First Genetically Modified Human Embryo Under Review

Wired is reporting that Cornell University researchers genetically modified a human embryo in 2007, but have only recently been gaining publicity as their work is being reviewed. "The research raises a number of thorny ethical questions. Though adding a fluorescent protein was merely a proof-of-principle step, scientists say that modified embryos could be used to research human diseases. They say embryos wouldn't be allowed to develop for more than a few weeks, much less implanted in a woman and brought to term."

Comments

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[Datamonstar]

Quiche?

404 on Link

[Stefanwulf]

Anyone else getting a 404 "feed not found" page back from feeds.wired.com?

Re:404 on Link

[Valkarious]

Yeah, but it's not like /. users like to RTFA anyhow.

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[Teresita]

A fluorescent protein? Did they want to make a baby that you can find under the black lights in a night club?

fluorescent protein?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean the kid would have an annoying hum if born?

Re:fluorescent protein?

[Teresita]

Does that mean the kid would have an annoying hum if born?

No, but if the kid was aborted, you would have to dispose of the fetus as HAZMAT.

Re:fluorescent protein?

[John3]

Only until he learns the words.

wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[nurb432]

Wouldn't that mean they were murdered? That is if you accept the religious side of the house...

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Leonard Fedorov]

Can't be murder. Murder is defined (by dictionary.com) as killing with malicious intent. Although, if you're the right-wing type who thinks of athesits as god-less satan worshippers...

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[maxume]

There seems to be quite a bit of middle ground. There are the people who get pregnant in order to rescue frozen embryos, and then there are the people who get repeated, failed fertility treatments. Both could claim to represent the religious side of the house.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[vertinox]

Wouldn't that mean they were murdered? That is if you accept the religious side of the house...

As much as you murder millions of children every night with bottle of lotion and a box of kleenex...

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

www.m-w.com defines it as " the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought". Therefore the morality of the act is pre-determined by the ruling authority and THAT defines murder. This isn't a religious debate, it is an ethical one. To even bring religion into it is a Straw-Man argument. The point is that these organisms are definitely human and they are definitely alive. So is killing them wrong?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[icandodat]

I don't think you even need to go into religion. Most thinking humans would agree that we must hold human life sacred if for no other reason than to protect your own. An embryo is a human life. A sperm is not, and neither for that matter is an unfertilized egg. researchers will tell you that this type of experimentation can lead to cures for diseases but at what cost? We sacrifice the most innocent so that some 80 year old billionaire can get a boner or eek out a few more years of his wretched life on earth because he's so afraid that dieing is the end or that he will actually have to face his fate. This is like spending your kids food money on blow.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[kc8apf]

You are presenting one side of an issue as the only side. You've chosen the side that embryos are human and alive and thus this is murder. From the other side, these are not humans and/or not alive. Religion seems to come in on this since one of the most vocal religious groups (christians) tend to side with you. It isn't really a religious debate, but many people view it as one due to that.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[2nd Post!]

Except what helps an 80 year old billionaire will help an 70 year old millionaire, 60 year old white collar worker, etc, down to 20 year olds with pulmonary hypertension.

So what IS the cost if an 80 year old billionaire is funding the research for treatment that will benefit everyone else, except a billionaire's money?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

I think not. Most people can differentiate between the potential for life (semen and eggs) and actual life itself (autonomous life including self-replicating cells that may or may not have certain dependencies for life; don't we all?).

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[johnlcallaway]

You had me until the last sentence.

They are a mass of cells that one day could become human. My sperm one day could also become human, does that make masturbation a crime if I don't make every attempt possible to fertilize an egg?? Is a woman committing murder because she doesn't attempt to get pregnant every period??

Oh .. I know. Some chose an arbitrary point when an egg and sperm meet to decide what is human.

OK .. I chose the arbitrary point when a fetus emerges from a woman as the point a fetus becomes human. I have just as much basis for that statement as anyone who chooses fertilization. It's all arbitrary depending on your beliefs, since there are no scientific or legal definitions for a soul. Religious definitions don't count, as you just said. As far as the law is concerned, a soul doesn't exist.

