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Harvard Scientists to Clone Human Embryos
An anonymous reader writes "Harvard University scientists claim they will soon start trying to clone human embryos to create stem cells. Even with the history of controversy and fraud researchers hope they can one day use the newly created stem cells to aid in battle against many diseases. From the article: 'The privately funded work is aimed at devising treatments for such ailments as diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. Harvard is only the second American university to announce its venture into the challenging, politically charged research field.'"
Aren't there any areas we should stay away from _even_ if they would help us cure diseases?
Many times, our morality is dictated by practicality. This is most likely one of those times.
Would someone PLEASE think of the childr...
No. That joke's tasteless. I won't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Even if you think cloning humans is morally acceptable, it still isn't the right time. Definitely not in the United States. I really don't think this project is going to get far before it's shot down by the government.
Whether we think it's moral or not, our current administration sure wouldn't think so.
sickle-cell anemia True ... (black) people who are suffering from this dicease
probably won't be able to be the next Michael Johnson
but iirc sickle-cell anemia is a mutation that protected them against malaria
The law states that no FEDERAL FUNDING may be used on stem cell research except on the stipulated stem cell lines, some of which have been revealed to be not very useful. This project isn't using federal funding, it's using private funding, which Harvard professors can probably easily get. Therefore this research is legal. Right now, the current tide of public opinion is turning towards MORE stem cell research, not less. In fact, Nancy Reagan made a plea to Congress to expand federally funded stem cell research. I don't think the Bush government will shut it down, especially with the midterm elections coming up where Republicans need to harp on more "solid" issues such as gay marriage instead of getting bogged down in an issue where the public opinion is not clear and seems to be swinging in the opposite way of what they want.
Ever since some of us started looking into nature people have said, "you know, that's God's work, you shouldn't really been looking at it."
Just a few years ago the Pope told Steven Hawking that though the Catholic Church believed in the theory of the big bang, what happened before that was the hand of God and not to be meddled into be humans.
If we could rid ourselves of silly arbitrary superstitions great advancements in science will follow.
Oh come now, the cloned embryo will be alive no matter what the situation. The question is whether or not it will ever become a human, and that's where the debate lies.
Whatever happened to survival of the fittest? Is all this technology assisting with breeding a race of second rate homo sapiens?
I'm not saying that the line the government has drawn has already been crossed; you misunderstand. I'm saying once they see what's happening and that progress is being made, a line is going to be made. The government is going to have to step in one way or another, the question here is more, what side will they take? That will depend on the next election, among other things.
why can't the people who object to this just put themselves on a 'do not clone register'.
...I obey the laws of physics....
I support cloning, because that's the only way I assume I'll reproduce. :-/
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Harvard, doing its very best to ensure the guys running the Republicans have enough nonsense issues to keep control indefinitely.
I think it's important to note that what scientists, and indeed we in general, get to do in life, is not determined by what the current administration thinks is moral.
They can certainly try to pass laws constraining us to their ethical code. And we can and should break those laws if the laws are wrong.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't see where the big morality issue is. If you saw a man with a wife, children, friends and a job, and he was dying of some disease, as the rest of his family looks on helplessly, would you leave him to die if you had the option of saving him? Why does the life of an embryo with no family, or home, or even gurantee of survival, outweigh the life of someone who is already established in society; who loves and is loved, who has built up a life, and who would be sorely missed by many people? This is a pretty clear-cut moral decision.
The government will shut this down. Speaking as an American, and as one with a severely handicapped child, the day the United States values science that much over superstitious ignorance is the day pigs fly. For over ten years, I've only looked to other countries for scientific advancement. That's where I'm looking for the advancement of medical science, too, and I've been seeing it there.
I thought, human cloning is banned in most of countries.
So how did they arranged for this?
I assert, from conviction, not from evidence, that viruses are alive, and therefore the Salk vaccine is immoral.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
With the '06 elections coming up and the '08 elections 2 years away, I'd say this is the -perfect- time to start making some bold moves.
This is a major medical advancement and we need to elect people who are going to treat it as such.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
And even if you think cloning humans is morally acceptable, the practice of killing the "superflous" embryos (note the language! Imagine you are suddenly considered "superfluous") that are created in the process by dumping them in the bin can be equated to murder (read: intentional killing of a human being).
Some researchers/clinics freeze them, but there is no guarantee that they are allowed to live (which violates their human right to live).
Yeah... Sure. Isaac Newton spent time researching alchemy than actually working on physics. Roger Bacon came up with the scientific method. Copernicus came up with the theory of the heliocentric model of physics.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
my opinion is that it does not, since there is not such a thing. But if there is...
Elect people who are going to treat is as such? Everything discovered will have a patten placed on it. Any treatment will be so costly that the people objecting to it on it's morality will probably never be able to aford the treatments. Seriously, who is this going to benefit?
Some drug maker? Some rich doctors who will only use treatment if the price is right? Some insurance company who will make a plan specificly for this type of coverage? And what would be different if government money had been used?
I don't see why electing people who will treat this as some bold move will effect the people who will eventualy elect them. Sure some copyrighted paper somewere has more information now. Sure some doctors have the ability to do somethign else now. But for you and me, we probably won't ever need a treatment found by this type of study as well as never be able to afford it if we did.
I'm sorry if i don't share the same enthusiasm as you do. I just see this as some way to make rich companies/people richer. I Think if there is a hint of morality issues and some people don't want thier tax money participating in it, then that would be just fine. Private money can be used. after all it is private companies and people who wkill primarily benefit from it.
You know, I have always had a problem with things like this. Not because I'm a religious fanatic, not because I stand behind (your) Fearless (incompetant) leader (C), but rather because I have seen science do this quite often. It says, hey now THIS is a good idea! Let's throw it out into the world and see what happens. Then, as Malcolm from Jurassic Park, says: Nature finds a way to control what is being done. SO now we cure certain problems, and new ones will arise.
Anyone ever think that some (certainly not all) diseases arise because of meddling with nature with reckless abandon.
Now I can hear the complaints: if you are going to do science, you can't just stick your head in the sand! Well, that isn't what I'm advocating, but I've seen a lot of scientists motivated by nothing more than fame, and then you see negative results that couldn't be predicted without extensive study. I'd like to see most medications tested for at least 2 generations before being released -- it wouldn't halt everything, but it might stop a reoccurance of Thalidimide...
Wtf? "They shouldn't do it because they might piss off the president." ??? What kind of reasoning is that? The president's ethical whims do not automatically become law.
As someone who has loved ones afflicted with three of the four conditions mentioned, I'm all for it.
I'm not religious. I don't believe that an embryo is a life. It's a collection of cells with the ability to become life if allowed to develop fully.
Please don't mod this as flamebait or troll. I'm not alone. This just happens to be my point of view and I believe that if cures and treatments may be found from such research I will support it wholly until the day I die.
It's been painful watching my Uncle deteriorate by the week. He's afflicted with ALS (Lou Gehrigs). I've attended the funeral of a six-year-old girl who died of leukemia. My uncle has lost his sight due to diabetes.
Those who oppose such research based on their religion, to me, are no better than those who deny life saving treatments to their children or themselves due to religious reasons. Religion makes people do things like this.
Why is it so hard to imagine that your God gave man the ability to do such things as a means to improve our lives?
I'd say that is a bit unfair... One of my theology profs was a recent graduate from Harvard's School of DIvinity, and while he held some liberal ideas, I read some of his papers and they seemed fair and balanced (well, as balanced as theology could possibly be -- you know, given the whole I'm studying the life of a guy who supposedly lived two millenia ago, and our only known evidence stems from books written at least 50, and in some cases 250 years after his death...)
I think the law against rape is wrong. So I'm going to rape you.
Forget thinking about the children, seriously. Think about your parents. They are older than you, and you will most probably watch them die. If this can create treatments and cures that could ease the passage of my folks, I don't care how many unthinking, unfeeling, embryos they need to bin, to research this stuff. Three cheers for the thinking future. Three boos for brainless rhetoric.
identical twins been doing this for years.
even better, I can ensure my new body/face is exceptionally good looking and thus I can be a film/rock star in my second "incarnation".
the only snag is I'm too lazy to earn the money to pay for it all, but with my new patent on "body replacement therapy", I should earn it!
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!! !!
sorry!
