Slashdot Mirror
'Plentiful' Non-Embryonic Stem Cells Found
An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that scientists at Harvard and Wake Forest have discovered a 'plentiful' non-embryonic source for stem cells, as well brain, liver, and bone cell types as well. The cells, found in amniotic fluid, can be harvested without harm to the donor or the donor's unborn child. While there's no proof that amniotic stem cells are as potent as embryonic stem cells, scientists are hopeful that this will be a huge step forward for the field of stem-cell research."
amazing the hurdles we have to jump to please the followers of a 2000 year old heretic.
From what I can gather, the basic issue that most religious folk have to do with stem cell research is that we're mucking around with human lives. Unless you can make this process look as simple as a cheek scraping for human cells (allergy research, for instance) the objections will not abate.
The argument that this cell couldn't have become a baby doesn't quite hold good and has been answered before about harvesting eggs from fertility clinics.
So are these cells are still human, but without a potential human, doomed to die when the aminotic fluid drains. Some facts which might not matter to those who have decided all of this to be Playing God.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
... seriously, what if those stem cells are going to be needed later when forming the skin or other parts of the body of that tiny thing?
:S
Kinda scary harvesting anything out from there...
Who's playing with definitions? If sampling amniotic fluid is unethical, what about sampling blood? Semen? Urine?
Last time I checked, a human being was the sum of their parts, not the other way around.
If there's a ethics problem with sampling amniotic fluid, then there's an ethics problem with me flushing my piss down the toilet.
So who modded the parent informative?
The ethic issues will always remain as long as there is religion.
The donor's unborn child? An embryo is not a child. Why do we need an "alternative" to embryonic stem cells anyway? Embryonic stem cells work perfectly well, and are usually considered more effective than non-embryonic cells.
Funny how you don't see the anti-stem-cell people protesting IVF and other fertility programmes, even though they "kill" embryos too.
... and then they built the supercollider.
No. Religion has no bearing on ethics. It would be relevant to questions of religious morals, but ethical questions shouldn't have anything to do with religion.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Are these new stems cells viable and useful now?
After I RTFA, the answer is no.
"However, the scientists noted they still don't know exactly how many different cell types can be made from the stem cells found in amniotic fluid. They also said that even preliminary tests in patients are years away."
Or we can keep putting money into embryonic stem cells which have already resulted in _proven therapies that work_
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
..why must people who don't believe in their shit, have to tippy toe around these nutcases beliefs? if i had a spinal injury and some religous whacko told me i couldn't have research into a cure done becuase it offended his primative bliefs, i'd smash him right in the face and roll my fucking wheel chair over his balls.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
your right, please don't use any form of the bible as a moral compass, it advocates hate and intolerance.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Would you allow your pregnant daughter to go through this procedure of donating amniotic fluid?
To the anti-stem cell people:
Would you allow your daughter, who suffers from a debilitating, ultimately fatal disease, to undergo curative treatment derived from stem cell research?
Sorry, people, but I'm in the 99.9% of people who DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE ON THIS SUBJECT to be able to make an informed judgment yet on what is right and what is wrong here who is also prepared to ADMIT IT.
Nothing to see here...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Our objection is that harvesting stem cells the way done before kills the donor (the unborn human). Even if you planned to murder the donor anyway, it is morally wrong to have benefit from the murder, just like the research the Nazis did on the Jews in the concentration camps was morally wrong. If the stem cells can be harvested in a non violent way I (and I would guess most others) see nothing wrong in it.
There are a few exceptions: The same people that protest organ donations today could perhaps object using cells from other people. Those refusing medical treatment today would obviously object to this like all other treatment. But for the majority, the issue is solved if you can harvest the stem cells peacefully.
While ethical questions should not be based or caused by religion, there is no reason why they must not concur every once and then.
I can be an atheist and still think abortion is fundamentally wrong (albeit very convenient for the greater good)
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
No. Religion has no bearing on ethics. It would be relevant to questions of religious morals, but ethical questions shouldn't have anything to do with religion.
You are wrong. Ethical systems are individualized first and shared second. One's world view, whether it incorporates a religious viewpoint or not, determines one's ethics. Religion has a huge bearing on individual ethics. The challenge is to communicate and discuss those ethical values across groups of people that may have different world views.
Current statistics give a 1% risk of miscarriage
after amniocentesis. Also, the amount of cells in
the volume of fluid that would normally be collected
is likely to be small.
Sounds like no news to me.
any form of the bible as a moral compass, it advocates hate and intolerance.
So all religious books of any kind advocate hate and intolerance? READ the Bible sometime. It does not advocate hate or intolerance. People are evil and make mistakes, people will co-opt religion to push their own agendas forward, but claims that "any form of bible" advocates "hate and intolerance" is obviously ignorant.
Amniotic fluid is already sampled in those that are high risk of havign a child born with down's syndrome, so this is a non-issue.
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
a) Thank them for their considerable trouble
b) Have them arrested
c) Bin the items as quickly as possible
Or any combination of the above?
There are people who eat placentas. They mince it and cook it in a lasange. Should we convict them of cannibalism?
May the Maths Be with you!
Taking some amniotic fluid will probably cause a slight increase of the risk to the mother or the fetus. There's a very, very easy way around this: harvest stem cells only in the case of abortions. Whether from the fetus or the amniotic fluid, it's just going to be biowaste anyway.
Regardless of your feelings on abortion, why should it bother anyone for stem cells to be retrieved from aborted fetuses? They are already going to be aborted, we just ought to get stem cells out of it so that we can help more people who are alive.
Would this not solve the problem immediately? If not, why the hell not? Perhaps the stem cells available at the stage in pregnancy when it can be detected (and thus, aborted) are of a lower quality than those from frozen embryos of only a cell or three?
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
You USians with your outdated debates on death penalty, stem cells, abortion or the reality of global warming would amuse us if you were not the sad bible thumping, violent, polluting people you are.
That is simply not the case. From TFA which you clearly didn't read:
Nice troll, though. I'll expect to be hearing this kind of ignorant FUD from Pat Robertson Real Soon Now(tm).
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
In a society that *does* permit pregnancy termination of up to 3 months, it is completely demented that it *won't* permit abortions which would result in somebody else's life being improved or even saved!
I am not very well informed on this matter, but it just seems so backward to me...
A great advancement in science, nonetheless. At least we go forward in some way.