I've noticed it also depends on whether or not the person arguing is the one that has to support it. Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end. I agree with the semi-serious argument that all anti-abortion advocates should have to sign up to adopt all the children that their cause prevents being aborted.

That flimsy argument aside, the US recognizes 90 days of development as to when an abortion can occur, so any embryo that is not developed past that point should be able to be terminated in the US without receiving any permission from a legal authority. The US does not define what methods are acceptable for creating embryos, both natural and artificial means are accepted. So whether or not an embryo is in a placenta or a petri dish should also be irrelevant. Since embryos can be frozen for years, it should be based on physical development, not length of time.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[dgatwood]

Religions might also say that the abomination is creating the embryo under circumstances where they cannot possibly survive, not in allowing them to inevitably die a natural death. The latter is somewhat related to the question of whether doctors should be forced to keep a terminal patient alive with extraordinary means. Depends on how they terminate the embryos, I suppose. Either way, though, there are a lot of moral and ethical questions here....

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Toonol]

Just to nitpick, you don't need to be religious to view abortion as murder. Just as some religious people are ok with it.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[MightyMartian]

The point is that these organisms are definitely human and they are definitely alive. So is killing them wrong?

I don't know about you, but I find assuming one's conclusion and then imagining that anyone is bound by that is not only poor form, but pretty goddamned intellectually lazy as well.

If an embryo only a few weeks old is a human being, then are HeLa cells human as well?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[wizardforce]

it's not only a question of whether or not killing embryos at this stage would be wrong, it's als oa question of what the consequences of not carrying out this sort of research. would it morally/ethically be wrong to stifle this kind of research to protect the life of these embryos while millions suffer and die from diseases that could have been treated using this research? I'm not advocating one position or another in this case, just pointing out the other side of this.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[osu-neko]

An embryo is a human life.

No more or less so than a white blood cell. But we don't define cutting yourself as mass murder.

The relevant question is whether it's a "person", not whether it's technically alive or technically human. The embryo has substantially less claim to being a "person" than does a brain-dead body.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[TubeSteak]

I think not. Most people can differentiate between the potential for life (semen and eggs) and actual life itself (autonomous life including self-replicating cells that may or may not have certain dependencies for life; don't we all?). For what value of "most people"?

A popular line of reasoning says that birth control pills = abortion because they prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. They may or may not understand what you're saying, but either way they disagree with your definitions. That isn't something that can be resolved (through education for example).

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Toonol]

Oh .. I know. Some chose an arbitrary point when an egg and sperm meet to decide what is human.

I think that point is often chosen because it's not arbitrary. It's a significant developmental event. Twelve hours before, three weeks later; those are arbitrary points. Your second example of an arbitrary point, when the baby is born, isn't arbitrary either. A true arbitrary point would be something like "after the first trimester."

There's a few other significant points in the development of a baby, such as first mental activity, first heartbeat, and so on. Those aren't arbitrary either. They may not be the correct basis to distinguish a human from a fetus, but they aren't purely subjective.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[mrbluze]

This isn't a religious debate, it is an ethical one. If it's not a religious debate, it's not about morality and not about ethics. Because absolute values really come only from religions. If it's about human rights then it's about the United Nations and a consensus view and whether this should change. If it's a legal debate then it's rather boring really. But you can't rule religion out of this because that's the very reason why all of this is controversial.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[ZeroExistenZ]

Although, if you're the right-wing type who thinks of athesits as god-less satan worshippers...

Wow. Just wow. This must be the most valid point to strenghten your position in a discussion. "If you do not agree with my above statement, you must be also part of this other group I loathe with all evil and despicable people and followers according to my processing ability of what I believe is factual data, where I take emotion entirely out of the equation."

I must say, you're a strong conversationalist.

btw, I live a country where you have dosens of political parties, no "black/white", before you ignore me away as a "evil other-then-me"-type of person falling outside of your comfy frame of reference which you try to enforce no matter what; "it is so because I say so. And if it isn't, I shall make it so!" comes to mind. You must be god, in your own frame of reference. Also, your answer is quite conclusive, you must be very intelligent and have weighted every possible aspect of every possible stance to be able to so shortly summerize some issue as this. As if you're saying "nah, I don't feel like cookies right now. I'm more concerned about how I can generate alternative power from a bee. I'm almost there. This cookie decision making is puny."