Even before the patents expire, this knowledge will improve our understanding of 'how things work', even if we are not free to create inventions that use this knowledge for the first seventeen years.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
That depends on the spineless of the bootlickers in Congress.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Did it occur to you that the benifit of releasing new drugs more rapidly out weights the risks? Take for example anti-HIV/AIDS medication. If we tested it for two generations not even the most primitive types would be available and there whould be a lot fewer people still living with HIV/AIDS. As another example consider new antibiotics - lifesavers that we can't develop fast enough, would cost a lot of lives to delay them any more (my mom is a Nurse and tells me all about it).
This story (and many others) revolve around academic stem cell research... not private research. Furthermore, we're also not talking about pharmaceuticals. We're talking about research that will probably be published for all to see.
/
We need to get rolling on this stuff with out being inhibited by politicians pandering to uniformed voters.
And even if this does lead to a private company eventually developing a procedure or medication for a serious illness, we'll can deal with pricing fixing and patent abuse if it arises. Look at AIDs medication. If you come up with something that saves a lot of lives and you make the drug unattainable - people march in the streets.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/view
I'm not saying that it's a good thing for people to be forced to do that, yet if something is important enough, people don't remain idle.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
damn... typos galore.
Oh well.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Should we close our eyes and pretend that the benefits doesn't exist? The future baby has already died. Don't let it die completely in vain.
See here you run the risk of putting a market value (possibly an incredibly high one) on the results of abortions. What happens if stem cells start to become worth thousands of dollars per sample? You will have women queueing up to supply the demand. People might start making careers out of it. That is an unethical abomination, and thats what everyone should be trying to avoid.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
From the comments I've read it seems everyone has a poor understanding of what a "soul" is.
The English word "soul" is synonym to the Latin word "anima", which in turn is the root of words like "animated", "reanimate" etc. Its meaning is thus very simple: soul is whatever that causes something to move by itself. So, "to have a soul" means simply "to be able to move by itself". That's all.
Now, the "whatever" part is important, because it does not imply that the soul needs to be some kind of "supernatural entity". A plain textbook explanation of the inner workings of a biological body fits the concept very well. As a result, anyone that says that a embryo "has no soul" is not only missing the point, but also showing he doesn't know the meaning of the words he uses. A human embryo has a soul as much as a cat, a cat embryo, a virus, a clone, a tree, a black hole, a volcano, the Sun, the Earth, individual cells, or, for that matter, anything else that makes, generates or maintains any movement by itself.
Removing the "has/hasn't a soul" issue from the discussion is a must for any meaningful treatment of the subject. For something to have a soul is not a big deal. There's nothing "special" in having a soul. Either things move (themselves and other things), or are moved by things that move, and that's all there is to it.
So, what is the issue, then? This is it: whether embryos are or aren't persons. If they are, then the full set of rights and obligations pertaining to persons also apply to them. If they aren't, then these rights and obligations don't apply.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
It's that time of year where lots of people find themselves constantly sniffling and sneezing. I'm not a hayfever sufferer myself, but I know plenty of people who are. I was thinking just the other day that Hayfever is quite a ridiculous affliction, since it's essentially an intolerance of the outside world! Surely we should be adapted to live in the world we live in?
So while hayfever sufferers do have my sympathy at this time of year, I can't help but wonder where we went wrong that such a large number of people have bodies that are incapable of dealing with summer.
And I wonder what Easter will be like.
A sig is just a sig, unless you can shoot it. Sig Steyr, for the distinguishing CT.
Sickle cell anemia doesn't protect anybody against malaria.
Sickle cell anemia is caused by a recessive mutation in one of the genes that encodes a particular globine proteïne.
When it occurs homozygotically, the allel causes sickle cell amenia. Red blood cells are sickle shaped, and can't bind oxygen as well. Results in short breath, higher bp, and basically an earlyer death (your hart has to work harder).
When this allel occurs heterozygotically (one mutation in one chromosome, the other chromosome still caries the dominant wild-type verson of the gene), it causes more resistance to malaria. But the red blood cells (hemoglobine) still binds oxygen as it would in anybody else.
Sickle cell anemia doens't have anything to do with malaria. Increased resistance just explains its prevalance.
I do love "!" but not as much as I love "..."...
I guess some of you have a quite expicit picture in your mind, a little less developed baby, as somebody here even said baby killer. May be you should know that cloning an embryo to "produce" stem cells means, that you have a developing human, yes, but this developing human is a little sphere of cells. This aggregation of cells becomes a blastocyst and one part of it becomes the embryo. Befor this happens you want to take out these cells, as these cells are omnipotent stem cells, which means they can develop and differenciate into different tissues, hopefully and only once there a implanted there. In the future they may even develop into tissue ex vivo i.e. outside of your body, but thats far fetched.
If you say that this amount of cells are already a human being, than you have to monitor every female human, as natural failure after fertilization occurs every moment. Most women get pregnant and lose their "baby" in the first six weeks without even noticing.
Cloning human (tissue even) is certainly something one should discuss, but keep in mind that you put a very high value on one unborn human, while the same society doesn't have any problem in spending 100 times more on military (and using it) than others on medicine.
Furthermore all the implications this may have on society should be discussed; a longer life span, but less and less work for everybody (now a problem in europe and US, soon one in china and india), who will get the benefit, the one with money or everybody? In other words will we have rich 1000 year old and poor that won't reach the age of 80?
Certainly a lot to discuss, but you have to get some background knowledge, otherwise it is just "I have a strong feeling against it"...
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
So if either one is not absent permanently, he stays human ?
How long are you going to wait until you declare the absence of the two criteria permanent ? An embryo only needs a small number of months in the right environment to begin developing memories.
Harvard seems to have totally forsaken its once-christian heritage.
What? You know what, christian fundamentalists / evangelists / baptists and islamic fundies are basically exactly similar. They go nuts if a woman shows an ankle, you go nuts if a woman shows a nipple. Basically you both hate women. See, this is why the nutty religious cults were driven out of Europe some centuries ago, no one wanted you psychopaths near them. Unfortunately this time the loopers found a whole new continent to dodge the age of enlightenment in, and the result is what we have in the US today. Sigh. I wonder how long it will take for the US to drive out you nutty little fudgepackers? Now thats a crusade I'd sign up for...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
How about orphans - no family or home there either. This will always be a problematic area, because one persons ok point is waaay past someone elses moral boundary. What about the guy who has no kids and is a rotten person, maybe a pretty criminal - does he get right to this embryo. What if the embryo was to be the next Stephan Hawking? After all, he has a horrible genetic mutation and his embryo could have saved some mediocre lawyer at the RIAA who had 2.3 kids and a cute puppy, who needed heart stem cells.
Use your head man, and think about the ramifications of your actions. Given the chance to abuse something, humans will gladly jump into the void and take advantage of it.
I am in favor of stem cell research, but to avoid problems like I mentioned, I think the only way to do this is by working on cell collections that lack the potential to become a human if given the chance. I.E. grow a "fetus" that has all of its brain cells "knocked out"(deleted from its DNA) or missing its heart and lungs, etc.
..........FULL STOP.
The only difference between your use of civil disobedience and his is that you're much less likely to succeed in swaying public opinion to your cause.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The ethical issue is precisely on how one defines "a person". You defined "a person" this way, others do so otherwise, others have a 3rd alternative, and so on. And since the definition itself is problematic, we must conclude that any practical decision regarding this issue, such as pursuing or not medical experiments with embryos, or allowing or not abortions, is always done without the proper ethical background being in place.
This also means that every practical act taken, no matter if pro or against, is actually a "brute force" act, what implies another level of ethycal considerations, namely: is a forced practical solution to a philosophical dilemma ethically valid? How does one consistenly fundaments such an "ethichs of forced solution"? And so on, and so on.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Then, as Malcolm from Jurassic Park, says: Nature finds a way to control what is being done. SO now we cure certain problems, and new ones will arise.
Do you realize how arbitrary your distinction is? Are Humans not part of Nature? But hey if we are throwing around movie quotes to demonstrate some sort philosophic superiority, here:"Tyler from Fight Club says: Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart."
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Harvard is going to spend good money and time running around after this new alleged holy grail when huge advances and actual treatments have been made using Adult Stem Cells. The more we look the more sources of adult stem cells we find.
Maybe Embryonic Stem Cells will one day be useful but I seriously doubt we're talking in the 10-50 year time frame. They're only just starting to deal with issues about creating these cells and have to deal with the whole cloning issue if they're going to avoid the rejection problems that face the current Embryonic Stem Cells from alternative sources. Once they tackle cloning then they still have to deal with implanting this cells and triggering them and then controlling them after that.