~~~hsl~~~
is as secular as any other opinion on the matter. Your childish cry of "Your argument is religion, so I don't have to refute it" simply betrays your ignorance and unwillingness (or inability) to defend your position.
It is scientific fact that embryos, from conception onward, are living human organisms. One could say this alone gives them at least some basic rights. This is not a religious argument in any way.
Your argument is rather ironic, anyway. The Bible does not say anything particularly relevant to abortion or stem-cells in the first place.
It's quite hard to extract relevant amounts of stem cells from few drops of fluid.
Unless you just need a cell or two, I would say you need to drain much more that few drops.
Intelligence has limits. Stupidity doesn't.
For what reason?
Also, just being an atheist doesn't make you an ethicist. Atheists can have wacky beliefs too, I'll grant you that.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Ah, the irony of your sig...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
This is modded Informative? Way to misread/mod sarcasm...
woah boys and girls and other non-determined gender orientations... I'm afraid there is a small but significant risk of harm to the mother and/or the unborn child when you take samples of amniotic fluid... too risky? not my call... but there is a risk.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
"It is scientific fact that embryos, from conception onward, are living human organisms."
Why lie? That is by no measure a "scientific fact" and you destroy any credibility you may have had by lying in such an obvious fashion.
More to the point, YOU betray your religious leanings by lying like that.
Why are so many posts with factual errors modded up?
As long as the doctors keep all the money from the stem cells (as if it would be any other way), there will be no new incentive for women to get pregnant, and those same doctors already have a financial incentive to increase the number of abortions, so it's not like any NEW ethical dilemmas are likely
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Unless you just need a cell or two, I would say you need to drain much more that few drops. Not really, there are 10 to 1000 cells per ul (microliter) of amniotic fluid and if you take 100 ul, you have already a significant amount, as they do grow (become more), when you cultivate them under proper conditions
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
Funny. Einstein apparently came to the opposite conclusion:
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -- Albert Einstein
In other words: science asks "CAN we do this." Religion asks "SHOULD we do this."
1 is the square root of all evil.
Well, so, does that egg have a Buddha nature? Or that stone out there for that matter?
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
...our unfortunate White House likely will put on this will be, "Thanks to our legistlation to protect innocent lives, alternatives have been found. There is always better way: Mine."
Yes, Einstein was wrong about many things.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Mod parent up !
It is not necessary to interfere with the pregnancy at all in order to gain access to amniotic fluid.
All ethical arguments are moot.
Does my urine have inalienable rights to existence ?
When I hawk up a greeny saying "get out and walk", do the UN guarantee its natural right to use the bus ?
Look who is backpedaling now that you've been caught lying.
Did your Bible teach you to spout off ignorantly and then cling desperately to your factually incorrect statements even after you've been shown to be full of shit?
Huh? It does? My bad...
Even if these new stem cells aren't as useful as embryonic stem cells you can be sure that right wing zealots will argue that they are. I just don't get the case against embryonic stem cell research provided that research is carried out on embryos that have been donated with informed consent and would otherwise be destroyed. I could sort of understand the argument if these embryos were going to be implanted and had a real chance to become a baby, but we're talking about embryos that are going to be destroyed. IMHO destroying embryos that could be used in research to try and cure a number of truly horrible diseases is the immoral course of action.
I move we tag this story "bias" and "impasse". Stem cell research* seems to bring out not only slashdot biasis, but slashdot's intolerance to any other position. I can already see the contempt starting disguised as humour, and that's a poor foundation for any kind of understanding. Note well also which side is engaging in this behaviour and ask why?
*So does religion. Coincidence no?
"facicious"
That's spelled "facetious" and there's nothing that will take the wind out of a serious argument faster than shitty spelling. Why take your argument seriously if you aren't capable of using a fucking spellchecker before posting your pontifcations?
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12)
If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13)
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13)
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. "Go up baldhead," they shouted, "go up baldhead!" The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces. (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)
And relevant in context: Cursed be he who does the Lords work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood. (Jeremiah 48:10)
The bible advocates hate and intolerance. Now, many *interpretations* of the bible remove that hate and intolerance, but if you'd actually read the bible, you'd know that there is plenty of hate and intolerance to disregard.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
People are debating as to whether or not we should be doing this... I say YES!!! I believe that stem cells are the future cures to many afflictions. My own mother had her life saved from Leukemia by someone donating their stem cells (a 50+ year old woman from Germany).
The decision to donate is still up to the person. It is up to you, the individual, to go through a process to donate; whether it be by amniotic fluid, embryonic cord, or drilled out from your bone marrow (gee, which one would hurt the least or be the least invasive...?). If the donator accepts the risk (however small it may be), then they could help save lives of people that didn't ask for their afflictions (cancer, or maybe in the future, HIV).
Move forward, science!!! Research better and more effective ways to collect stem cells!
Drawing amniotic fluid is extremely risky to both mother and fetus. That is why amniocentesis is only done if absolutely necessary. My wife had one around 20 weeks gestation. Not only is the procedure extremely painful, she went through two weeks of uterine cramping. She had to take two weeks off work to recover.
Poking a hole in the uterus of a pregnant woman is not something to take lightly. This article makes it seem like a trvial procedure, which is certainly is not.
No opponent of embryonic stem cell research opposes the use of non-embryonic stem cells; most of us are happy to point to the many successful therapies that have been developed using other sources of stem cells.
My objection to embryonic stem cell use is that it sets a scary precedent - I really don't want to live in a society that believes living beings - even non-viable, merely potential living beings, as a private property and a commercial resource.
This is no different than my opposition to patenting human cell lines or DNA sequences.
My firm belief is that we will eventually get to the point where it is possible to harvest some stem cells right from a patient and use them to grow the needed replacement parts directly. Heck, companies are already working on that very thing.
So why screw around with controversial, not to mention unsuccessful, techniques when better methods already exist?
Clear, Dark Skies
...is the bigger issue people seem to be ignoring.
/sarcasm
I don't care if you are religious or not. I don't care where your ethics stand.
Are you hoenstly telling me that you don't think sacrificing a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people aren't worth it for the benefit of 6 BILLION?
I mean, let's be realistic here. You are talking about something which has done nothing, has no opinion, cannot survive on it's own, and is not in my phone book.
