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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.'"
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.
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.
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.
Whatever happened to survival of the fittest? Is all this technology assisting with breeding a race of second rate homo sapiens?
As a group were are not first rate homo sapiens.
There is natural selection and sexual selection. As long as ugly people, stupid people and politians* keep getting laid we will always be a race of second rate homo sapiens.
* (also people who drive slow in the fast lane, people that try to take out a second mortgage through the ATM machine, RIAA lawyers, people that answer cell phones in the theatre, most of my ex girlfriends (but not their hot girlfriends), terrorists, people involved in the Garfield movie, the religious right, all those bullies from gym class, fanatics of any kind, people who like onions, dog owners that dont scoop, the people who invented rebate pricing, people who fart in the elevator just as the doors close and telemarketers. )
** NOTE TO MODERATORS: I would really prefer a +1 interesting over a +1 Funny.
Bet this
The question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, exists because an egg is clearly not a chicken.
KFG
Then identical twins only have half a soul each.
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?
identical twins been doing this for years.
Then any form of payment for an abortion to a pregnant (or recently pregnant) woman should be what is illegal, not the science that comes after it.
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
Stem cells are no more a "human being" than any other cells are. Do you think clipping your toenails is unethical, too?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
So why is the line drawn at fertilization? Is a woman who doesn't do her best to get and be pregnant all the time killing babies? Isn't that just a slighty different position along the same line of thinking?
Personally, I have trouble thinking of something that won't survive and grow without massive human intervention(a pregnancy is massive human intervention...) as being equal to a living, breathing person in deserving rights. I do not however, find it particularly offensive when other people disagree with this position.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The egg clearly has chicken DNA and therefore has to be considered to be part of the chicken species.
Therefore, it is easy to deduce that the egg came first. The first chicken hatched from a chicken egg, since the species of the egg is determined by the DNA of the creature that hatches from it, not by the species that laid the egg.
Simply put: If you have an egg, and a chicken hatches from it, then it was a chicken egg, regardless of whether it was laid by a frog, an alligator, or an ostrich.
They don't get stem cells from abortions. Or, at least not many. The vaste majority of stem cells come from fertility treatments. Doctors create dozens of embryos for infertile couples who only want one or two children. Yet, even the majority of extra embryos aren't used for science. Mostly, they're thrown away. Why? Because people think it's better to leave "their children" in storage until everyone forgets about them then donate them to science so they can help people.
No one's ever going to make a career out of getting abortions for science. However, if you really believe life begins at conception, then you should be fighting against fertility treatments.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
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.
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...
I'm not armed with enough information to be able to accurately guess the percentage of zealots in the anti-abortion group. If I had a gun to my head, forcing me to wager I'd say the large majority of zealots are anti-abortion. But there must be an equally strong correlation between feminists yelling "My body, my right!" Yes - it's a cop out, but I think that the reasonable individuals outnumber the zealots, perhaps moreso on the pro-abortion side.
I won't dispute the extreme example, because I understand the point you are trying to make. My response is probably equally extreme. If the "host" was forced into a situation of accepting a parasitic backpack brought about by no action of their own, then I would say cut them free. However, partaking in sexual activity protected or otherwise you must assume responsibility for the reprocussions. It's something you learn in sex ed, hell, it's something you learn early in life. It's something every person faces every day. Speed, you may get pulled over and ticketed. Buy drugs, you face the possibility of being burned in a sting. Don't show up to work, you face the possibility of being fired.
My point is that the people making the argument have no bearing on the issue. The question is a reasonable one, and rather than trying to answer the question we spend more time trying to villify and mock those asking it.
Oh, what's next ? Do you also want to question an infants "right" to be fed and cared for, huh ?
In other words: What about the children?!? (blatant appeal to emotion)
Yep, killing someone just because he causes you some inconvenience is illegal.
No, It's not. It depends on the level of inconvenience. You can kill someone if they are about to chop a limb off, or rape you, or if they are about to do the same to someone else. If they are about to kill someone else (which doesn't really inconvenience you at all) you can still kill them.
It's called "justifiable homicide" and it happens pretty damn often.
Babies are either people or their not, you seem to want them to be elevated to have more rights than the humans that can support life on their own. One can infer from this that you believe in some type of higher moral purpose to protect the infant above the rights of the individual that will be forced to act like a life support system for it for nine months.
So what church did you say you went to again?
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.
I appreciate the civil discussion - just want to throw that out there first. I thought the tone of your original post was likely tongue in cheek, but the subject goes beyond (maybe falls short?) religion. Additionally I'm mostly playing devils advocate. I don't know exactly where I stand on the issue, and have gone rounds on both sides of the argument, both what you've offered, and what I'm saying. I guess maybe I'm just trying to drag more folks towards my fence of indecision.
.001% that birth control fails will bring about an tremendous, life altering result. That is why I feel that two people engaging in sex must accept the possibility - no matter how unlikely that an unwanted pregnancy may be the result. Also, there are far easier outs than keeping and resenting and/or mistreating a child. You can see it coming can't you? A mile away even, I'm sure. Adoption. It's gotten to a point that it's literally so easy that you can drop your newborn child at a doorstep in a basket with a note saying "Free to a good home" and walk away.
It is certainly unfair that a broken condom or that
The cost? Medical bills, possibly some derision for the adoption or the pregnancy(you can't please some folks), and a body that isn't going to spring back like it once would. No small cost, and perhaps harder than an abortion. I say perhaps because of the four women who've told me that they've had abortions, all four would near tears when they speak of it. Two that I still keep in contact with mourn the loss(one of which was a rape), yet when pressed would admit they'd probably do it again.
As far as legal precedents - laws conflict. Roe Vs Wade may support the pro-choice crowd, but if a pregnant woman is murdered it's considered a double homocide. Using the legal system as a basis for argument then would suggest that an unborn child is only a life if it's wanted. Would it be considered a double homocide then, if a woman was shot in line at an abortion clinic? Such thoughts feel atrociously callous.
I hope that we as a people can strive to a compromise with this issue, though it may be a paradox that can never be solved.
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.