So let's tackle the issues of triger and control with the already available Adult Stem Cells and leave cloning alone.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd hate to set the precident that humans created in the lab are less valueable than the ones that are already born.
I just wish there was a way to harvest stemcells without destroying the embryo. it has to be possible... somehow.
President Bush didn't ban embryonic stem cell research. In fact, it was the Bush administration that provided the first federal dollars towards such research. Now, hid administration certainly added a lot of conditions for those dollars to deal with the moral issues involved, but there has been no federal ban and in fact there have been federal dollars instead.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
IIUC, most of the embryo's that are used are already going to die anyway!! If that is morally reprehensible then talk about stopping that negative action (i.e. the fertility treatments, and abortions). Not the possible positive results which would prevent it from being a total waste.
Quantum Physics a.k.a. sub-molecular statistics
We do not know at what point the consciousness starts to develop in human embryo. Without knowing this, in fact without not even knowing human psyche, it is plain murder to commit such 'research'.
Read radical news here
(I'm afraid they won't be able to drive me out, since I don't even live in the US of A. See, not all so-call fundamentalists live there). Just in case you don't know, the Puritans didn't leave England because they wanted to dodge the age of Enlightenemnt (which is the 18th century), but rather because they were discontent with the Church of England of their time (which was the 16th/17th century). BTW, when they were supposedly "driven out", 99.9% of people in Europe were also, according to your criteria, "fundies" (I assume that by fundie, you mean somebody who dares say that the Bible is right, how silly of him?). I don't really see how saying that it might not be alright for a woman to show her nipples means that you are some sort of misogynous jerk ? Do you really believe that it's a sign of freedom for a woman to dress in outfits that don't leave much to the imagination. And, just so you know it, I'm as opposed to revealing clothing for men as I am for women, so it's absolutely not a case of double-standards. Very often, I hear people rant about how fundies are bad, how you can be a good christian and believe in everything liberal theology teaches. Maybe you have faith in both orthodox christianity and subscribe to the widespread belief that the Bible is mostly myth, but that would simply mean that you faith would be baseless (which is stupid).
Phase 1 : Perfect human cloning. Phase 2 : Sterylize the general population. Phase 3 : Wait Phase 4 : Declare myself supreme overloard
I think the laws should be based on some kind of consensus, or at least compromise of the whole societies morals. I also think to attain acceptable comprimises for most, the laws should allow for a lot.
Ofcourse there will always be some people for which the comprimise is unacceptable. They should try change the law via changing other peoples morals by transfer of ideas.
There will still be people for whom this is not possible, they can:
-live by the law anyway, to keep the peace
-just violate the law and risk getting cought
-violently try to change the law (by taking power)
The enforcement of the law will try to stop the 2nd and 3rd, with support of any of the people "agreeing" with the law.
(im not saying anything here about how the compromise that becomes the law is reached, nor how the law should be enforced)
As opposed to you and your oppressive religion telling them?
When you are theofacists going to get it through you heads that you don't have the right to force me to cowtow to your false god?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
yeah thats nice and all, but, when will researchers do something usefull... like clone lindsay lohan for me a couple times :P
That's the spirit. If you really believe in it, you should follow through on that. If you're committed to changing thinking about it, you should publicize it and evangelize. I don't think you'll change many minds, though. This is the path by which many of our most unjust laws have been overturned with time, though.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Aren't there any areas we should stay away from _even_ if they would help us cure diseases?
I'm not sure myself. Why don't you get back to us when you or a loved one has a terminal or highly disabilative illness.
Or just perhaps when you or a loved one have an accident and become a quadrapalegic... Once you've gone through something like that perhaps you can better answer your own question.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Cannibal:
1. A person who eats the flesh of other humans.
2. An animal that feeds on others of its own kind.
Um. yeah. Because Cannibalism is the eating of the flesh of one's own kind. That's it. There is nothing about how you acquired the flesh or why you ate it. This is a very simple definition.
I think you are trying to make some religion-based argument tying into abortion. How boring.
Blar.
Then identical twins only have half a soul each.
No. Only one of them has one... the other is the evil twin.
"Survival of the Fittest" doesn't take into account existenisal risks. As in... Meteor impacts, gamma ray bursts, or climate change.
Otherwise the dinosaurs would still be around. Once could say mammals adapted and were the fittest but if you look at humans you will realize we aren't built to survive major disastors and even cold weather. The only reason we were able to survive the past 100,000 is our brains and our tools.
Our only salvation in the future is not genetics, but our technology.
As they say... "The reason the dinosaurs died out is because they didn't have a space program."
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
That's five Michael Jordans and a coach.
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
If we know nothing of the function of conciousness, especially when it begins, your definitive allegation of murder makes no sense. You have defeated yourself from within your own argument. Check your premises and you will find that one of them is wrong.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I'm seeing a lot of Slashdot comments suggesting that the Harvard researchers aren't going to get very far because the U.S. government is going to shut them down. There is no legislation (at the moment!) to support such an action; In the recent controversy over government regulation of stem cell research, Congress passed a law which denies federal funding to researchers who use artificially fertilized embryos to produce stem cell lines. The article specifically mentions that Harvard is doing this with private funding. They're home free; I wish 'em luck.
Let's add a check box to the IRS form. Check it if you want some of your tax dollars used to fund this kind of research, don't check it if you are opposed.
...
If you've always opposed this kind of research then you are not allowed to benefit from any of the treatments that may come about as a result of it. Let's see what these social conservatives have to say if it leads to cures or significant improvements in treating some of these horrible diseases somewhere down the line should they themselves become afflicted. Any nut job who takes things on "faith" (aka they believe absolutely in what they read in a book and/or in what they are told to believe in by others without any other outside supporting evidence) should not be allowed to make scientific and/or medical decisions for the rest of the country.
I don't hear many of these social conservatives bitching and moaning that their tax dollars are being used to fund the war in Iraq. Not a peep about their tax dollars being used to execute inmates. The whole "sanctity of life" principle as espoused by social conservatives is kind of selective thing, isn't it? How convenient
The human body often self-aborts a fetus before the woman is even aware she is pregnant. Miscarraiges are what they are called if the woman is aware she is preganant, but it is the same system. There are some built in bodily systems to determine if this embryo is viable and if NOW is a good time to carry it to term. Is miscarriage a case of manslaughter? If not, then why are autonomous bodily systems allowed to determine if an embryo lives or dies, but the human BRAIN cannot?
Blar.
I don't oppress anyone, and I don't plan on forcing you to worship my not-false-at-all God (why would I want to do that, compelling you to you worship the Lord is not going to make him content). If a woman WANTS (as opposed to : she feels compelled to do so because it's what hip, fashionable,...) to wear near-to-nothing, that's Okay with me (as long as she does not do it right in front of me, for the sole purpose of offending people like me who might object to such revealing clothing). Once again, I don't hate women. I just consider that it's not right for them and anyone else to run around half-naked.
Does anyone here really believe that our society has a healthy relationship to sex ? I wonder what the first feminists (who fought for real issues like giving women the right to vote) would say if somebody told them that true gender equality means that women have the right to act like prostitutes just because men indulge in debauchery too... Our society has because so obsessed with sex that even children now behave in questionable ways (I've read articles about 10 years old who raped 8 y.o's,...).
More to the point, I would not support a ban on provocative clothing (hey, it's a free country, right ?), unlike some atheists fundies who object to the mere mention of religion in public schools (who's intolerant ?).
(Anyway, this does not have anything to do with human cloning. My question is : what if you were told that they're going to kill you because it might one day save some rich guy ? Would you say 'I'd be happy to do it ? I guess not).
Many of us contend that a belief in God is an easy answer.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
2 generations?! Why not just let the disease run it's course and kill as many people as it can until the human race developes a natural immunity or is wiped off the face of the Earth? Who decides what motive are worthy enough to save a life? If someone discovers a cure for AIDS, I think they should me more famous than any rockstar, who cares what drove them to do it. Scientific succeses are only matched by their failures, does that mean we should stop trying? No. What sort of cop-out is using canned statements like "meddling with nature"? If we didnt "meddle with nature" we would still be dying from Polio or small pox. No cure is 100% certain and noone can predict the long-term effects of any treatment. Who knew, when it was discovered, that diseases easily treated with Penicillin would evolve to become resistant to it.
