy?

[DavidTC]

Why isn't in criminal to create these 'babies' to implant when you know that they only have a one out of two chance of living in the first place?

In fact, why isn't it criminal to have sex, because if the woman gets 'pregnant' from that, the odds are the 'baby' will not live out the first month? Something like 2/3 of all women who get 'pregnant' never know it, because their body kills the 'baby' at their next period. (At which point, BTW, they are much much further developed than the 16 cell 'babies' that are killed with IVF.)

Oh, apparently God killing a quarter billion 'babies' a year is okay. At least, I don't see you doing anything about it.

Instead, you're whining about saving a few thousand 'babies' that wouldn't even exist if not for us.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[DavidTC]

If you think that Bush in particular is deceiving us, that's another topic that warrants further evidence.

With all due respect, it requires about as much investigate as the topic 'Does the earth orbit the sun?' does. ;) Of course Bush is deceiving us! Of course the conservatives are pulling a bait-and-switch with morality.

If they actually solved the problems they were yammering about, they wouldn't have any way get get elected next time.

Re:When life begins is not related to the issue

[DavidTC]

Hell, these embyros aren't anywhere near as complicated as ants. They're completely undifferentiated. They're just a small blob of cells.

The parent is ignorant of the truth

[clonan]

It IS true the the embryo has to be destroyed to extract the stem cells.

But so what.....

The blastasts that we are talking about are the extra's from invitro-fertilization clinics. To help assure success IVF HAS to create far more embryo's then is actually used. What woman wants 20 babies at a time...it is not uncommon for the clinics to create that many embryos or more. The extras are either stored for future potential use by the parents or with the parents permission they are given to other less fortunet couples or THEY ARE THROWN OUT.

So what we are talking about here is NOT killing an embryo that someday could get itself born. We are talking about making use of tissue that is about 5 minutes from the garbage can.

Your options are:

#1 throw them out and kill them anyway

or

#2 use them for the betterment of society and the SAVING of lives.

Personally I choose #2

Re:The parent is ignorant of the truth

[Leo McGarry]

The blastasts that we are talking about

Do you mean "blastocysts?"

To help assure success IVF HAS to create far more embryo's then is actually used.

That's not correct. It's purely a cost-saving measure. Some IVF clinics -- a minority, if I remember correctly -- take many sperm and many eggs and create many babies all at once in a sort of mass-production process. Some of these are implanted in the mother; the rest are stored at low temperatures for future use.

This isn't necessary. It's something clinics do to save money. And yes, the unwanted babies are often killed. The whole process is unethical and should come to an end. We can do effective in-vitro fertilization without mass-producing babies the majority of whom are killed.

So what we are talking about here is NOT killing an embryo that someday could get itself born. We are talking about making use of tissue that is about 5 minutes from the garbage can.

Wow. If you can describe babies as "tissue that is about 5 minutes from the garbage can," then what's stopping you from describing undesirable adults the same way? Your position is, in a word, insane.

And yes, we are talking about killing babies that could someday get themselves born. All they need is a mother. It could be the mother who donated the egg, or it could be any other mother with compatible blood factors.

Your options are:

There are four options, not two. Option #3 is to donate the unwanted babies to mothers who are unable to conceive naturally, giving them the opportunity to experience pregnancy and birth despite their physical handicap. And option #4, of course, is to refrain from manufacturing babies like they were livestock in the first place, and to return to the ethical method of in-vitro fertilization where only enough babies are created for a single attempt at implantation.

Me? I choose #3 for the unwanted babies already on ice, and #4 to prevent the creation of any others.

Re:The parent is ignorant of the truth

[clonan]

Correct, I mis-spelled the big word..

IVF is a VERY low success rate process and is very expensive with no garuntee of success. Plus multiple steps contribute to the difficulties in this process.

#1 getting the eggs....women are given a hormon regiment that makes them ovulate many sometimes dozens of eggs....this is fundamental biological reaction and it is impossible to say only get a few.