Yes. Let's give the unborn few more of a chance of survival than the ones that are already suffering. Because that makes complete sense.
Living With a Nerd
Now everyone can have a Shakey's Pizza of their very own.
Eek!
No. Religion has no bearing on ethics. It would be relevant to questions of religious morals, but ethical questions shouldn't have anything to do with religion.
While it is true that one could theoretically develop an ethical framework without religion, it is simply naive to assume that any ethics system in place in modern society is devoid of a religious influence and therefore ethics and religion are definitely linked together.
An embryo is not a child. Why do we need an "alternative" to embryonic stem cells anyway? Embryonic stem cells work perfectly well, and are usually considered more effective than non-embryonic cells.
Funny how you don't see the anti-stem-cell people protesting IVF and other fertility programmes, even though they "kill" embryos too.
I'm not sure if you're deliberately trolling, or are just expressing an emotional opinion. Regardless, I think your points deserve a response. And I'm really not trying to flame you, but you're wrong on every point you've made:
Granted, I understand a lot of people may not agree with the position of the Catholic church regarding stem cell research, birth control, IVF, etc... but at least it is logically consistent. If one believes that life begins at conception, then it logically follows that anything which deliberately causes the end of that life is morally wrong. Hence, you have the objection to the aforementioned activities. If you want to prove the Catholic church wrong on this point, you'd have to produce compelling scientific evidence or a chain of logic which showed that life didn't begin at conception. That's unlikely to happen, as it was medical research which revealed that a person's DNA - that is, their physical characteristics - are uniquely determined at conception.
And please don't take this as a flame or a troll. If you disagree with what I said, post an intelligent reply. After all, I've been proven wrong before.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Agreed. Now let's ask ourselves, would such a statement have been made on an academic forum? Doubtful, because an academic would have a firm grasp of history, and could rattle off a list of all the despots with no religious affilliation, who killed millions. By using that evidence and the OP's tactics, one should be seeing slashjokes poking fun at atheists in an attempt to discredit them (Don't listen to them! Laugh at them and they'll go away!). I'll leave their notable absence now and in the past as a mute testimony to the more virtuous position.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I knew from the start I wanted to donate the umbilical stem cells. It wasn't an easy search to find somewhere that would take them. All the advertising toward pregnant women are for banking the stem cells. They scare parents into thinking their child's stem cells could be used for a cure on the chance the child develops a disease. I think this is a horrible practice to do on parents, most of whom probably are just throwing their money away in the belief it could save their child.
None of the hospitals in my state accept cord blood donations, nor are their any cord or blood banks here. I found only one cord bank that accepts donations from out of state (their name escapes me), and at no charge to my doctor, the hospital, or me. From what I've read, I know that the cord blood stem cells aren't able to be used like embryonic stem cells, but since they were just going to be destroyed anyway, why not donate them?
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
I think it's important to note that all of these passages are from the Old Testament. That doesn't make them any less true, though. What these fall into is what was known as "Mosaic Law"- what the Jews at the time followed. The main difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is in the Old Testament we learn about the nature of God the Father- and that He DOES have a strict level of governance as to what is right and what is wrong. It often seems like people want to put God into a box and say "THIS IS GOD"; We often hear people say "God is vengeful", "God is merciful", "God is just", "God is love", etc. The fact is God is ALL those things and more He is sovereign doesn't have to follow OUR conclusions of Him. One passage that kind of pulls these "descriptions" of God together is in Psalm 103:8
"The Lord is merciful and gracious, SLOW to anger in mercy."
The key word is SLOW, I think. This means God IS all the wonderful loving aspects we want, BUT if we perpetually defy Him, He will get upset.
The New Testament, on the other hand tells us about the nature of God the Son (aka Jesus).
Think of the setting like a court setting: You have God the Father who is the judge (He KNOWS the law- He wrote it). And you have Jesus who is the attorney- now Jesus is the Son of the Judge so He has a LOT of persuasion on the final verdict. It's just a case of, in the end, will Jesus be DEFENDING you or PROSECUTING you? That's YOUR choice.
As for intolerance, in 1 John 4:20 (New Testament) we read
"If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?"
Our brothers (and sisters) are EVERYONE in the world.
Another thing to look at more closely are the Ten Commandments (Old Testament, but upheld in the New Testament- if you have a look you'll see the most of them are ACTUALLY for people's own benefit (by not stealing, lying, coveting, committing adultery, by loving our parents, etc. We can have good relationships with each other ).
The Bible was written over a period of several centuries by people with widely differing ethical systems. The great thing about it is that you can use it to justify absolutely any action. For bonus points, you can call people who interpret it slightly differently 'heretics' or 'not real Christians' and burn them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
For what it's worth, I agree with you that most people are not passionate about stem cell research. It irritates me that when most people talk of stem cell research they are focusing on embryonic stem cell research. As others have noted, it's not helping anyone these days, and adult stem cell research *is* helping MANY MANY people. I'm hopeful that this recent discovery about amniotic stem cells will kill the debate and people will stop trying to do medical research on *all* products of conception.
I'm not sure that I agree with you about people don't want that right taken from them. Recent surveys show that the majority of Americans find abortion unacceptable for themselves but feel that there is some need for it to be available. Most seem to want to protect the right of others to have abortion.
The following numbers come from recollection - frankly I'm too busy this morning to go look up the actual numbers, but this is pretty close to what I've been reading on this issue:
The number of Americans that think abortion is a bad thing is something like 80+% The number that feel it should be illegal is substantially smaller, but the bottom line is about 10% want it legal under every possible circumstance, about 10% want it illegal in every circumstance, and the other 80% of the population is split just about down the middle with varying circumstances determining the legality.
Essentially about half of the US wants it illegal under some circumstances, and about half of the US wants it legal under some circumstances.
I tire of the meme that a 'religious minority controls the government.' That's crap. If it was true, there are lots of things that would be handled differently.
The fact is that there are a lot of people who disagree with the liberal view that abortion should be legal for all women. Most of those people are not passionate advocates of that position, but when the issue comes up, they stand for what they believe. This is the phenomenon of the "values voters."
The religious minority of which you speak is merely the 'tip of the spear' to speak in military parlance. You see them, the politicians feel them because of their platforms, *and* because of the values voters. Policies are made as a result.