That homeless guy has a rough life. No home. No family.
Let's harvest his organs.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Then again killing flies just because they annoy you is also plain murder and no one would claim it is immoral eventhough it has probably a more important ecological impact.
Im liberal, democrat, hippie and therefore I am against violence, but is some cases like this one, I fail to see the immorality.
"Boohoohoo the poor embryo had its pain nerves stimulated oh the humanity !!!"
I think we can be certain consciousness does not develop before the nervous system.
From the article they are harvesting cells after 5 days and the nervous system starts to develop after 17 day.
I assume that changes you mind about this, unless, of course, you think one can have consciousness without a nervous system.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
But then the research started pouring in, showing that there were alternative methods to obtaining stem cells
Adult cells changed into stem cells are "pluripotent". Embryonic stem cells are "totipotent" Adult stem cells are no replacement for embryonic stem cells.
illustrating that the potential benefits could be reaped without all of the controversy.
All those embryos are still being killed. Embryonic stem cells come from the leftovers of in vitro fertilization. Restricting research has not saved a single embryo, it has just made sure that little good comes of their destruction.
The Bush policy on stem cells is a travesty.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Law itself is based on morality. I cannot think of any law which you cannot tie directly or indirectly to morality. Murder, stealing, etc.
Speeding? Concern for the safety of others.
So the "don't legislate morality" argument is a canard.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Princeton scientists have decided to clone the clones of human embryos.
When asked about the decision, a representative said: 'One upmanship? Competitiveness? Don't be ridiculous. A scientist knows not of these things.'
(Anyway, this does not have anything to do with human cloning. My question is : what if you were told that they're going to kill you because it might one day save some rich guy ? Would you say 'I'd be happy to do it ? I guess not).
What this has to do with cloning, human or otherwise, is that religious facist, such as yourself, demand that your beliefs take precedence of over science. You believe a certain way because of you religion and act accordingly. Now those who believe as you do wish force scientists and researcher to behave as though you are correct, regardless of the evidence.
Once again, the church seeks to oppress the truth and science.
Your question is a red herring. An embryo is not a person. It is a small clump of cells that has only a potential of becoming a fetus, which then has a potential to become a human. The only thing that makes an embryo in any way human is that it has 46 chromosomes. Using that standard, cancer tumors are human and we should not remove them.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It just seems like pattens are lasting longer and longer and copyrights are too.
Still, this time frame would be about the same if the gov funded parts of it or if the private sector did it. Maybe electing politicians who will change the law to read something to the sort of "if your research uses government funds, your patten period on anything dirived from that research is reduced to 1/3 the normal and original time aloted not to exceed 5 years" and Then i would be happy to support politician favorable to that cause. Untill then, It just seems like some corperate welfare.
See, not all so-call fundamentalists live there
The ones with any juice live there. Tell me where you live and I'll drive you out of that, so.
the Puritans didn't leave England because they wanted to dodge the age of Enlightenemnt
Aha yes, well you are making the mistaken assumption that I was talking about the classical age of Enlightnment. I was rather referring to the point in time when significant powers in Europe started giving demented cults of personality the final heave-ho. You know, became enlightened.
I assume that by fundie, you mean somebody who dares say that the Bible is right, how silly of him?
So lets see here, you are saying that this book which contains a variety of often self contradicting stands on various issues, this book can be either "right" or "wrong"? Jaysus. As an historical document, its fairly entertaining. As a guide to how life is to be lived, you could do worse than certain passages. As an ironclad method to decide your every action, you are off your head, and a menace to yourself and society. Hence the crusade.
Do you really believe that it's a sign of freedom for a woman to dress in outfits that don't leave much to the imagination.
I know its a sign of slavery to forbid it, bub. And what the hell is wrong with you, you don't want to see a womans nipples? You think god gave her those as a mark of shame? Demned sodomites. CRUSADE!
And, just so you know it, I'm as opposed to revealing clothing for men as I am for women, so it's absolutely not a case of double-standards.
So you're an equal opportunities idiot. Splendid.
Very often, I hear people rant about how fundies are bad, how you can be a good christian and believe in everything liberal theology teaches.
I am not any kind of christian. I am however a very spiritual person, who lives by what I consider good morals and rules of behaviour. the only time I try to inflict those rules on others is when I meet dullard bible-junkies that honestly need a good infliction or two.
aybe you have faith in both orthodox christianity and subscribe to the widespread belief that the Bible is mostly myth, but that would simply mean that you faith would be baseless (which is stupid)
What the fuck is that? Russian orthodox or Greek orthodox? Or some peculiar vision of "straight" christianity? What a tiny little narrow world you live in, to be sure. I myself am a fan of Diderot; mankind will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
How long are you going to wait until you declare the absence of the two criteria permanent ? An embryo only needs a small number of months in the right environment to begin developing memories.
Thing is, that environment is a *person*. If there's a person willing to carry that embryo for those months, that's great, but what if there isn't? We can't use someone's body against their will (how would you feel if you were *forced* to donate bone marrow, or a kidney, or whatever) so in that case there just isn't an evironment for the embryo to live in long enough to develop memories.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
OSU (ohio state), one public school for example, owns copyrights, pattens and licenses them on a number of inventions or processes it has developed from schoolastic research. They have also sold the pattens outright to to ga other companies to gain funding for some projects. Just because it is acedemic doesn't mean it is immune to those things i mentioned.
Now, if your lucky and enough people who are effected by the same disease, marching in the streets might be an option. I'm not convinced that would cover everything this research could help.
The question I can never seem to get a straight answer to is this:
If somehow they manage to develop a cure for, say diabetes, using embryonic stem cells, what happens when the twenty million Americans (not to mention the untold millions around the world) who suffer from this disease come knocking at the door demanding the cure? How many embryos will we now need to create/destroy? The numbers needed just to do the research are negligible in comparison, I would think.
Do we really want to open this box, Pandora?
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
"Do you really believe that it's a sign of freedom for a woman [man] to dress in outfits that don't leave much to the imagination."
I just gave up 3 mod points on this discussion to answer YES!
All the major religions teach tolerance, yet many ardent followers preach the opposite, sexual mores and drugs are two of the most powerfull "wedge" issues that can be used to divide a modern western population. The Queen, the pope, the president and the peasant all scratch their arse with one hand. Apart from notifyable diseases and the mentally ill, what gives any of them the right to in anyway intefere in what I wear, what I do/don't put into my body or what I do in a sexual encounter with a consenting adult? Don't try too hard to answer that, I have been asking similar questions since I was a teenager and I'm now approaching 50, the best answer I have heard so far is "crack babies" but saving a few crack babies (so they can be alcohol/nicotine babies?) doesn't justify the misery caused by the intolerant and their violently conflicting mores.
Disclaimer: My partner is religious (BAC) and yet somehow manages to tolerate my views to the point of downloading porno clips and showing me the ones that make her horny.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I'd like to see most medications tested for at least 2 generations before being released -- it wouldn't halt everything, but it might stop a reoccurance of Thalidimide...
Whether you like it or not, drug development is a commercial decision. Getting a drug to market costs in the order of $600 million and takes around 7-15 years. Remember that unless this company has products on the market (there aren't actually that many market approved drugs around, so basically nobody except the big pharma companies) it is making no revenue during this time. Patents last 20 years, so a drug company then has maybe 5-13 years to make money from the drug to recover R&D costs.
This is why drugs are developed for highly profitable markets, say $500million/yr (e.g. insulin, heart disease, cancer, aids etc) - it's just not worth it commercially to spend that amount of money and time on a small, select disease population, no matter how crippling the disease or how urgent the clinical need is. And if pharma companies don't produce these drugs and put them through clinical trials, nobody else will - not government, not universities.