#2 Egg fertilization is not as simple as tossing eggs in with sperm. THe sperm has to be directly injected into the egg. this process can damage the egg or sperm or both therefore in order to get enough fertilized eggs to have any chance of success you must make LOTS.

#3 Most IVF is done for thoes couples that either have a high risk for genetic problems OR have had many miscarages in the past. Therefore again you just make a lot to screen the embroys that have the genetic problems you were watching for or the fertilization problems that were causing miscarriage or thoes that were damaged by step #2. This here is a good place to get you stem cells. With the exception of the first group the others are incapable of developing to term and WILL die. However you will probably be able to get some usefull stem cell lines from them. Regardless you have to make lots of fertilized eggs.

#4 You need to implant multiple eggs to have a good chance of getting a viable pregnancy. However there is always a chance of multiple successful implantations and thus you start lowering the chance of a successful birth if you put in more than 6 or 7.

So after all of this, due to biology, the damage of the process and the fundamental reasons people pay the 10's of thousands of dollars for the CHANCE of having children you are obligated to fertilize a lot of eggs.

Now say luck is on your side or the technician is having a good day....instead of the 5-6 good eggs that you WANT you get 20 or so....

IVF facilities are businesses. they are in the business to make a profit. With that in mind they are not going to waste the time, money and resources "manufacturing babies like livestock." The extra embryo's are an unavoidable consequence of the process.

Therefore, as another thread covered, if you objection to stem cell research you HAVE to object ot IVF.

FINALLY as to YOUR options...

The 4th "option" is not availible if you use IVF. They extra eggs are an unplanned consequence of IVF and are already minimized as much as possible.

The 3rd option doesn't apply to what I was talking about. If you read my first post you see that I talk about providing the extra embryos to other couples. Unfortunetly there is still an excess of embryo's

So YOU are now reduced to the two options I proposed:

Are you for:
#1 just throwing the extras out

or

#2 using them to benifit society.

Re:The parent is ignorant of the truth

[clonan]

Wow. If you can describe babies as "tissue that is about 5 minutes from the garbage can," then what's stopping you from describing undesirable adults the same way? Your position is, in a word, insane.

Sorry, but not true. Embroy's ARE just tissue with many cancerous qualities until they are capable of surving on their own. The means roughly the 7th month of pregnancy. My views are reasonable and entierly consistent.

I have no problem with IVF or stem cell research. I also have no problem with abortion before the 7th month. It is not "murder" or unethical. It is a very clear, straight forward and easily defended. After all it is biblical, according to leviticus an unborn child is viewed as property and NOT a person.

A full grown adult IS alive and a person and significantly different than a group of 6-12 cells.

Re:The parent is ignorant of the truth

[Dr. Evil]

The problem with using the "extra" embryos is a thin-edge-of-the-wedge one. At first, if the "extras" are serving a bennefit, people will go to great lengths not to resolve the problem of "extras".

It may even go as far as using "extras" as an argument in support taking "extras" out of the equation regarding efficiency. I.e. increasing the number of "extras" is no longer a measure of our ineffectiveness because they're being used purposefully.

I despise these "moral" arguments though. They're inevitably religion v.s. science v.s. capitalism. Or tradition v.s. logic v.s. profit.

I suppose I'm saying that scienctists need to consider carefully the value to human kind when such "extras" strongly pique the interest of capitalists.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[Ironsides]

I've seen a few, albeit they are fal and few between. Unfortunately it was just spoiled by DavidTC (sister post to yours)

SORRY I MEANT THE GRANDPARENT

[clonan]

Sorry....I meant the GRANDPARENT...this is what I get for typing too fast.

The Parent does not know how things work....

[clonan]

It IS true the the embryo has to be destroyed to extract the stem cells.

But so what.....