Please, can grant me three absolute answers? Your powers might help humankind. Or else you're probably one of these retarted Americans who think in black and white. You couldn't be that, you posess absolute knowledge.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[dissy]

it's not only a question of whether or not killing embryos at this stage would be wrong, it's als oa question of what the consequences of not carrying out this sort of research. would it morally/ethically be wrong to stifle this kind of research to protect the life of these embryos while millions suffer and die from diseases that could have been treated using this research? I'm not advocating one position or another in this case, just pointing out the other side of this. To answer your first point, no, it is ethically wrong to force even 1 person to give up their life for others, be it 2, more, or less, unless they agree.

So it all comes back around to defining what a person is.
If it is a person, it is wrong to kill it, otherwise its fine. That is the only part the debate is over anymore.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[vertinox]

I think not. Most people can differentiate between the potential for life (semen and eggs) and actual life itself (autonomous life including self-replicating cells that may or may not have certain dependencies for life; don't we all?).

Oh your being semantic and in the same regard you can't kill a virus because its not truly "alive" because it can't replicate without a host. ;)

My skin, hair, and nails can self replicate a while after I'm dead.

Technically you could put a bit of skin in a petri dish and let it grow for as long as you feed it.

And I said... Murder not kill...

Your skin cells, sperm, eggs, and embryos have as much sentience as each other and much less than your pet fish or the animal you ate for dinner.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[megaditto]

Well, violating arbitrary limits may yet have very real consequences. For example, try dating someone uder 18 (14 in some states) and see what happens...

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Wog]

A few-weeks-old embryo will develop without impediment into a sentient being. Cell lines will never become sentient. They are life, but not human or even animal life. Ending them is no worse than pulling weeds from your flower bed.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[keller999]

I agree with the semi-serious argument that all anti-abortion advocates should have to sign up to adopt all the children that their cause prevents being aborted. I tend to side with the quite-serious argument that if people could not have abortions, they may abstain from sex more often or pursue another form of birth control. In this case, I think that abortion being easy, common, and cheap cause more pregnancies to happen. If abortion is a viable answer, why take personal responsibility for your sexual decisions?

And just because I believe that you shouldn't be able to terminate a fetus, doesn't mean I should have to adopt the results of you not keeping your penis to yourself. That's like me saying that if you're for abortion, you should have to sign up for a mailing list for pictures of dead fetuses. Neither argument is sane.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[somersault]

these are not humans The fact that they can be planted in a woman and brought to term doesn't count for anything? They're a lot more 'human' than a cat or dog embryo for example, I doubt one of those could survive in a human womb (though I can't say I've tried such an experiment myself).

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[mrbcs]

Matthew 25:39-41 (New King James Version)

39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' 40 And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' 41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[docbrody]

OK .. I chose the arbitrary point when a fetus emerges from a woman as the point a fetus becomes human Well, I choose the arbitrary point when they learn to take a dump in a toilet on their own. Anything before that and I say they are fair game.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[osu-neko]

Just to nitpick, you don't need to be religious to view abortion as murder. Just as some religious people are ok with it.

Depends on how you define "religious belief". In a narrow sense, you're right. People can have a firm belief on when person-hood begins without it having been dictated to them by religion. But a lot of people use the term "religious belief" is a broader sense, to mean anytime one has a firm believe based on faith rather than evidence. In that broader sense, the view that abortion is murder is definitely a "religious belief". (In this broader sense of the term, even atheists can have religious beliefs -- indeed, true atheists [as opposed to agnostics] are defined by an essentially religious belief.)

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the other side, these are not humans and/or not alive. I'm all in favor of abortion, but your argument is untenable. "Human" is defined by our DNA, and "alive" is defined by the ability to grow, divide, and use energy. An embryo meets both definitions. To say that it isn't alive is just monumentally stupid, and to say that it isn't human life is dishonest.