Of the 10-15 year development and approval process, probably 7 years is in clinical trials. If you extended this to 2 generations, you would instantly kill off the entire drug development industry and NOBODY would ever develop these drugs.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
A friend of mine once told me "Science isn't perfect, but when it comes understanding this existence its the only game in town that is based on logic and reproducible evidence." Christianity and the moral stance that "Life" should be held precious and sacred is based in ideology diametrically opposed to the actions of most Christians and well humanity for that matter. We as a human race need to take into consideration our history as individuals and as a species and decide if we truly value "Life". As a species we have the ability to create and destroy, our history has shown we have excelled in both arenas. Christianity has had approximately 2000 years of existance and in that time has done very little to advance man's understanding of the universe (it can be argued that this was a means of politically controlling and thereby increasing the wealth of those in power but that is another topic). Bottom line for me is that basing ones belief structure on the thoughts, ideas, and hopeful wishes of under-educated nomadic sheep herders or subjugated peoples of the Roman Empire may have been applicable to its time, but individuals who chose to do so now are clinging to ignorance. Opposing the cloning of human embyonic cells for purpose of researching cures for diseases is ridiculous. The issue would be moot if these were plant embryonic cells or shark embryonic cells, because humans in general are anthropocentric, with Christianity being extremely so, we have the pleasure of listening to the ignorant masses clamour against something that could benefit even loudest objector. True science should speak nothing of nor adhere to the prevailing morality of any age, especially one based on the convictions of a cult no matter its size, its sole purpose is to experiment, catalogue, and attempt to understand. Historically if this was done, Da Vinci would never have disected cadavers (morally and spirtually taboo in his day). We would still think bacterial and viral infections were demons possessing the bodies of the afflicted and call priests for help. Information is not bad. Words are not bad. How people make use of information or words is where the debates on morality should start. So please before you discount someone's research or declare a topic of research morally reprehensible and start protesting Harvard science labs, think about all the things Science and innovation has done for you. Electricity, fresh water to your homes, waste removal, immunization, refridgeration, and the list goes on. I tend to like these things and appreciate the fact that there are humans out there trying to further improve our understanding of the universe and help me live longer to enjoy it. "Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence." -RAWilson
Belief is the death of intelligence. As one assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. RAW
Everything discovered will have a [patent] placed on it. Any treatment will be so costly that the people objecting to it on [its] morality will probably never be able to [afford] the treatments.
Viagra is patented. Is it priced so high no one can use it? Hugh Hefner (admittedly a rich fellow) calls it the world's best recreational drug. (Why he's not the spokesperson seems like the world's biggest missed marketing opportunity.)
No. It's priced to make money, sure, lots of money even, but people buy something because they feel it's more valuable than the money they paid for it. Granted, medical expenses are distorted by insurance, but the basic principle still shows through on some level.
I'd pay just about any price to solve my father's cardiac problems, and be happy doing so.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
you are creating life precisely to destroy it.
So we can breed cattle to kill them, but cloning them directly would be wrong?
You are making young humans simply to strip-mine them for their desired cells and parts.
Not young humans, potential humans. These things aren't humans yet and, since lab created embryos
are generally not even viable (wouldn't survive to full term), these things aren't even really
potential humans.
But assuming that these things could eventually become humans, is having the potential to be
human sufficient to grant them the same rights and protections that humans get?
Do they suffer? No.
Do they even feel? No.
Is this any different from cloning liver tissue in a lab? No.
Remind me again what the arguments against this are. I can't seem to come up with any.
*sigh* back to work...
In the analogy given, this would be like bombing Hiroshima every few years, each time saying afterward, "Well, you know, it's a shame that this happened, but we can at least use this for some good and not let these people die in vain."
No, it's more like Hiroshima's being nuked constantly, and then some tiny villiage gets bombed once. Then the make love not war types get all in a snit over the tiny villiage, ignoring the people dying in Hiroshima or even coming up with convoluted arguments to continue bombing in Hiroshima.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
So, you personally ignore all of what G-d does in the Old Testament then I imagine? He sure does a lot of killing in it.
...two embryos of the same sex don't try to get married, the Bush administration won't mind.
That is a shady matter. There are many species that does not have a centralized nervous system, yet that are acceptably complex, responsive to their environment. This defines that in order to live, you do not need a central nerve system. What we dont know is that, if a high level consciuosness can exist in a body that does not have a central nervous system.
Read radical news here
Nay, for the opposite is true too.
You cant commit an act that has the possibility of being a murder by declaring 'we dont know if it is or not yet'.
Read radical news here
I am sorry, but if you start argueing with consciousness, than you could even allow to kill a baby which is about a half a year old. Consciousness does imply that you are aware of your self. Talk to psychologists, neurologists and philosopher, they all agree that it is dangerous to argue with consciousness because it develops after birth.
And even if you would asume that there is sth. like it before, it won't be there before a brain develops and this is certainly not the case before the neuroblast has formed. A cell or several cells for sure won't have consciousness.
Don't get me wrong, I have severe difficulties to judge in this topic, but arguing with consciousness is very dangerous, that's why so many people argue with the possibility of human life.
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
A glaring design error. Please fix!
damaged by dogma
So we can breed cattle to kill them, but cloning them directly would be wrong?
No, I have no problem with either. You mean that I am okay with the killing of innocent animals to reasonably provide for human needs but not the killing of innocent human beings? Yes, that is exactly what I mean.
Not young humans, potential humans. These things aren't humans yet and, since lab created embryos are generally not even viable (wouldn't survive to full term), these things aren't even really potential humans.
When do they become humans? When the "scientists" from Harvard tell us so? You are right that they are not viable yet (cannot survive outside the womb at this point), but that is not to say that they are not humans. Babies today are viable much, much earlier than they were 50 years ago, because of medical technology. According to your logic, that means that babies at six months were not human then, but they are now. What if babies who are not viable now (and therefore not human, you would say) become viable 50 years from now, thanks to advances in medicine? Would they be therefore be human?
How many friends friends have you had that have miscarried after a few weeks? As they cried over the loss of their babies, did you reassure them that they had only lost some "tissue," no different from, as you say, as "liver"?
Spoken by someone not dying of the virus/disease during that 2 generations.
It's not quite that black and white. Sometimes patients are the ones pushing these things. Better to try something new and experimental then just lay back and die.
SO now we cure certain problems, and new ones will arise.
Are you advocating stopping scientific progress because some unforseen event might occur in the future? That even might happen if you do your science or not. Not much of a way to live.
Then, as Malcolm from Jurassic Park, says: Nature finds a way to control what is being done
Dude, it was a book/movie. Crichton doing what he does best, telling a good story. I don't think I would include quotes from hollywood movies as evidence of a position in science is all I'm saying. The book would have been really boring if Nedry hadn't shut the system down :P
That the rest of the world regards them as something undesirable?
One of the fundamental moral objections to cloning is that it would create a world in which people were genetically engineered to conform to their expected role in society. Nobody wants a geek. Instead, we would have a monoculture in which everyone had "optimal" characteristics - i.e., non-geeky, sports-loving, beer-swilling, do-as-your-told types. The geek would become even more marginalized as an outcast.
And the other primary objection is the matter of creating human life only to destroy it. Our nation has a history of exploiting the weaker classes in inhumane and cruel ways; imagine how cruel we would become if we grew people for no reason other than "harvesting" of their organs to prolong the lives of the wealthy. At what point is a human not a human? If we can arbitrarily draw the line at the embryo stage, what is to prevent us from making additional qualifications? For example, at first, to qualify as a human, one would have to be past the embryo stage. But as soon as scientists believe that fetuses could contain the secrets to life-saving cures, fetuses would be considered non-human. And then, children - but only defective children, that is, those with some illness so debilitating they would surely thank us for ending their lives early. And soon it would progress to the point where anyone who didn't meet arbitrary genetic criteria would be considered better off dead. And humanity would suffer for it.
There's an interesting verse in the Bible: Jeremiah 32:35, "They built high places to Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and immolated their sons and daughters to Molech, bringing sin upon Judah; this I never commanded them, nor did it even enter my mind that they should practice such abominations." Apparently, the notion of sacrificing the young for the sake of prolonging the lives of the old is not new; it was a part of pagan religious practice nearly 3 millenia ago. And, interestingly, those who support the cloning of embryos have the same fanatical belief that sacrificing the young will somehow make our lives better. Just like the pagans, they can't explain how, but they are sure that cures are just around the corner. And this in spite of the fact that adult stem cell therapies are being used now to treat diseases such as Parkinsons.
But, I suppose if the stem cell cloners want to sacrifice humans to their pagan god of eternal life, they will find a way to do it. The truly unfortunate part is that they are killing some humans for a remote chance at curing others. Who gets to decide who is worthy to be cured, and who is a research subject? Are humans even qualified to decide who deserves to live, and who doesn't?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
When you apply a concept like this to anyone, you simply have to find the angle at which they will appreciate it and accept it.
Oh well, im not approving abortion either.