The blastasts that we are talking about are the extra's from invitro-fertilization clinics. To help assure success IVF HAS to create far more embryo's then is actually used. What woman wants 20 babies at a time...it is not uncommon for the clinics to create that many embryos or more. The extras are either stored for future potential use by the parents or with the parents permission they are given to other less fortunet couples or THEY ARE THROWN OUT.

So what we are talking about here is NOT killing an embryo that someday could get itself born. We are talking about making use of tissue that is about 5 minutes from the garbage can.

Your options are:

#1 throw them out and kill them anyway

or

#2 use them for the betterment of society and the SAVING of lives.

Personally I choose #2

Re:The Parent does not know how things work....

[Leo McGarry]

You posted the same comment twice. See here.

Re:The Parent does not know how things work....

[clonan]

yes I did...because I posted it under the wrong parent and therefore reposted it where it was suppose to go.

Please read MY reply to the other post.

Re:IVF is ethically iffy?

[operagost]

In fact, why isn't it criminal to have sex, because if the woman gets 'pregnant' from that, the odds are the 'baby' will not live out the first month?

Because one is a natural, chance occurence and the other is a deliberate action. No one has sex in the hopes they create a non-viable zygote.

Re:Yep. Embryonic stem cells will be obsolete soon

[DavidTC]

Yes and no.

Soon embryonic stem cells will be obsolete. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do research with them, because anything we learn can be transfered over once we figure out how to reset all cells.

In fact, doing research on them is the best way to figure out how to reset other cells. We can't figure ou thow normal cells are different if we don't have anything to compare them to.

Let's go back 110 years.

[DavidTC]

You know, lighter-than-air ships are being used TODAY to transport actual people. Heavier-than-air ships are a dead end.

Here's a link

[Ironsides]

Yes, I believe this is a link about one of them:
http://www.remember.org/educate/medexp.html

Re:I know it.

[ghukov]

I wish there was an easy Windows Explorer interface to just drop a bunch of MP3s on my iPod. here ya go... http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/getanapod.p hp

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[Corporate Drone]

if you really think that blastulae with 10 cells are morally-significant, then you need to face up to our nation's biggest medical emergency, the millions of blastulae which are naturally miscarried every year. Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics once noted that:

"If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined."

Actually, you and the good professor are deliberately attempting to muddy the waters by comparing apples and oranges.

You're comparing the natural process of embryo loss due to a variety of factors to the deliberate destruction of life in abortion and the destruction of "unwanted" embryos in IVF.

That's the equivalent of saying, "well, no one should prosecute murderers; after all, millions lose their lives due to natural causes each year, anyway!"

Re:IVF is ethically iffy?

[DavidTC]

So, it's the position of the church that sex is a 'a natural, chance occurence'? That not only is it normal, but the results of sex is entirely seperate from the moral implications of sex? Interesting.

Because I've heard exactly the opposite from the pro-life camp...that if you choose to make a life, you should be responsible for it. But not responsible enough, apparently, to do anything about it dying naturally.

So, you're allowed to let 'babies' die through inaction, but not through action, right? Does that mean you have feed them and whatnot? (Morally, I mean.)

Anyway, you're now saying we shouldn't allow any IVF at all, because when the 'baby' is implanted, there's only a 50% chance it will live, right? And IVF isn't natural, right?

I'm just trying to follow the logic here. Correct me if I've gotten anything wrong.

If you legalize cars

[MichaelPenne]

can you guarantee they won't ever be used in a crime?

The arguement that you can't legalize therapeutic cloniing or that the use of emrbyonic stems cells needs to be made illegal because you can't guarantee that someone will disobey reasonable restrictions (such as using stem cells only from unused IVF embryos--which are discarded anyway, or using therapeutic cloning techniques only for therapy, not for reproduction) is just as specious.

Many useful, legal things can be misused and if we made them all illegal folks wouldn't be able to get out of bed without breaking some law.

It would be more reasonable to treat ESCR and therapeutic cloning the same way: make restrictions that make abuse illegal while allowing the research to go forward.