Really, is it so hard to just tell the truth: some human life is not valuable. Some human life is too small to have an consciousness, so we don't have a problem experimenting with it and then disposing of it.

Is that so hard for people to say? To claim that it's not human and it's not alive is like claiming that the rats we experiment with are really made out of rainbows. It's just making something up to make yourself feel better. Just tell the truth.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Moridineas]

I agree with you to a point. Can you define a human life as 2 cells? 8? 10,000? fully formed organs? higher brain activity? There's room for much debate there.

On the other hand, I think there is room for no debate that if the fetus could be removed from the mother and survive, that the fetus while still inside the mother is a human being. I don't think that point is in any way arbitrary.

Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end I also don't agree with that. Maybe in some cases, but there are a lot of True Believers out there.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Wardish]

In the normal process of reproduction many fertilizations occur but very few actually implant and therefore have a chance of becoming a person.

If you believe every fertilized egg is human then you should be insisting that every woman be monitored and every vaginal discharge be investigated in order to rescue the fertilized eggs that didn't implant. BTW, you might want to remember that some fraction of those that don't implant are damaged to such an extent that they might not survive regardless of the attempt and even if they did they would be severely handicapped.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[glitch23]

OK .. I chose the arbitrary point when a fetus emerges from a woman as the point a fetus becomes human. I have just as much basis for that statement as anyone who chooses fertilization. It's all arbitrary depending on your beliefs, since there are no scientific or legal definitions for a soul. Religious definitions don't count, as you just said. As far as the law is concerned, a soul doesn't exist.

And I choose the point at which the heart begins beating in the fetus as the point when it becomes a baby aka human. Of course, all along it is a human fetus as opposed to an elephant fetus growing inside of a woman. If that heart stops beating the baby dies. If someone causes that heart to stop beating then it is considered murder. The fetus is just as much of a human after birth as it is prior to going through the birth canal. There are no scientific or legal definitions of a soul and there is no need to have them. A soul can not die anyway. We are talking about the human Earthly body and therefore religious definitions of a soul are irrelevant, not that they don't count. As far as the law is concerned, a soul doesn't come into play nor does it need to.

I've noticed it also depends on whether or not the person arguing is the one that has to support it. Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end. I agree with the semi-serious argument that all anti-abortion advocates should have to sign up to adopt all the children that their cause prevents being aborted.

That [in bold] may be the case but that doesn't negate the moral issues, in my mind, of someone who has to support it arbitarily choosing to end a life, whether you choose to call it human or not. A life is still being canceled and to have an excuse to cancel it makes it all the more easy for those who were responsible for supporting it. By calling it non-human it enables someone who was going to kill it to remove all conscience sense of the act of killing another human. A similar concept is used to treat humans as merely animals by trying to prove evolution is the reason for existence and thus imply no moral obligations. People can always think to themselves that what they were killing was an animal and therefore lower than human so they can sleep better. Of course, even killing cats and dogs in American society has repercussions but destroying a fetus has no repercussions. Go figure.

It sounds like you basically prefer convenience of an adult life over the burgeoning life of a child. That seems to sum of your rationale does it not? Nothing forces a woman to keep a baby she brings to term so the support issue is really a non-issue. Adoption is a much better choice than not giving the chance for a baby to live its life. Hopefully the only issue is what defines a baby which for some reason seems to be difficult to define. Of course, for those who like to make the world grey and then fall back on the excuse that the world is not black and white the definition is difficult even though it need not be.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[servognome]

By your definition freedom of speech and equal rights count as "religious beliefs." A better term would be philosophical belief.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[countvlad]

OK .. I chose the arbitrary point when a fetus emerges from a woman as the point a fetus becomes bhuman. I have just as much basis for that statement as anyone who chooses fertilization.

Eh...I'd say you don't. I've heard this argument before from people, but it seems pretty clear that once you have a fertilized egg, you have not just a, but the first human cell. I think that line is very clear cut from a technical, scientific point of view and anything but arbitrary. Fertilized cells are distinctly human; this is not a claim you can make for individual sperm or individual eggs. Is a fertilized egg genetically human? Yes. Is the fertilized egg alive? Yes.