As for asking psychologists, i rescind. Oftimes i see an intro titled "why psychology is a science" in some psychology course books. A science that needs to prove to the people it is a science doesnt have a strong position to hold on to yet, i believe.
Notwithstanding, we have not been able to get any applied form of psychology that radically changes our lives still, in contrast to other sciences. Even in treating mental disorders, most often they resort to sedative drugs. When someone is sedated, its not a treatment - its just suppression.
Read radical news here
Yes, if only scientists could be free to walk under ladders and break mirrors, their experiments would be much easier to carry out.
Oh, wait, by "silly superstitions," you meant ideas like "life is sacred because God created it." Ideas accepted and elaborated by great minds throughout the centuries, which you so easily dismiss.
Even without considering whether those "superstitions" are based on truth, I think it's clear that a world where straight logic ruled would be unpleasant. Logic might suggest you should experiment on the homeless for the good of "productive" members of society. Logic might say you should kill those with genetic diseases to clean the gene pool. And that's assuming that you even WANT to work for the good of society - a rather vague, moral idea in itself.
I can't prove the sanctity of life in a lab, but I'd hate to live in a world where that "superstition" was thrown out the window. Progress indeed. But toward what?
Seriously, well put. I'm going to remember that line of reasoning. But then, Jebus was a vampire who wanted us to drink his blood so we would have everlasting life with him after we died, so I imagine Christians would really be okay with the whole sticking a tube in your neck and feeding off of you thing.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Now IS the time, because later on may be too late. Let's put all our cards on the table. If the government wants to interfere in privately-funded research to potentially cure/prevent diseases like Parkinson's, let's make them actually do it, so that for once people actually know where all the players stand. Did Darwin clear his findings with the fundamentalists? Did Galileo wait for the Church to accept the Copernican model of the Universe? Did Socrates change his mind at the behest of the Athenians? How many will have to die this time before resistance to narrow-mindedness becomes acceptable?
But I bet you're willing to eat yogurt even though you can't know for certain that the yogurt bacteria are not conscious. I bet you use paper, even though you can't know for certain that the trees are not conscious. And I bet your house has a foundation that was cut into the surface of the Earth, even though -- let's face it -- you can't know for certain that the Earth itself isn't conscious.
So you have exactly two internally consistent options. You could be utterly paralyzed and unable to live a remotely normal life for fear that you will hurt or kill something that you can't be certain isn't conscious, or you could admit that human rights come from being human and not from being conscious, that you can't even really define consciousness, and that embryos are biologically no more sophisticated than the yogurt bacteria, the paper trees, or the Earth's crust.
I think we are all agreed on this. Otherwise, nice job!
That's what we've always done. It's only by forging into new territory that we are able to maintain our edge. Full steam ahead, I say! They're not talking about birthing a clone, they will let it develop along to the multicelluar stage then harvest the stem cells. And bottom line, I always look at it this way: Someone Is Going To Do It Sooner Or Later. If America wants to stay on top of the science pile, and if humanity wants to continue to thrive and make advances, then we *need* to do this. It is part of our natural curiosity to learn more about the world and ourselves and then use that knowledge in legitimate and helpful ways. Carpe diem!
Did you know that you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
to fund it, at a level ten times what the Administration "would" have, that would make a very strong argument that science funding and actual research has declined under the current Administration.
Me and half a lab doing malaria research got laid off when they cut infectious disease funding - they announced they were funding it, but they gave it half the money they did the prior year - for all US research in the area. The reality is that basic science funding is down, and if it weren't for people like Howard Hughes (HHMI) or Bill Gates, we'd be way behind all of Europe - and even behind China and Canada.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Let's add a check box to the IRS form. Check it if you want some of your tax dollars used to fund this kind of research, don't check it if you are opposed.
That's a fun little idea to one day "stick it" to people who didn't support this sort of research. However, government doesn't work that way -- we all contribute to the pot, and the government funds basic infrastructure, systems of social order, and ventures that may be helpful to society but not necessarily profitable for private investors.
How many friends friends have you had that have miscarried after a few weeks? As they cried over the loss of their babies, did you reassure them that they had only lost some "tissue," no different from, as you say, as "liver"?
When someone miscarries, they cry because they have an unfulfilled emotional
attachment to the idea of having a baby, not because they think the rights of
the embryo have been violated or that the embryo has suffered in any way.
There is no personal loss in the case of these fertility clinic left-overs.
They've already been abandoned and slated for destruction. They are just
tissue at this point and scavaging useful cells from them seems completely
reasonable to me.
*sigh* back to work...
If so, how do you determine who? Destruction of the embryo to save other lives is akin, in this argument, to saying that you determine the person to toss overboard by evaluating their life and determining which one has the fewest friends and family who will miss them, or alternatively by which is least capable of fending off the forced toss.
Its not only that, but the fact that an unborn person is really just theoretical. If we let this guy die and his family miss him, but yet... That unborn child may or may not be a saint. He could be the next Hitler for all we know. But we are with the understanding the personal alive is not a mass murder and isn't doing those things.
I know that is quite a pre-judgment, but that is the key difference between a theoretical person and an alive person is that we already know the person that is alive has proven himself to be a better person.
Secondly, the unborn person doesn't care at that point if he lives or dies... Until you gain a state of sentience you could care less. You have no emotions nor knowledge to care. Truth is... Ignorance is the ultimate form of happiness. If you know nothing about existence, what do you care about death.
Sentience is the key feature on this issue... The only thing that always made me wonder about the Religious take of the issue.
If you abort a child he goes to heaven right? If he is born, then there is a 50/50 change he will either follow god and go to heaven or become evil and not go to hell.
So wouldn't it be better for these souls if they died young and didn't have a chance to become evil? Therby saving their souls by default?
Unless of course god sends aborted children to hell? Who would follow an evil god like that though?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
But I bet you're willing to eat yogurt even though you can't know for certain that the yogurt bacteria are not conscious. I bet you use paper, even though you can't know for certain that the trees are not conscious. And I bet your house has a foundation that was cut into the surface of the Earth, even though -- let's face it -- you can't know for certain that the Earth itself isn't conscious.
I dont object to any of those points. As a matter of fact, there are times that i think that way. However i have to do this, despite i refrain from such 'ethically incorrect (in a far fetched sense)' practices, i wont be refusing and denying responsibility if someone or something came and claimed damages from me.
Also, i would prefer euthanasia if i was to live in the state you described.
Read radical news here
What we dont know is that, if a high level consciuosness can exist in a body that does not have a central nervous system.
Well, given the fact that human consciousness ends when the brain dies, I think we can safely assume that it can't begin without *some* kind of CNS.
You have a debatable argument. The thing is, I get all pissed when people talk about silly marginal ethics rules when 11 million people die every year because of hunger. Everything else just doesn't seem relevant to me. So they want to advance science by possibly killing conscious beings. All our hands are full of blood anyway (yes, I hold everyone responsible for those 11 million people), who are we to say what scientists are doing is unethical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viability
What about the friends who are relieved they miscarried, because their religious parents won't let them get an abortion, and they don't want to be doomed to a life of poverty (and don't want to doom an innocent child to poverty) just because their condom broke?
Doom? My friend you only show by your words how aweful our society has become. First of all, it is a lie that having a child will doom one to a "life of poverty." Sure, you might not be able to have the SUV and the vacation home you want, but that is a far cry from poverty. That is simply selfish materialism, and to sacrifice one's child on the altar of such self gratification is reprehensible. Second, you speak of "doom[ing] an innocent child to poverty." Even if he/she were to be born into poverty, you are dooming the child to death. I would rather choose poverty than death any day, as would any person. Simply ask any person who is in poverty if they would rather have their life of poverty or death and you will encounter only one answer. Even if you personally believe that death is better than poverty (demonstrating an absolutely disgusting materialism and snobbery), who are you to decide for that child? By the same token we should put other poor people out of their misery. Sure, they will object, but we certainly know best.
Well... there's also issue about the current nonexistence of brain transplant technology.
When someone miscarries, they cry because they have an unfulfilled emotional attachment to the idea of having a baby, not because they think the rights of the embryo have been violated or that the embryo has suffered in any way.