That abortion is still legal in the US shows that there are many near silent people who share your view, and the politicians feel their presence on election day, too.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
As an atheist who believes abortion is wrong:
It's about market and rewards. I think, as a society, it's wrong to market the destruction of fundamental innocents as socially acceptable. Less than 2% of all abortions are due to rape/incest. In poor neighborhoods abortion is a method of birth control. (I work with these people, on a volunteer basis, and as a slum lord.I own some low income rentals.)
The wholesale of human fetuses and embryos lowers the overall value of a human life. I cannot support such a course.
1) Hate is not equal to intolerance. I can fail to tolerate someone's actions (and even advocate punishment) without hating them. This could range from a parent disciplining a child, all the way to a death sentence for a convicted murderer. Justice, discipline, and intolerance, can exist effectively apart from hate.
2) Intolerance is not a primary ethical value. In fact, it undermines all law and ethical codes of conduct. As a principle, it gives no indication as to what behavior might be right or wrong, so taken to its logical conclusion, it is utterly flawed.
3) You have quoted only from the Old Testament, and not from the New, and therefore only give examples that reflect the law as set forth in the Pentateuch (first five books of the OT). The law was harsh -- given as a response to the sinfulness of man. It seeks one thing: justice.
But in the New Testament, the arrival of Christ offers freedom from the law. He comes to offer mercy and grace in place of the harsh judgment of the law.
From Romans chap 7:
"So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code."
Without the New Testament, the story is not complete, and therefore your quotes are also incomplete and out of context, failing to make an effective case for the "hatred" of Christians. Read the words of Christ in Matthew chaps 5-7, and tell me what he truly advocates.
What do his/her parents have to do with it?
Oop, edit: point #2 should begin "Tolerance..."
From the Hippocratic Oath: To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death. Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
I may twist orthodoxy to partly justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
On the point of ethics vs. religion, it should be pointed out that the religious concerns are usually underpinned by ethical ones. Most religious people don't actually believe that something is good simply because whatever God says is good is by definition so. Rather, they believe that what is good (what we all believe is good, actually -- it's a universal judgment that, philosophically, we should all eventually be able to come to agreement on) really is so, and because God is good, he will also see things this way. For 'religious folk', then, the problem isn't what 'is' good, but rather why we should do good. I think there does tend to be a tendency among religous people to see themselves as being better at being good than non-religious folk, because they don't see what can be motivating the non-religious to behave differently. This, I should add, I think is a misunderstanding. On the other hand, there is a strong tendency among non-religious folk to assume that the religious don't have intellectual underpinnings for what they believe, and so there is a general leap to project irrational opinions to them -- for instance, that they are anti-science or anti-progress, rather than simply having an ethical opposition to certain research. This is also a misunderstanding that prevents any actual engagement. I don't know if this particular method for gathering stem-cells will ultimately be effective or feasible, but from what I know of the main ethical concerns of various religious denominations, this is a good thing. The only Christian denomination that might still be opposed to it are the Jehova's Witnesses, who believe that harvesting human organs is analogous to canibalism. For those ethically concerned with embryonic stem-cell research, the problem is that we destroy human life in order to save human life. There is even the recognition that we in fact do this in other cases. However, if it can be avoided, then an alternative course is best. And because there are alternatives, such as adult stem-cell research and possibly this new technique, we ought to pursue those instead. One common objection to this position tends to be that alternative potential therapies will never be as good as therapies based on embryonic stem-cell research, so it is "as if" there really were no alternative. Because this is an extremely speculative position, it tends not to be all that persuasive. So far, most of the arguments claiming that "the religious right" won't accept this new form of research seem simply to be trying to make a reductio ad absurdum argument that if the ethical position opposed to embryonic stem-cell research accepts this new harvesting method, they must therefore accept embryonic stem-cell research also because they are the same thing. It's a good strategy for proponents of embryonic stem-cell research, and I really don't begrudge anyone for throwing it out there. But I don't think it really works in this case. As a factual matter, opponents of embryonic stem-cell research do see conception as a non-arbitrary point differentiation between non-living and living. If you accept at least that this is a core ethical axiom for opponents of stem-cell research (since they themselves repeatedly claim that this is so) it should be clear that this new method for harvesting stem-cells does, in fact, serve as a viable alternative to embryonic stem-cell harvesting for them. This, I think, is a good thing, since it provides something that people on both sides of the issue can support. And on this rests the issue of whether it is better to drag out debate, and basically do nothing, over research we disagree on, or rather to go forward with research, starting today, on things the nation does agree on. Do we fight to be right, or do we get things done?
Doctors routinely break the membranes of pregnant women to help induce pregnancy. Of course this results in the loss of ALL the amniotic fluid.
Just siphon it off and everyone is happy.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Does this mean we still get to carve up embryos? Oops, I mean blastocysts? Err, I mean whatever I am supposed to call the fertilized eggs.
The article on New Scientist clearly states that the amniotic stem cells can be taken from the placenta after delivery and placed in cryogenic storage and then replicated easily within 36 hours to become a plentiful source of these cells....
So all the comments about the dangers of taking fluid during pregnancy are mis-informed based on the original link apparently... sounds like bias from cnn editors.
This is a great new discovery and should certainly be explored fully before being discounted because it doesn't involved the destruction of embryos to accomplish new science.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
"No. Religion has no bearing on ethics. It would be relevant to questions of religious morals, but ethical questions shouldn't have anything to do with religion."
So partial-birth abortion of a nine-month old "fetus" is ethical, it's just the religious kooks who think it isn't?
Suppose someone's finger gets cut off. DNA tests will undoubtedly confirm it to be human. Should it be afforded all the rights of a person? Should we keep it on life support?
No. Because a finger, like a pre-3 month embryo, is an incomplete piece of a person.
+++ATH0
Congratulations, you found the Old Testament. Now try reading the New Testament, where much of this is nullified by Jesus.
Every Christian knows that the New Testament (you know, the part of the Bible with Jesus in it) offers a new covenant between God and man. You are just as much a zealot as those you attempt to smear.
That's just about the least ethical thing I've heard this week.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I don't see christians as generally filled with hatred. I see the bible as supplying ample material for those that want to be filled with intolerance and hate, and ample material for those that want to be what I see as good people, and which side you land on as being a question of how you interpret the bible.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
I've seen so many announcements about some non-embryonic stem cell source that will solve all the ethics issues that I'm a bit skeptical. I know it's the nature of science "journalism" that the more sensational something is, the more likely it will be reported long before it's proven. But so far I haven't heard anything about the previous methods being the silver bullet that the initial press made them out to be.