It's all arbitrary depending on your beliefs, since there are no scientific or legal definitions for a soul. Religious definitions don't count, as you just said. As far as the law is concerned, a soul doesn't exist.

Since you can't quantify a soul your point is meaningless. I don't see why a scientific definition of human life would require a soul. I provided you a scientific definition (which is hardly arbitrary) of human life in the previous paragraph.

I've noticed it also depends on whether or not the person arguing is the one that has to support it.

Meh, I agree with you, there's plenty of bias. I don't particularly care about the abortion argument as far as ethics goes (I think the ethics part is a debate for individual States), but I do not understand how any sane, well educated person can possibly argue that a fertilized egg is anything other than human.

Most people I know who disagree with the definition given above seem to think that once you've decided it's human, then killing it is murder. I disagree. Murder is a human abstraction that implies an unlawful action, which by definition requires context for consideration. We're quite within our power to kill all the human life we want and have it not be murder.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[ShakaUVM]

>>Oh .. I know. Some chose an arbitrary point when an egg and sperm meet to decide what is human.

Seems a very reasonable threshold to me -- gametes have only half the chromosomes needed to make a person. But once you have a sperm and egg together, and bake it at 98.6 degrees for 9 months, you have yourself a baby. The threshold of fertilization makes a lot more sense than any arbitrary date after that point. Once you have a genetically complete human, you have a potential human life -- with advances in incubator technology, eventually we'll be able to grow a complete baby using nothing more than a fertilized egg (and then train them to either pilot battlemechs or become bounty hunters, but that's beside the point), which means that a scientific experiment that destroys such an embryo has destroyed a viable human life.

As you can imagine, I have very serious ethical issues with treating humans "Within X days of fertilization" as science experiments. Humans should be more than a collection of atoms; in fact, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the philosophies of materialism and scientism.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[josephpate]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0116_030116_tvfrozenzoo.html

So is a Bongo embryo a Bongo? It can be implanted into an Eland and brought to term. By your definition it would be an Eland.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK .. I chose the arbitrary point when a fetus emerges from a woman as the point a fetus becomes human. I have just as much basis for that statement as anyone who chooses fertilization. It's all arbitrary depending on your beliefs, since there are no scientific or legal definitions for a soul. Religious definitions don't count, as you just said. As far as the law is concerned, a soul doesn't exist. Of course you also set yourself up for the situation where if the doctor performing the termination triggers a miscarriage before the foetus is dead, he imediately flips from being actively engaged in destroying the foetus to being imprisoned for life should he do so. If you think that's just an hypotheitical issue, consider that in the UK the development limit for a termination is 24 weeks, whereas 1 in 5 babies born prematurely at 23 weeks survive -- doctors are somewhat regularly engaged in destroying foetuses that if they were removed from the womb at that point they would be duty bound to protect and provide medical aid, and that would have a significant chance of survival.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[tsm_sf]

The dishonesty lies in claiming that we care about human life, when it's entirely apparent that we do not.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, the bible itself doesn't consider abortion murder. If you hurt a woman causing a miscarriage, it's a civil matter. : "And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Exodus 21:22-25

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Wonko the Sane]

Is a developing embryo alive? By any reasobable definition, yes.

Is that embryo human? Yes, biologically.

Do human beings have the absolute right to life in all cases? No. We recognize that the human right to life is reduced to allow (for example) for capital punishment and war.

Everyone claiming that a developing embryo is not alive and/or not human is crazy and can be ignored.

Everyone claiming every instance of human life has an absolute right to exist is crazy and can be ignored.

So what criteria should be used to make a reasonable decision about the boundaries of human rights?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[OrangeTide]

Literally an embryo is always alive (unless it's a dead embryo). There is not anything to debate about unless you want to use a non-scientific definition of alive/life.

But my tonsils and appendix are alive too, if you remove them is that murder? Did you just murder my appendix? No because my appendix is not a person.