And recognize that the folks who oppose this research on any terms are doing so because they believe a soul is formed at fertilization & this is an unfalsifiable religious belief, and so should not form the basis of US law.

Just a question

[spywarearcata.com]

How would the government be able to tell that a stem cell line began after 2001?

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[RsG]

Apologies if I sounded too "preachy"

Now re-read the guy I was responding to. Is he saying the same thing as you? It's a little unclear, he only posted a two line AC post, but he seems to have the impression that stem cells come from abortion.

Now, you're arguing that discarding unimplanted embryos = abortion. And if the op was arguing the same then I might have let it be. But the impression I get from reading this thread suggestes that a majority of those oppposed to stem cell research are under the impression that embryonic stem cells come from fetuses that were aborted in the womb. The op says it would be wrong to get stem cells from "a baby, in the womb aborted or otherwise" and I actually agree with him here (I think that that would cross a line). But since that is not what is being done by the researchers, he is making a strawman argument and I am calling him on it.

A quick google search gives multiple definition of abortion not all of which conform to yours. I realize you aren't claiming to speak for everyone in this tread with that definition, but when you read "abortion" re stem cells here, chances are the poster things that a pregnanacy was terminated to get those cells. And that is plain FUD, no doubt about it.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[RsG]

Actually, not all right-to-lifers are ignorant of how IVF is done, and some of the hardline "life begins at conception types" already oppose it for this very reason (I've talked to more than a few, which is why I consider the administrations stance on stem cells to be inconsistant).

You can say that the vast majority of people don't understand the full complexity of modern medicine, there's nothing wrong with that. But the US administration? The people who have taken a political hardline right-to-life view on stem cells in order to garner votes, while not applying that same view to IVF cannot merely be ignorent. Opposing IVF would be politically unpopular, whereas opposing federal funding of medical research (which, as you pointed out, the public does not understand by and large) is a good way to get elected. It's politics and it's resposible for much of the FUD in this thread about stem cells = abortion.

Re:Liberals simply don't get it

[ortcutt]

No. The argument goes like this.

1. If blastulae were morally equivalent to infants, then we would consider the deaths of millions of blastulae to be a greater medical emergency than the 30,000 natural infant deaths that occur every year in the US.
2. But we don't. We consider the natural infant deaths to be a medical emergency and exert a lot of effort to prevent infant deaths. We don't exert any effort to prevent the deaths of blastulae.
3. So, we don't consider blastulae to be morally equivalent to infants.

It's not apples and oranges. You just need to think for a second before you post.

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[cas2000]

> And yes, I realize that some people expect lives
> to be saved by stem cell research. Then those
> people must weigh the issues morally for
> themselves whether it's a good idea or not. Many
> people have weighed against it, and so I don't
> think we should be spending their money to do
> it.

and yes, i realise that some people expect lives to be saved by the war in iraq. Then those people must weigh the issues morally for themselves whether it's a good idea or not. Many people have weight against it, and so i don't think we should be spending their money to do it.

in case you miss the point: there are a lot more people who oppose the war in iraq than oppose stem-cell research - yet hundreds of billions of public dollars are being spent to wage that war, to bomb children, to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste (i.e. depleted uranium shells - aka "dirty bombs"), to set up a puppet government, to arrest and torture the citizens of iraq, and many other reprehensible activies.

in other words, this is not a valid argument for opposing public funding of anything. there may or may not be other, valid, arguments but "some people don't like it" is not one of them.

not always appropriate

[sonamchauhan]

> Because we *are* morons.
*No*

> Thank you for yelling as we wouldn't have read otherwise.
You're welcome. And that's right for quite a few people. This *is* a serious matter, after all.

Re: not always appropriate

[sonamchauhan]

That's no excuse for being obnoxious. Other people hold their belifes just as strongly as you hold yours, and have obviously given quite a bit more serious thought to them than you have.