What do you (or your professor) mean by "harvest"? They've either been in a lab since day 1, in which case I'm not sure how you can apply the term "harvest", or they're in a woman who's not likely to even know she's pregnant before day 14 (day 14 is usually the first missed period day) so they're not likely to be harvested from her. Anyways, assuming we're talking about lab embryos, while they could be implanted in a woman, there are more made than there are women who want them, so many of them go in the trash. I'm not sure what's wrong about experimenting on things that would be thrown away otherwise.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Can't be less ethical than eating the thing...
The cells, found in amniotic fluid, can be harvested without harm to the donor or the donor's unborn child.
Well, not quite. Amniotic fluid sampling does have risks, but many people undergo the risks because they want the benefits of genetic testing on the fetus. I have a relative (now a teenager) who was not expected to survive as a fetus because of complications arising from sampling her mother's amniotic fluid.
Find free books.
I for one welcome our new amniotic overlords
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Amniotic fluid is already sampled in those that are high risk of havign a child born with down's syndrome, so this is a non-issue.
This is becoming less common as ultrasound measurements of neck thickness are considered to be an effective measure and the risk is substantially lower.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In response to your first argument: I'm surprised that your claim left the bioethicist without response. If he is arguing that law should define the start of life at fourteen days post conception, the "best interest of the child" argument can't even come into play. You can't take "the best interest of the child" into account if the child isn't alive yet. That's the whole point of putting a mark at 14 days.
In response to your second argument: the same logic would argue that if the right to abortion is a good thing, then all pregnancies should be terminated. This isn't just an "ad infinitum" argument, it's silly at best, and deliberately misrepresentative at worst.
There are a lot of misconceptions running around on this blog, so I won't respond to them on a post by post basis. Rather I'll just list some and respond to them. 1.) An embryo is a fertilized egg. Wrong, an embryo is a cell. Fertilization is a process an embryo can be subject to. 2.) Embryonic stem cells are destroying fertilized eggs. The process of creating embryonic stem cells is taking an unfertilized embryo, replacing the native dna material with the dna of the thing that is to be cloned. This embryo is not fertilized with a sperm, nor is it fertilized in the biological sense. This embryo is not capable of cell division naturally. After the dna material is replaced, a small current is applied to the embryo to force it to undergo cell division. It's not natural fertilization, nor was it fertilization in the first place. Fertilization requires both host dna and the mate's dna. 3.) Creation of stem cells destroys a potential life. The odds that the process to make stem cells can make a fully developed life form is very very rare, more rare than fertilization. If they just let the embryo continue cell division, the chances of it making it to the fetus stage and beyond is over one and a hundred. Their were hundreds of failed attempts to make dolly the sheep, which in the end died because of health problems. So again there wasn't complete success in making a healthy life form. 4.) extraction of Amneonic fluid is dangerous. Doctors do these kinds of testings all the time. It is a test done in prenatal care to detect any potential health problems early on. This would not be a practice at all if the risks to the unborn was greater than the benefits. If someone asked me if I would subject my daughter to amneonic fluid extraction, I would say yes, it would a.) ensure the safety of my grandchild, and b.) contribute to the sciences, its a win win situation where I and my daughter get cake and eat it too.
Not really. What would make it so ? Not god, since an atheist denies the existence of one. Nor laws of physics, since they - being purely mechanical - don't care. Not society, since that ultimately just means that some people arbitrarily decided that something is wrong - arbitrarily, since they have no higher moral authority to base their decision on, there being no higher moral authority in atheism - and not yourself, since that is just you deciding something is wrong without anything to back that decision besides your personal tastes for the reasons mentioned previously.
An atheist really shouldn't talk about right and wrong - and certainly not about "fundamental" right and wrong - since they simply have no meaning in a godless, purely physical world. "Beneficial" and "harmful" might be useful replacements, but they obviously raise the question "to whom ?".
Now let's see how many people flame me with "I'm an atheist and a moral person!", completely missing my point: that since there is no being in atheism capable of authoritatively declaring one set of moral values better than others, and since nature is unable to do so either, "moral behavior" can in atheism be defined by any person any way they want with no one being able to show any reason why that definition would be any better or worse than any other definition; consequently, any behavior is just as moral in atheism as any other (since it's always possible to make up a moral code justifying it, even if that code only says "I can do whatever I want, but the rest of you can't"), which of course means that the word "moral" has no meaning in atheism.
Luckily, most atheists still follow the religion-derived values of the society around them, being unable or unwilling to take their belief - or lack of belief, whatever viewpoint you prefer - to its logical conclusion, and so stay productive or at least non-destructive members of society. And luckily most religious people don't take seriously every weird half-baked phisolophy various theologians with too much time on their hands have added to it over the centuries, especially the parts about killing anyone who disagrees on anything with religious leaders. Laziness is the one thing that unites the masses of humanity anywhere, no matter their creed :).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Stem cells harvested from amniotic fluid will still have the basic problem that embrionic stem cells have for clinical use. True, you didn't have to kill a baby to get them, eliminating the objection that a lot of religious people have with stem cell research, but they are still forign to the body. (If you don't chose to admit that embronic stem cells are harvested by killing a baby, then you don't want to really address the 'conservative' concerns, so you will never be able to resolve the issue. The problem then isn't with the objectors, it's with you. Deliberate blindness, whether you agree or disagree with the view is not ever going to resolve the concerns.)
Rejection by the immune system will be a problem for clinical use with , unless like in transplants, you do something to supress the immune system. That of course causes a whole raft of other problems.
A better system would be to find how to harvest and grow stem cells in the patients body. We all have them, it's just hard to get them to express themselves. That would be a natural way to eliminate the rejection problems. Fortunatly, that is also being worked on.
Next, we just have to figure out how to really use them. I hope we do. Now the benefits are mostly just promises. Vaporware that may soon turn to something great.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
There is no ethical issue. Removal of a little amniotic fluid does no harm to the baby. There is no greater religious issue here than there would be if I did an experiment using your urine.