I think the debate really has to boil down to if a prenatal embryo is a person. Especially in circumstances like very earlier embryos that are just an undifferentiated mass of cells. The law does define a natural person for "postnatal" human entities. But it's been really sticky to try and apply this to an embryo.

It's a little easier to apply the concept of a person to a fetus (which is further along than an embryo and starts to look like a human being, I guess looks-like is 9/10ths of the law these days)

Personally I'm fine with terminating fetuses and embryos as long as their life depends entirely on a mother's body to continue. I draw the line at responsibility and not at number of weeks or if it looks like a baby or not. As long as the mother bears full responsibility (legally and ethically) I don't see what basis the community or government can enforce their will on her. But really this is only a hot button issue because certain political groups know they can stir up both sides and trigger an emotional reaction at the voting booths, and eliminate the chance of more people approaching the process rationally and with informed political opinions.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[FoolishBluntman]

>>>But to torture them with radioactive fluorescent protein that is disgusting.
Who said the fluorescent protein was radioactive?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[tsm_sf]

I tend to side with the quite-serious argument that if people could not have abortions, they may abstain from sex more often or pursue another form of birth control. You feel that way because you are too young to remember a time before Roe v. Wade. Abortion and infanticide have been around since the dawn of time and, in fact, are the natural actions of a hunter-gatherer society.

The sole benefit derived from legal abortions today is that the woman stands a much better chance of surviving the procedure. To assume that people, denied that benefit, would simply stop having sex is entirely ignorant of human nature, past history, and your own throbbing biological urges.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[home-electro.com]

It is still arbitrary though. You call "important step" when you get fertilized egg. Hey, when the sperm is ejected, it is also very important step. When the egg divides for a first time, is also important step. You can't seriously argue that a single cell is a human. I've got millions of cells in me, but they are not humans. Besides, we have so many REAL humans on this planet who are in danger of being killed RIGHT NOW that arguing about how those cells are humans and how cruel it is to 'kill' them is just hypocrisy and a load of BS

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[gusilu]

Not really going into the argument itself or answering the question that was posted - but autonomous it is not. Show me a zygote / embryo / fetus created in a lab that can survive by itself.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[gusilu]

I personally see no problem to "killing" these embryos.

Yet I would never claim that they are not human or alive. Their DNA is human, therefore they are human (modified, but still). A bunch of self-replicating cells is alive if said cells are alive and replicating.

Viable is a different thing. And it is also pretty obvious that those embryos are in no viable if they stay in their cozy petri dish.

As I've said, I personally see no problem with this; but if you do, maybe take it up with fertility clinics which follow the same type of procedures (minus the modifying part) with IVF and oftentimes have a surplus of embryos which are not implanted. And then it depends on the local legislation as to what is done with them - but implantation and carrying them to term is not.

It would be interesting to see people's views on said modifications, specially for an ethical point of view. Also, what safeguards are in place to ensure they are not implanted, as the scientists claim.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you think cat-girls are made?

Oh damn!

Someone try it, quick! And I want a pink-haired cat-girl too! With a 36D chest size!

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[gusilu]

Whilst what you say makes sense, I think the above poster confused human with person. Of course an embryo is human - a person, not so sure (personally I would say no).

And though a lot of people try to center the debate around abortion on personhood of the embryo / fetus, they miss the point. It is about bodily autonomy, about whether the state can force gestation on a woman, and about granting rights to a subset of humans which no one else has - the right to make use of another's organs.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[2short]

You seem to think "distinct" is the opposite of "arbitrary". It is not.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Danny Rathjens]

Nope. "life" does not enter the equation at all. Most people other than Buddhist monks have few qualms about killing a mosquito or cockroach that we all agree is alive. My theory is that it is simply about the human instinct to like the similar and dislike the different. Dogs are like us, social mammals, so killing them is bad. Roaches are alien critters - certainly alive - but quite different than ourselves and hterefore it is ok to kill them.

So the people against abortion are thinking of a blastocyst/embryo/fetus as a miniature human similar to themselves and it triggers that similarity instinct. Those that view a blastocyst as a clump of cells quite different than themselves are likely to not think it is such a big deal to destroy it.