Lets see, I happened to commit the crime of writing some sentences about the murder of unborn children in ... shock horror.. IN CAPITALS! That makes me obnoxious.

In another century, you'd easily be a "Southern gentlemen" primly putting down someone upset about the appaling conditions of slaves in the Southern United States.

And yes, strength of belief has no bearing on whether something is right or wrong.

> It's the very difficulty of when a group of cells
> becomes both individual and human that makes stem cell research
> a diellema. Because all cells have human genes and are potentially
> individual life, but not all cells are given the rights of human beings.

I just told you about the only safe position to take in these matters. If you can find a flaw in my logic, expose it, and teach me. Otherwise, suppress your pride and learn from me.

But what is a Catholic?

[Giggle Stick]

You know. I hear this a lot, and it strikes me as a little odd. The catholic church is an organization, which has a set of rules. One of their rules is that disobeying certain rules prohibits membership. And yet, many people wish to continue calling themselves catholic, but say that it's OK not to follow those rules. It would seem to me, that you are no longer a Catholic then.

I say this as someone who is not a catholic, and opposed to that church in many ways. My opposition to that church is probably the major reason I don't go around saying, "I'm a Catholic." Now I never was a member of the Catholic church, either, but I'm not sure why that makes a difference.

Granted, Luther himself didn't want to start a new church, but to fix the existing one. But eventually, he realized that wasn't possible, and he was at least willing to risk his own excommunication to stand up for his beliefs, not sit around mumbling to himself that he was a member of a group he disagreed with.

You may not be aware of this...

[Giggle Stick]

but there was a time when the government had very little do to with the funding of nearly everything. In fact this is a new phenomena that has been created in the last 75 years or so.

Before that, our country managed to be phenomenally succesful, with very little government harrasment. How this is possible, I can't imagine, for clearly Government is the economic sludge that lubricates the wheels of progress.

My question to you is, where in the first 100 years of this country can you find evidence that the purpose of the Government is fund damn near everything, and lacking that evidence, why has it suddenly become a "good" idea?

All that Iraqi Oil...

[Giggle Stick]

is really helping the price of gasoline ain't it. I hope we don't start any more oil wars, or gas will go up to 4 dollars! The more free oil we take from bastians of peace like Iraq, the worse our oil situation seems to get.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a problem in Iraq. Civilians there are protesting the terrorists, and the mass graves of children have quit filling up, replaced by those of the terrorists. How much more mixed up can it get, I wonder?

By the way, Clinton gave a "no-bid" contract to Haliburton during the Kosovo war. Where's our exit strategy for winning the peace there? Hello.., Hello...?

Re:Stem cell research was always permitted

[shadowbearer]

I don't know what Bush's motives are or not; it seems pointless to speculate. If you think that Bush in particular is deceiving us, that's another topic that warrants further evidence.

Well.... hypocrisy by public officials, in their public policy statements, shouldn't be tolerated.

Otherwise I see your point - and that involves a discussion of the word "deception" as it is used in modern politics :)

I can see how that balance could weigh in favor of IVF and against embryonic stem cell research for a given person, without contradiction.

I don't. Whether or not the embryos are technically "alive" isn't making use of them morally more acceptable then sterilizing them then flushing the debris into a sewer system somewhere? I know which I'd choose... I also have "Organ Donor" on my ID, as I feel it's a lot better use of what I am once I'm not inhabiting that body anymore to help someone, rather than simply putting my remains in the ground and letting the bugs attack 'em (which'll happen anyway) or burning them and spreading the ashes somewhere, which I find ridiculous.

As someone else said, this was a fabulous debate thread, and all too rare on slashdot anymore :(

Cheers everyone
SB

correction

[PsiPsiStar]

If two genuses of animal can be mixed, then any animal can probably be mixed with any other animal.

My comment should be restricted to animals of the same class. I don't know whether mammals can mix with amphibians and produce living cells or not.