Previous poster doesn't like that religious people may have ethics. He only shows his ignorance. Religions are heavily into ethics. Ask any buddist, or read Jesus comments in his 'Sermon on the Mount'. Mohammed, Hindus etc. All felt that ethics are very important, and agree that your personal ethics will probably determine your fate in the afterlife. (They don't agree on what that afterlife is, but that's a separate question.)
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
This is complete FUD, yet again trying to stop any real research. Amniocenteses is a risky, voluntary procedure that doesn't return very much fluid (nor would we want to). How exactly would this be capitalized or used as a treatment. This is just a stop gap measure for research purposes until the Federal Government gets its ducks in a row.
First it's an egg, then it's fertilized. A couple of days later it's an embryo. A few months later it's a child. Then still later it's an adult, then a parent. (repeat process). At no point in the process is there a clear difference from the condition near the same point in time. (Except twords the end of the blastocyst stage, when the cells first start to differentiate, or before/after fertilization.) The lack of science education in the country is really showing in this thread. Didn't any of you study biology?
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Read the article. They got the amniotic fluid during/after delivery. there is about a gallon of it released. There is no danger to the baby. It's already been born. Any hospital could provide liters and liters of the stuff every day. Too bad they still don't know how to really use it.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
because, to date, all the successful stem cell therapies have used non-embryonic stem cells.
Clear, Dark Skies
I'm so thankful that with this discovery, nobody can claim it is necessary to kill these people for their stem cells anymore.
The justification for embryonic stem-cell research is now gone completely (not that it was ever valid).
And yet, I somehow get the feeling that some will still fight for the right to kill them, even though there is absolutely no reason to. You have to wonder about people who insist on killing for no reason.
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
> Would you allow your pregnant daughter to go through this procedure of donating amniotic fluid?
Yes. It's a pretty normal procedure, I don't believe it to be very risky to either the mother or the child.
Also, I'm glad for the fact that there are no ethical complications here--this should allow stem cell research to move forward and help save lives. For all the propaganda to the contrary, most people who are "against [embryonic] stem cell research" are actually against killing human embryos, not against science or research, even stem cell research, in and of itself.
Except for the fact that both issues you raise are troublesome.
Medical marijuana is a problem because every place that tries to offer medicinal use of this drug ends up selling it to people who are not sick but just want to get high. In fact, perhaps you can be the first, but I have yet to meet a marijuana proponent who was not also a recreational marijuana user. People don't need to get high. We should not make it legal for people to get wasted just because they want to. I don't need you drunk or stoned and driving the car which ends up killing anyone.
Embryonic stem cell research is more troublesome - it's not just some stoner who is choosing to waste his life on drugs that is the problem. My world view says that a powerless, silent person is killed for every IVF failure and abortion and more would be killed to support the possibility of treatments. That is completely unacceptable.
Californians voted to fund embryonic stem cell research to the tune of $3B, so I'd suggest that federal funding is not the key to success that you seem to believe it to be.
My view is that embryonic research is morally tainted, and adult stem cell research is not, and is already helping people with practical therapies. Why waste time talking about embryonic stem cell research, particularly when we can now get similar cells from amniotic fluid without killing anyone?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Kant's Categorical Imperative does a pretty good job of atheistically summing up an ethical system.
v e
"Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperati
On a different note, I take it that you're religious, and that you believe that anyone who does not believe in a god cannot be moral? So in other words, the only reason that you personally do not rape and kill your mother is that the invisible sky daddy that you believe in says not to?
Yes, I understand that I'm making something of a straw man here, but I personally do not rape and kill my mother, yet I do not believe in any gods. I believe that raping and killing one's mother is wrong, because if everybody raped and killed their mother, society would be... rather different. Yet you don't rape and kill your mother because the god that you believe in threatens you with eternal pain and you are scared of him.
Which one of us is "moral"?
Right - no one will get pregnant to make babies for scientists to kill, but absolutely IVF techniques will be used to create more embyos from which to "harvest" stem cells. Again, my world view says that those are people being killed for research.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
But the statement I was responding to was that abortion is "fundamentally" wrong. This means it should never be performed. So, it should not be performed, even if the mother is likely to die during child birth. It should not be performed in cases of rape, etc. Do you agree with that?
... and then they built the supercollider.
"4) They want to stop the suffering humans with diseases that stem cell research promises to cure, and they don't care if stem cells can come from other sources since they don't consider a clump of undifferentiated embryonic cells to be any more significant that the billions of skin cells we shed every day."
If that was true (undifferentiated embryonic cells==skin cells) then we wouldn't be having this discussion. But since they aren't, then it makes more sense to at least consider alternative sources.
Hehe. I'm sorry but you're arguing philosophy with THIS forum. They can't even get logic straight, let alone philosophy. Yes I understood you and wish you luck with this forum. They're going to need it.
---
I'll stick this down here. A thing to ask about "women's choice". Were's the "man's choice" in the whole matter? Something to think about when she starts screaming "It's my body".
> While there's no proof that amniotic stem cells are as potent as embryonic stem cells
Ummm...embryonic stem cells have no use in treating humans...they always cause terminal cancer. There are no exceptions. "Potent"??? Are they looking for a bio-weapon? True, embryonic stem cells do kill more surely and in smaller doses than does mustard gas, but they take so dang long that they would be useless.
Andy Out!
"Yeah it's pretty much the same. Fortunately there's nothing wrong with abortions."
Thankfully your parents disagreed.
BTW to your reply to me about faith. You're incorrect. Ask someone who's faithful...if you have the nerve.
And you clearly didn't read my post very thoroughly. I made no mention whatsoever about stem cell therapies. Perhaps my phrasing was a bit sparse. Basically, we know for a FACT that embryonic stem cells are pluripotent. We also know for a FACT that no adult stem cell source has been shown to produce pluripotent stem cells. Right now, pluripotent stem cells == embryonic stem cells. My whole point is that there have been so many possible methods that have been touted as a replacement for embryonic stem cells. However, none of them have been shown to be pluripotent, thus limiting their uses and making them not really a replacement that will get us out from under the ethical problem.