So people are pretty much for or against abortion or the use of embryonic stem cells based on gut instinct and then they come up with rationalizations - including silly arguments distorting the meaning of the word "life" - to justify it (we're good at that).

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[jc42]

Most people can differentiate between the potential for life (semen and eggs) and actual life itself (autonomous life including self-replicating cells that may or may not have certain dependencies for life; don't we all?).

Nope. It is pretty well understood in scientific circles that the issue of "when life begins" was settled a couple of centuries ago. The answer: It doesn't, at least not on our planet at this time. Life only continues from previous life; it doesn't arise spontaneously from non-living material.

Sperm and ova are living, breating, metabolizing single-cell creatures. They aren't dead. They aren't half-alive. They're alive.

The really curious thing is that I've yet to hear anything from our moral guardians calling for protection of the lives of living ova (or sperm) cells. The fact that they don't pretty much shows that they don't really have a clue about what "life" means.

If it's "murder" to prevent a fertilized ovum from implanting and growing, then it's equally "murder" to prevent that ovum from being fertilized. Actually, both are equally absurd.

(There's also the fun fact that nature provides millions of living sperm cells for every living ovum. The morality of that is yet to be discussed, except by the Monty Python crew.)

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[ArcherB]

You are presenting one side of an issue as the only side. You've chosen the side that embryos are human and alive and thus this is murder. From the other side, these are not humans and/or not alive. Religion seems to come in on this since one of the most vocal religious groups (christians) tend to side with you. It isn't really a religious debate, but many people view it as one due to that. I think what you need to ask is, "What makes something human?" If someone called the police because of biological pile of pink slime was in their living room, how would the cops determine if it's human or not? If you apply that same test to this embryo, how would it score?

And, YOU saying these embryos are not human carries about the same weight as me saying YOU are not human. Fortunately for you, that is 0%. Personally, when it comes to determining if something that passes a human DNA test is human or not, I try to err on the side of caution and say that it is. I do so because I don't want someone determining I am not human, I have no rights and I am available for scientific research based solely on my age. I guess you don't give others the same consideration you expect to receive.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[dragonturtle69]

The larger problem is the apparent inconsistency of the law regarding when the unborn are considered alive.

Medical abortion is legal until around twenty-four weeks of gestation. Life does not exist until the fetus can survive outside the womb. But, if the fetus is lost due to an act of violence committed against the mother (vehicle accident, assault, whatever) prior to twenty-four weeks, the suspect will be additionally charged with the killing of the unborn. A few years have passed since I looked up when the state would not charge for the causing the death of the unborn, but it was about two months of gestation, about when you go legally from embryo to fetus. So, we have a sixteen week disparity on when "life" legally exists, and terminating it is a crime. An embryo, particularly one that has not yet attached to a human, is legally just property.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sperm and eggs are very much alive.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[extremescholar]

Homicide is legally defined as:

1) The Unlawful
2) Killing
3) of a human being
4) by another
5) human being

Murder 2 adds

6) with malice

Murder 1 adds

7) aforethought

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Alex Belits]

Something may be both human and alive, and yet not constitute a human life.

Organs in the process of being translpanted are another example of such a thing -- even blood (full of functioning living cells) qualifies.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[jmorris42]

> Personally I'm fine with terminating fetuses and embryos as long as
> their life depends entirely on a mother's body to continue.

Bad place to draw the line. By modern legal practice a child's life depends entirely upon it's mother until such time as she surrenders (willingly or by court action) custody. Whether it is inside or outside, drawing nutrition through the umbilical cord, breast feeding or fed formula through a bottle. The male's role, beyond providing sperm and (court mandated) money is exactly as much or as little as the female desires.

So how does your argument deal with 'termination' (nice way of avoiding saying 'kill') in the corner cases? Partial birth abortion? At one month before delivery? At a day before expected day of delivery? How about changing one's mind during delivery and tell the Dr. "Nah I decided that I don't want this kid, so could ya suck his brains out when the head appears." How about an hour afterwards when a horrible defect is discovered?

