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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.'"
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.
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.
Sure, we shouldn't get involved in a land war in asia, even to cure a disease, but why would cloning fall into that category?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
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.
After Nagisake and Hiroshima got atomic bombed, it provided a test bed for scientists on the effects of radiation poisoning and the aftereffects of the bomb.
Should they have closed their eyes and ignored it because the atomic bomb was reprehensible?
The scientist who study stemcells are much in the same position, they are not in the decision chain when a woman gets an abortion. I don't think stem cell research are the driving force why women do get abortions. But they happen.
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.
Whatever happened to survival of the fittest? Is all this technology assisting with breeding a race of second rate homo sapiens?
I tend to be fairly conservative on social issues such as this, but it seems to me that there can be well-defined limits of stem cell research. There is a big difference between cloning cells or groups of cells to potentially fight disease and making a replica of an entire human. Shouldn't the potential benefits of stem cell research outweigh the fear of someone going "too far" with cloning? Especially considering the large gap between cloning cells and cloning an entire human? I think donating organs after your death is a very morbid thought, but when you consider the potential benefits of doing so, you can't reasonably disagree with it. (Granted, it isn't the same thing, but I think the analogy still applies somewhat.) When I think of horrible diseases such as Alzheimer's, I can't really make a valid personal argument not to allow stem cell research. I should qualify this by saying that I certainly understand the arguments of both sides, however.
That depends on the point of view.
Morals are relative.
What is moral for a taleban is not necessarily moral for the rest of the world and vice versa.
For example, some people consider forcing religious beliefs on children immoral. People should be left to chose what they believe in once they are capable of choosing it.
Similarly, some people do not see anything immoral in harvesting stem cells from an entity without a functioning brain. It is the capability to think, rationalise and be aware of its surroundings which differentiates a human being from a cluster of cells. If an entity does not have this capability it is not a human yet or it is not a human any longer.
The biggest atrocities in the history of mankind have been committed in the name of absolute morality. Torquemada is just one example. Many others.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I'll certainly admit that when one takes religion too far, it causes more problems than it solves and tends to shy away from rationality. But this is true of any ideal (politics, for example), and not just of religion. I don't think it is quite fair to categorize all religious points of view as uninformed and completely irrelevant.
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.
Well, I for one am not putting my hand in your ass to diagnose if you have prostate cancer!
So that's one area.
Any more?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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.
A valid question, but where to draw the line?
A lot of the science about twins known and used today was performed by none other than Dr. Mengele. Should we refrain from using that knowledge - because it most likely was obtained in horrific ways - to honor his victims or should we use that knowledge as best we can to honor his victims and ensure they didn't suffer in vain?
Morality is hard..
Remember, there are no stupid questions. But there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
I don't want to dive into the religious controversy. I would like to make a point about Human psychology. People fear what they don't understand. It reminds me of what most people think a hacker is. They've seen silly movies like "Hackers" and think that those that break into computers (crack) or protect them (hack) are mystical, magical geniuses. In reality most crackers are kids that have downloaded packages like NMAP and Nessus and just try systems until they get in. Yet the mystique is enough to add a flare or fear. The same thing is at work here hidden under the covers of religion, morality, or whatever label fits. Often fear and religion go hand in hand. It's always been that way. It will continue to be that way. Just our nature.
--Cally
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).
Then identical twins only have half a soul each.
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?
Well, the UK has been doing this for a little while, in Newcastle anyway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4563607.stm & http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6272
So, I'm guessing it's not banned in the UK - under certain conditions at least.
--
silas
identical twins been doing this for years.
Morality is only hard if you think about it, and try to find a basis for it in reality. If you inherit your morality from Bronze Age shepherds and don't think about it, it's easy.
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).
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.
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
Sir Isaac Newton was only researching what people of his day considered to be reasonable and logical pursuits. Later on alchemy was disproven as utter quackery, but from his point of view it was the cutting edge in science. Much like how doctors used to believe in the theory of the body's humors, and at that time it was perfectly rational thinking (even though we know it's not true now). In three hundred years people will be laughing at some of our ideas about quantum physics, chemistry, string theory, etc. as completely laughable in retrospect. But keep in mind, it will be in retrospect. We improve our understanding of things over time.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
No
I have nothing to say.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 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
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
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.
"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.
yeah thats nice and all, but, when will researchers do something usefull... like clone lindsay lohan for me a couple times :P
Unfortunately, cloning Lindsay Lohan for you a couple of times would just leave you with a couple of babies named Lindsay.
Unless science found a way to rapidly age them, but then you'd have a couple of adult women who aren't toilet trained and cry all the time. Now there's a fantasy!
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
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...
So you think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all about saving innocent Japanese and US military lives? Maybe you should do a little research into it. There was no one reason for using the bomb. Yes, they wanted to avoid a costly (in lives and money) D-day style invasion on the Japanese home islands. They also wanted to show off their new weapon to the Russians. They also wanted to know what effect these new weapons would have on a populated city. This is why they chose Hiroshima, it was never bombed before, so they wouldn't confuse the damage from the atamic bomb with damage from previous bombings. Why was it never bombed before? Absolutely no military presence, all civilians. Humanitarian mission indeed.
There were other options, like blockading Japan, which would have avoided using atomic bombs and avoided casualties from an invasion. The fear was that Russia might invade after a while in that scenario. Another plan involved detonating an atomic bomb high over Tokyo harbour to demonstrate the power of the atomic bomb. But they only had two bombs at that point and it would be several months to build more if that didn't work. Also, if it did work, they wouldn't have been able to study the effects of a nuke on a city. And it wouldn't have sent as strong a message to Moscow. And scaring communists is a great humanitarian cause, right?
Also, Nagasaki is even more questionable. The Japanese were willing to surrender after Hiroshima, but they wanted to be able to keep their Emperor. The US demanded unconditional surrender, so they bombed Nagasaki. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally, after which the US allowed them to keep their Emperor anyway. Yes there is value to giving something because you are magnamonious in victory as opposed to making a concession in a peace treaty. But is a point of honour worth 100,000 civilian casualties?
Anyways, the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is morally ambiguous at best. At worst it was a war crime. I guess it all depends on your perspective.
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"?
Well, maybe that's okay for you, but it's not okay for me.
I aim to misbehave.
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?
Actually, the slaves, wives and stoning things do have a certain attraction. :)
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.