That isn't to say multipotent stem cells have NO uses. You would never find me saying that. ESCR has only been around since about 1998, so it's a bit jumping the gun to start talking about all the successful stem cell therapies and putting down therapies that might be created using pluripotent stem cells. Right now, there are a lot of hurdles for them to be used. First, there is the giant mess with funding. Second, there is the problem with contamination in a lot of stem cell lines. Third, there is the giant ethical issue. Fourth, there is the largest problem - we haven't yet figured out all the buttons to push in a pluripotent stem cell to make it do what we want. The last is both the story of science and a results of the first three issues. But since you don't have issues 1-3, much more research has gone into using multipotent stem cells and hence more success. Personally, I think it's GREAT that there has been success. But to ignore the fact that a multipotent cell has less potential than a pluripotent one is to not only be ignorant of science but also grammar .
You may find the definitions of "alive" "life" "living" "human being" "human" "organism" and "embryo" particularly enlightening on this matter.
From conception onward, an embryo is ALIVE, HUMAN, and an distinct ORGANISM (not part of an organism). These are sure as sunshine and rain.
What is a "human" embryo at 18 weeks, pray tell? A monkey? A rat? A slug?
Virtually no one believes such stupidy. Embryos are not sentient. Quit putting stupid words in other peoples' mouths and then refuting them. Beating the straw man is one of the lamest games in the book.
way to Y?
br? Thank you for pointing out the secular argument against abortion. If the ability to get to Y, rather than being there, is what matters, fetuses win.
That doesn't make it low risk, but the point is moot -- the cells can be harvested after birth.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
My world view says that a lump of cells is a lump of cells. An IVF failure or abortion is no different than, say, a tumor biopsy or a liposuction.
n abis-stay-in-system.html
Right. So take that biopsy or liposuction and put it in a petri dish - provide nutrients and shelter and see what develops.
Now, take that embryo and provide nutrients and shelter for... I don't know.... 21 days after conception - you have a beating heart. Let that continue for another 21 weeks, and THEN compare your biopsy with the very clearly HUMAN BABY and tell me that they are the same. Ridiculous.
People don't need to play football either. Or dance, or scuba dive
When I stop dancing, playing football, or snorkeling, I don't have negative after effects linger in my body for days. When I engage in physical activity, I'm not then tempted to engage in more behavior altering activities which lead to greater risk.
The fact is that when some (perhaps many) people use marijuana, they decide that life is not worth living without it. Some go even further to more physically and mentally detrimental drugs. Every addict thinks "I'll be the one who can control it. I'm smarter than those junkies."
Marijuana alters the user's perception of the world around them. Their judgment is impaired, and as a result are more likely to engage in behaviors which are not good ideas. The law recognizes a fixed amount of BAC before determining that someone's ability to respond is impaired and they are no longer allowed to operate a vehicle - regardless of their amount of consumption, body weight, tolerance, or natural giftedness which might allow them to be "safe" behind the wheel. People on drugs are much more likely to think that they are "fine" and then do something stupid like operate a car.
On a pro-marijuana site, I found the following quotes:
"Marijuana affects memory, judgment and perception."
"Athletes could find their performance is off; timing, movements, and coordination are all affected by THC. Also, since marijuana can affect judgment and decision making, its use can lead to risky sexual behavior, resulting in exposure to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV"
"regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems."
http://www.ganjabus.com/2006/05/how-long-does-can
Sounds great. Where do I sign up for all of these benefits?
pure fascism
Yeah. I'm a fascist. You've totally convinced me. I bow at your irrefutable rhetoric. Perhaps if you were clear of mind you could make a rational argument which might influence me. Nevertheless, continue in your constitutional right to take illegal drugs. The man is really sticking it to you, isn't he?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Is there any real credible evidence that stem cells are better than any other treatment for a known disease? Until I see widespread studies showing that stem cells extend the life expectancy of some with a serious disease, I will continue to see stem cell resarch in the same light at snake oil. Case in point, gene therapy which was supposed to cure all disease based on media hype in the 1990s seems to have burned all of its funding out.
Stem cell are plentiful and easily obtainiable in placenta and ubilical cord blood. This has been known for years now but is unreported. The whole nonsense about embryonic stem cells is a distraction ploy by both political sides to attract funding, distract us from actual serious issues, and to fill newspaper pages with nonsense.
Generically, our current crop of less than appealing politicans of both parties just play the he said / she said political handwringing game instead of addressing real issues. Look for actual legislation that addresses one or more of your important issues and ignore the soundbites. Be wary of the news media because they think journalism is getting a statement from both parties instead of actually reasearching and verifying the facts. If we had 3 political parties, would they consider a news article well written if it consited of a subject along with 3 statements, one from each party.
Yes... Except that this is just Kant arbitrarily deciding that following this principle is morally better than not following it and following some other principle, say, "I can do anything as long as I'm not caught".
In other words, it fails to address the core issue at all.
As I specifically stated that they can, yours is a somewhat strange comment. All I'm arguing is that atheism is unable to provide any kind of basis for moral, since it denies the existence of anything beyond the natural world and the natural world is not inherently moral, not any individual atheists actually having no moral.
Certainly. But you are making the - entirely arbitrary - assumption that Kant was right, and that everyone will emulate you.
By your own words, the only reason you don't do bad things to your mother is that you're afraid of the consequences if everyone decides to emulate you. So perhaps you might be a little less condescending ?
Both, since both have moral rules. That is not the point. Please read the message again.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
So much for women who will die if childbirth proceeds, eh?
Except that this is just Kant arbitrarily deciding that following this principle is morally better than not following it
As opposed to God saying the exact same thing?
Yes. All morality ultimately comes down to someone saying that something is right or wrong. Religion has an absolute authority figure capable of giving absolute moral rules, atheism doesn't. Therefore, a religious type can say that something is fundamentally right or wrong while staying consistent, while an atheist can't; lack of absolute authority also means lack of absolute values, since there's nothing capable of dictating them.
A theist can say "This is wrong because God says so", while an atheist can only say "This is wrong because I say so", or "because Kant says so". However, the atheist could always change his mind, and it would be impossible to consider his new opinion of right and wrong any better or worse than the previous one.
In other words, it is impossible for an atheist to show either statement "X is morally right" or "X is morally wrong" right or wrong for any X. It is impossible, because there is no moral principle he could deduce it from without first having to prove (deduce from other principles - but then they must be shown correct) or arbitrarily declare that principle correct. It's a bit like trying to decide which direction is up without an external gravity field: pick any, it's as good as any other.