Just the "idea of having a baby"? Right. Posit that to any woman who has miscarried, and see for yourself the veracity of that nice little theory. Posit that to the woman (have you every known any?) who has held in her hand the miscarried fetus, watching him die and sobbing intensely. Ask her what she did with the "tissue," with the "potential human," with the "idea of having a baby." Ask her if she flushed it, like a fish, down the toilet or if she buried it. Ask her if she discarded it, like a tampon, in the garbage. Ask her if she sobbed similarly for a tampon, reflecting the failed attempt to have a baby. Cute theory, but fundamentally disconnected with reality, and heartless.
At the hunger issue, you have a point. But we have to take all matters as they come up. This came up today at slashdot, and were discussing this.
As for hunger, well, we dont have much to do as people here.
Gangs and tribes control african nations and the food we send doesnt reach the hands of the needy. Our governments do not do anything about these gangs, they just support whichever gang is closest to them. deadlock.
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It's like when a FDA guy said that when testing for a certain drug (don't remember the drug) was done 14,000 deaths a year would be stopped. Since testing took 4 years, one could also say they killed 56,000 people.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
If we consider the basic principle "Only kill people who are guilty of a terrible crime," I'm not sure where the moral contradiction is.
As far as I can tell, the usual pro-choice stance is "Don't kill people," with a different definition of "people". I can tell you that conservatives who see this principle stated, but don't understand that people is being defined differently (e.g. fetuses aren't people) think someone who supports abortion but it against the death penalty is being hypocritical. How can they be against the death penalty (death for guilty people) but for abortion (death for innocent people to satisfy the parents lust? Yes, that's how its seen. Don't argue with me about it; I can understand why it's seen differently.)
I really, really wish people wouldn't invent hypocrisy where it doesn't exist. The differences are in the definition of "people," and the honest debaters don't throw out manufactured misunderstandings.
10 points for realising I wasn't being serious
well, that will come - I saw it on Star Trek once, so it's bound to happen eventually!
Note to moderators... I wasn't being absolutely serious.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Fair enough, if the fetus is large enough to be recognizable as such, then the
mother is probably sincerely concerned for the dying fetus. However, a miscarried
embryo is microscopic and is never "held in the hand" once miscarried (it's similar
to a menstrual flow). The mother only realizes that she's miscarried if she already
knew she was pregnant. Otherwise it might just seem like a late period.
Let's not get too far from the discussion at hand: cloning of human embryos and
whether or not they deserve the same rights and protections of a human just
because they have the potential to become a human. Fully formed fetuses are
a different discussion.
*sigh* back to work...
Whatever happened to survival of the fittest?
Still going strong.
Is all this technology assisting with breeding a race of second rate homo sapiens?
Why stop at rare diseases? Let's breed a race of humans impervious to all diseases and injuries! I'm sure you'll be the first to refuse all medical treatments, in the name of the betterment of humanity's genetic stock.
You can't take the sky from me...
Don't be fooled by the BS claims that this will cure diseases. Nobody has ever received an infusion on embryonic stem cells and then been free of cancer 18 months later. Embryonic stem cells are a death sentence.
All those "miracle cures" come from adult stem cells.
Unforutnately, there are so many leftist stem-cell-fundamentalists who refuse to see the truth, that we will never get down to the research that can save lives.
Andy Out!
You say you dislike the parent's characterization of atomic bombs, but then you go on to paint this flowery picture about how much better it is than another practice we fought to abolish. These days we act like there is nothing imaginable that is worse than targeting and killing several thousand civilians just to get to the government, but yet we're supposed to brush off targeting hundreds of thousands for that same purpose? I am in support of both stem-cell research and the use of nuclear warfare to end supermassive wars quickly. Sometimes if it's a choice between one life that's already gone and an limitless number that can still be saved, I just think you have to consider that the majority has feelings too.
Yeah, we could have done a lot worse if we just set up our own Nazi-style concentration camps and just reduced their population down to zero. There were also very few other ways to get the desired terms out of the Japanese governt, but that doesn't mean that destroying cities to force an unconditional surrender can ever be anything like a humanitarian mission, no matter what it is compared to.
... when we have an army of liberal brainwashed clones! MWA HA HA HA HA!
Law itself is based on morality. I cannot think of any law which you cannot tie directly or indirectly to morality.
And ruining someone's life because they decided to smoke some weed is moral how?
Denying chronic pain sufferer relief from said weed is moral how?
Please include the original argument for that legislation in your explanation: The devil's weed turns people who try it into axe murderers (I kid you not).
You can't take the sky from me...
isn't this a 6th Day violation?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Look, it's not enough to go "aw, poor thing", whether you're talking about the planet, forests, cute endangered species, or embryos. You have to at least apply some frickin' logic and rational thought! Otherwise, even a batshit insane nutcase like Ann Coulter is going to eat you for breakfast when it comes to demolishing your positions. If you want to make a difference, be able to back up your ideas with reason. Otherwise, you're just hurting the cause.
"Harvesting Scientists to Clone Human Embryos?"
As much as you like to believe it isn't so, Europe can be just as ass backwards as any other nation.
1. Europe isn't a nation, 2. the difference is we actually cheer when a woman flashes her tits.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
No it didn't occur to him, he saw a movie about dinosaurs and now he's a believer.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
How many friends friends have you had that have miscarried after a few weeks? As they cried over the loss of their babies, did you reassure them that they had only lost some "tissue," no different from, as you say, as "liver"?
I miscarried at 6 weeks. The tissue and blood that came out of me was not a baby. I did not cry.
Women who cry over a miscarriage a few weeks in would cry just as much if they had gotten their periods a few weeks prior. That is to say, they are crying because they wanted to be pregnant now, and they're not. What comes out looks nothing like a baby, and could never be confused for one.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Hi,
// must never, NEVER kill!
;-)
> The question is: Are embryos alive and have free will.
Yes they are alive, as any scientist will happily confirm (if you disagree, read up on the 5 standard defining criteria for life, for instance in the works of Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela).
Whether they have free will is more difficult (old philosophical question), but if they don't then so you and me don't either.
> Alive is obviously not enough. Skin cells are alive. Plants are alive.
> Free will, or consciousness is the issue.
No. The issue is that we're talking _human_ embryos. Surely you can kill a plant,
for example to eat it (and if you're not vegetarian, you might agree that you
can kill chicken to eat them). But if you subscribe to the basic human right
to live and the basic human right to equal treatment you cannot just kill somebody
just because they're smaller (they will grow soon if not killed!) and because
they can't speak out for themselves yet (they will soon defend themselves if
not killed!)
> Can anyone say an embryo is conscious?
It is well known that emryos also dream, i.e. they do things in their sleep.
> They have a potential for consciousness, just like eggs and sperm have
> the potential for consciousness given the right conditions.
It is not settled among scientists exactly when conscience develops, but as
(as that's what the human rights say), thankfully we can decide about the ethic
question before reaching agreement on consciousness.
if ( isAlive && isHuman )
{
}
I believe that this argument is so strong that the only thing you can debate
above is the indentation of the curly braces
But seriously, think it through and ask yourself how you define "human being".
It boils down to accepting scientific facts for what they really are: a sperm
cell and an egg form a human being exactly when they unite, and that is the point
in time when there is another human being in existence. Consequently, this is
when the inalienable _rights_ of the (yet unnamed) individual begin.
May be invisibly small, may be week, but nobody kills it the embryo will grow,
be called a baby when left the womb, and he or she may even change the world one day.
Kindest regards
JLL
Posit that to any woman who has miscarried, and see for yourself the veracity of that nice little theory. Posit that to the woman (have you every known any?) who has held in her hand the miscarried fetus, watching him die and sobbing intensely.
Have YOU ever known a woman who had a miscarriage? First of all, the fetus/embryo is dead before the miscarriage, so no one's watched a miscarried fetus die. Second, if it's large enough to bury, then it was a stillbirth, not a miscarriage. Miscarriages, for the most part, wind up in the toilet.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Of course they own patents and copyrights. Heck, as a grad student I protect my research and work all the time. I've even seen faculty at ivy league universities flat-out steal and publish work that has not been protected (and get away with it).
That said, you can't really equate the use policies of an academic institution with those of a large private corporation. That's just silly.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Not exactly, no. I argue that it is inappropriate to assign less significance to an embryo than a more developed person because it is not our place to assign such significance. Who's life is more worth living is a seperate question and not related to me argument.
Therefore, whether the life were well-lived (whatever that means) or not, they are equally valuable.
And yes, this does mean I am not for IVF. But that's a whole different discussion.
-Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
Fifth. I am extremely annoyed by this. I like the overall redesign otherwise.