An atheist can pick any set of moral values he pleases, without there being any way to consider one set better another (without resorting to assuming pre-existing moral values, in which case you need to show there they come from). What most atheists end up picking are the values their own social instincts and upbringing instilled on them, giving them sufficient morality that they are not a danger to others; however, following those values is not - from an atheistic viewpoints - inherently any better or worse than emulating Hannibal Lecter.
That's what I'm trying to get to, in my long-winded way. By denying the existence of God or gods an atheist also denies the existence of universal values since there are no entities with authority to set any and the natural world in itself doesn't have any; consequently, any moral judgement made by an atheist are just his personal opinions depending on his personal tastes and cannot therefore be fundamental.
To put it very simply: You either follow someone's rules or you don't. If you don't, you're free to do whatever you want. A theist has someone to get rules from (God), atheist doesn't. Therefore an atheist doesn't have any basis for choosing a particular morality over any other, besides social pressure and force of habit.
For the reasons mentioned above, atheism makes morality a meaningless concept; any imaginable behavior is equally moral under atheism, since there's no basis to judge one more or less moral than another. Consequently, an atheist declaring somethign "fundamentally wrong" is one who either hasn't thougt about the consequences of his position, or has and has decided that integrity and consistency are not amongst his values ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Does that make masturbation something akin to genocide?
Nope. An embryo is a person, a sperm cell is a cell. The mojo is when the sperm enters the egg. At that point, all that is needed for a BABY to be born is food and shelter.
Look, if the Monty Python song is right "Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." Then every time I have sex and a pregnancy results, I've made God (who designed the system) angry because a couple million of those things die. Sperm cells don't contain the minimum necessary ingredients to make a person - just half of the ingredients.
Mindless scaremongering snipped...
Interesting when I state facts - even facts written by marijuana advocates - that's called mindless and scaremongering.
I lead a good life.
I never said that you are a bad person. I don't know you, but I'll take you at your word. You probably are a decent fellow, and one that I'd appreciate as a next-door-neighbor.
I like to unwind with a little herbal refreshment.
It seems to me that an ongoing desire to not be clear of mind indicates that there is something about your life which you desire to avoid - to escape the mundanity of life, you want to use mind-altering substances. This is your choice, but, for the reasons I listed above, I think that it should continue to be illegal.
I don't want some idiot stoned on ANYTHING killing my wife or kids. FWIW, I would be OK with prohibition of alcohol, and cigarettes too - use of alcohol is so unimportant to my life that the loss of it would be nothing to me. (BTW - by definition, anyone being reckless due to their self-imposed incapacity is an idiot.)
Drugs are not the bogeyman.
But they are not good for you, and one function of the law is to teach - to teach people what is good and bad for them. Another is to protect society - people on drugs do things that are bad for the general population, and laws against drug use serve to protect the populous.
I know we won't agree here, but I do think that your position is unreasonable, and I think that your life would be more rich and full if you dealt with whatever it is emotionally that drives you to self-medicate with drugs.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Yes. All morality ultimately comes down to someone saying that something is right or wrong
Good, I'm glad we agree.
In other words, it is impossible for an atheist to show either statement "X is morally right" or "X is morally wrong" right or wrong for any X.
The exact same thing is true for religion. Prove to me that your God actually said "X is right" or "X is wrong". Wait, you can't, can you? There's no way for you to prove that God made that decree, as opposed to, say, some nutjob trying to rebel against the oppression of the Romans. Worse, in the case of religion, people happily pick and choose their morality. For example, people say "I can eat shellfish because the NT obsoletes the Pentateuch". Then they turn around and condemn gays based on Leviticus.
Therefore, the argument that "god said so, therefore it's moral" is merely an appeal to an arbitrary authority, and is no better than saying "Kant said so, therefore it's moral". They're on the exact same footing. 'course, the difference is the latter is at least grounded in some kind of rational, philosophical reasoning... as opposed to, say, rules which ban the creation of clothing from two different fibres.
This raises up one of the fundamental differences between religion and atheism: in religion, you don't need to prove everything, you can take things on faith.
Or, to put it a bit less flippantly: no one believes in just "God", without adding some attributes to that. These attributes typically take the form of that god having said or done something. Every religion (that has a god - not all of them do) has a set of things all who are considered part of that religion believe their god (and usually prophets or some other people too) did or said.
A theistic worldview has absolute truths (an therefore absolute morality), while an atheistic one doesn't.
I never claimed that religious people would neccessarily or even likely be nice, moral or logical.
Are we talking atheists anymore, then, or Kant-worshippers ?-)
Unfortunately, rationality and philosophy are unable to provide a base for morality. You still need to make the basic value judgements before you can start building anything on them, and atheism gives no tools for making them.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Are you saying that you find morally objectionable my opinion about when life begins?
If so, on what platform do you stand to make the judgment that my position is unacceptable and should be ignored?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I'm sorry. Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute reports that less than 1% of all abortions are due to rape and/or incest.
e d_States
The below wikipedia article sheds some light on this topic. You'll find that most of the reasons are optional and have more to do with preservation of lifestyle or social standing. Overall 8.2% could be construed as medically needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_Unit
How do the visitors to PlannedParenthood pay for their services? No idea. It is a relatively inexpensive procedure as I remember it.
That also seems to match with reality. My problem is with the use of the phrase "as a form of birth control." It implies that no other birth control is being used and people are using abortion in lieu of more common birth control. I would argue that people who would do such a thing are stupid and are abusing the procedure, and I think that most other people would as well. I think that when people use that phrase, they're implying that it's just another form of birth control and people should simply use something else. It's misleading.
If you want "as a form of birth control" to mean "because they opt not to have the child" well, yes. That's pretty much what an abortion is. I think I just wasn't following what you mean.
As I said before, given what it costs to use conventional birth control, an abortion would have to be just about the cheapest medical procedure you could ever have in order for it to make economic sense (especially when combined with the fact that it's not exactly a convenient thing to have done) as an alternative birth control. If that's what you meant, I can't imagine how it could be true for any but a small portion of the population.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
way to Y?
Good question.
br? Thank you for pointing out the secular argument against abortion.
IMHO religions just confuse bioethics issues because you wind up with a "my god is better than your god" impasse so often.
If the ability to get to Y, rather than being there, is what matters, fetuses win.
Good point. Yet most people who feel disposal of embryo leftovers is OK feel that infanticide isn't and unwanted dog euthanasia is.
"Because they're human" seems too specious to be logical, but I don't know what the proper reasoning is.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)