And why shouldnt i.
I not only stand by my statement, i am living by it for the last 9 years.
Read radical news here
NASA is now saying that possible life in remote worlds need not be even carbon based. There are theorists discussing if a silicon based rock-like life form evolution is possible. With all that, it is also possible that life may not need brain to be conscious.
What is consciousness ANYWAY ?
There are rednecks in usa in the understanding and responsiveness, iq & eq level of some highly developed squids. Why not treat them as pork then ?
Read radical news here
Why can't you? They aren't sticking it out there and saying we own the pattent and it is free or anyone to use. At best, there is very little differences outside one being private and the other being acedemic.
you live by what you consider to be good morals and rules of behavior - but how do you determine them and the fact that they're good?
The frame of "good" in this case was one I felt the individual I was addressing could reference easily, and didn't force me to belabour a nicely piquant demolishing. If the truth be known, the terms "good" and "bad" hold very little meaning in the larger scale, which is the only scale I generally address myself to, albeit in very small ways, most of the time. Like posting on slashdot.
There is only the truth of matters, and what you are going to do about them. Or not, as the case may be. All the opinions of "good" and "bad" in the world don't change the facts, and the facts are the only things that should guide one's actions. Everything else is conjecture and the product of a possibly flawed view of reality.
What you are referring to by talking about "good" is not the actions in and of themselves, but the motivation behind them. Where I am coming from, the actions are facts, this cannot be denied, and since facts are the only things that guide my actions, my motivations must therefore be facts. So self interest doesn't even come into it. If you want to know what motivates me, look at the world around you. As for the implications that might have for free will, I have as much or as little as anyone, it really doesn't bother me since I just don't know, and have no way of ever finding out.
And if you're an atheist, why do you live by them?
Oh I never said I was an atheist. I couldn't strictly be called an agnostic. The thing is, I don't know what happens after you die, which is the source and fount of all religions, and anyone that claims they do wants something from you, generally something notably non spiritual in nature. My denomination would be "Ignorant", with caveats and addendums. I find it a remarkably liberating perspective.
I'd ask how strangling one person with anothers entrails fits into your definition of "good morals"
Well it really doesn't, but since I have already explained that neither good nor morals come into it for me, the question becomes one of truth. Will mankind only be free if this happens? In my opinion, based on what I know to be true, yes. Not to say that one should interpret that literally, but the spirit of it is undeniable, and I find I admire the bald embrace of this fact as put forth by Diderot. There are very few ways to interpret what he said except in the way he meant it.
As for the bible, I fear to say it is, like the foundations of all major religions, shoddy and of dubious vintage. I never get into debates as to which passage means what, or how it should be interpreted, since at its very best, the minutae of the oral tradition of nomads in the middle east a few thousand years ago has little to no significance to the questions and issues that modern life raises, regardless of how the church may revise it. I have no intention of living out the power games of Moses and his ilk. Any christians reading this need not feel singled out, I hold similar disparaging opinions of most faiths, especially Islam and Buddhism. Not to say that all religions are a complete wash, but the useful tools in them are few and far between.
However, after studying a couple dozen, the feeling of deja vu becomes almost overpowering. Which is of course interesting in itself. What are the common elements? Does that hold an answer to the ultimate question? Being ignorant, I have no idea. I have only one fact in this case; I will eventually find out. Thats not quite good enough for me, but it will do for now.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
In the bible quote, aren't you being a bit presumptuous in assuming the injuries were to the child, and not to the woman?
In that day and age childbirth was one of the major causes of death in women, and premature childbirth was even higher.
I'm just not sure how you can justify that this quote is applicable...
If we can just pull out bible quotes to support our points without careful consideration as to what they really meant in context, then here's part of one from Lamentations:
"It's better to die a babe unborn..."
Harry Wilfong and his wife Sally are pleased to announce the acceptance of their zygote Pete Wilfong to Harvard.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Dat's 'cuz we gots to fights da terrerisms on thar intarwebs.
Don'cha werry tho', we ain't leavin' no children 'hind us.
~X~
~X~
Socialization. People have taught me rules. But I have had life experiences. Sometimes these experiences strengthen the case for a rule, and sometimes they weaken it. And, if one of the rules I was taught ends up with a piss-poor case, I no longer follow that rule.
For example, I am not supposed to speed. Well, I've decided that speeding is not a big deal, so I speed. But, on the other hand, I have been taught not to lie or cheat, and have been pissed off at people who did lie and cheat. So, even though my life would be a lot easier if I lied a bit and cheated some -- and I have very strict definitions of lying and cheating -- the case against them is as strong as ever, and I do not lie, and I do not cheat.
My entire moral framework is like that. I take what I was taught and live by it until it becomes obvious that it is wrong (not morally wrong, but more like factually wrong, ill-informed, superstitious, without foundation). If I was taught that something is "good," and haven't decided otherwise by myself, then it remains "good." Likewise for "evil."
I believe that this is how everybody works. We all start with the collective morality of our family, peers, and society as a whole, a gestalt or zeitgeist (Germans have so many useful words!) which differs in detail from one person to another. And then a person has his life experiences which further shapes his own personal morality. And to complete the cycle, his personal morality becomes part of society's fabric, and helps form the foundation of someone else's morality. Which will grow to differ. It's quite a beautiful concept, really.
I have studied philosophy. Kant and the rest. Attempts to objectively and logically determine "good" and "evil," "virtue" and "vice." But humans are not objective, or logical. Humans are full of shortcuts, and driven by emotions and feelings and wiring that seldom surfaces consciously. Objectivity and logic cannot be used to build a moral foundation. Morality is a separate beast, a collective thing, always changing, influenced by and influencing others.
That's how we work. Remember the tribe, and community standards. Strip away the structure and trappings of law and religion, and that is what we have, what we started with, and what we use in daily life.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Do you have a child? Much of this dialogue focuses on other peoples' live, other peoples' cells, and most definitely relies on a psychic distance from the connection of parent to child. One might be able to speak of what to do with the stem cells from baby X, but the thought of causing harm to your own child is unspeakable. The application of the golden rule in this case seems simplistic (though perfectly applicable), but from whatever bent you view this topic, the over-arching principle is that we cannot discuss the "possibilities" that can be achieved at the expense of someone else's life if we are unwilling to assume that someone, at the very same moment, is postulating the same "possibilities" at the expense of your life. The key is that we are unable to remove ourselves from the equation - it's not just "someone else's" child. At that point, it puts the inalienable rights that we are promised in true jeopardy. Our ethical protocol is always to include ourselves in the equation. I have a 6 month old infant. The actual connection to the human that is little more than a variable in someone else's equation puts the conversation in perspective.
My wife miscarried at 2.5 months and I cried like a grown man who just lost a future child. Cuz that's what I was. All issues of viability and healthiness aside, it hurt to lose the baby. The doc showed me the intact sac holding the fetus. That's about I'll say on that.
You can be as cold and clinical as you like. Some women dislike children, so unborn children are even less of a consideration.
Like it or not, historically religion has been the basis for much of our public policy, such as our laws and Constitution. Like I said in my previous posts, anyone who takes an ideal to an extreme is irrational. However, anyone who makes generalized judgements about anyone who believes in a ideal, based on the actions of a few irrational zealots of that ideal, is also irrational. QED.
I do like children. You don't know me.
There's a large difference in development between a embryo at 6 weeks and a fetus at 2.5 months. The line between embryo and fetus is at about 8 weeks, and there's a reason for that.
I don't know how I would have felt if I miscarried at 2.5 months instead of when I did. Maybe I would have cried like you did. I don't know. When I miscarried though, there wasn't anything for me to look at and say "That could have been my child". There was a lot of blood and tissue, but most of the tissue was probably not even the embryo, just the other stuff that builds up for pregnancy. There was just really nothing for me to cry over. I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sorry if my story makes you mad, but our situations were rather different, and I was talking about very early miscarriages, not later ones like you and your wife went through.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
...the Catholic Church doesn't speak for all of us.
Anything that can lead us to more knowledge of the universe, or can get us closer to knowing or understanding our creator, or what caused us to be here is fair game. Why would God give us free will and self awareness along with a huge brain and expect that we bury our heads in the sand? It doesn't make sense.
Organized religion is the bane of any any faith. I consider myself a bit of an intellectual semi-agnostic Judeo-Christian non-interventional deist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic
Libertas in infinitum