Not saying I have answers, just questions. Both sides have problems. On the one hand ya have religious zealots singing the "Every Sperm is Sacred" song from _The Meaning of Life_ and on the other hand you have folks who, put bluntly, are pro infanticide. And the binary nature of the question doesn't leave much room for a sane middle ground.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Koiu Lpoi]

but at what cost?

The "cost" of having embryos, human only in genetics (it certainly doesn't have any brain activity at that point!), that would never develop into humans anyways, be used for research that helps everyone. If this research wasn't being done, those embryos would either have never been formed, or would die with no good done to anyone. Surely you can agree that "Research and then death" is a greater good for all than "just death", when in both cases the fetus never even develops enough to feel?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[bogjobber]

Talking about the state "forcing gestation" on a woman is completely removing her decision to have sex out of the equation and making her a victim, when she is complicit with the act of creating a child. When you have sex, you must accept that a pregnancy may happen. That *is* the natural conclusion, despite modern technology attempting to prevent it. If abortion were illegal, the state wouldn't be forcing people to become pregnant, it would simply force them to take responsibilities for decisions the person has already made.

Obviously if it is a rape, the situation becomes different.

And though a lot of people try to center the debate around abortion on personhood of the embryo / fetus, they miss the point. It is about bodily autonomy...

The problem you make in your statement here is assuming that the reason people disagree with you is because they haven't thought of your argument. They probably have, but they don't accept the *validity* of your argument. Don't be dismissive of another's argument simply because you have different values. They value the life of a human being ("person" or not) more than they value a strange interpretation of personal liberty.

This is not an issue that is going to be resolved. FWIW, I am of the personal opinion that, while I consider abortion to be immoral, the state shouldn't have any business in it. It is not the state's responsibility to resolve ethical debates.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[pkphilip]

If a pregnant woman is assaulted and it results in the death/injury of the unborn infant, the assailant will be charged with "Endangering the life of an unborn fetus" over and above any charges that may be filed for attacking the woman.

That implies that the law does consider any attack on the unborn fetus as punishable - but we do allow abortions; so does that mean that the mother is allowed to attack the fetus and cause its death, but no one else is?

Also, if a child is born prematurely, the medical establishment will be obliged to try and save the child; and anything that may be done by the medical establishment or the parents which would endanger the life of the child will be considered a crime.

However, if this same child were still in the womb, then it can be legally aborted with no consequence to anybody.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[jmorris42]

> OK .. I chose the arbitrary point when a fetus emerges from a woman
> as the point a fetus becomes human. I have just as much basis for that
> statement as anyone who chooses fertilization.

Lots of logic problems here.

Fertilization is the only logical point to draw a line ans say HERE is where a seperate entity begins. Sperm is just a part of you, the egg is just a part of her. When they meet something is created that isn't either of you. Consult a basic biology text is this isn't clear; The parts about immune system issues between the fetus and mother should be especially instructive.

Time of birth is unsuitable for a multitude of reasons. First off, a child a few days from delivery would have an almost 100% chance of independent survival with modern medical science. Happens all the time, some trauma forces an early delivery, etc. But the current legal regime, and your stated position, would allow the same baby who could equally be delivered and have an almost normal chance of a productive life to be aborted instead. Fairly major ethical problem.

Of course we (in the US) live in a Republic that clearly has birth as the legal definition of citizenship. Says so right in the Constituition. The legal problem can be fixed of course.

> I've noticed it also depends on whether or not the person arguing
> is the one that has to support it.

This is a popular straw man argument. First off, once you conclude you are dealing with a child and not a tissue mass support is a given. After all you can't legally kill off a two week old by denying it basic life support. If you accept the child argument it is totally consistent. Besides, there are long waiting lists to adopt so the argument fails anyway.

> That flimsy argument aside, the US recognizes 90 days of
> development as to when an abortion can occur,

It is getting harder and harder by the year to find a legal scholar who won't admit Roe v Wade wasn't one of the worst cases of legislation from the bench in the 20th Century. Depending on such a dubious 'ruling' isn't exactly an appeal to reason. Besides, medical science has advanced a lot since the 1970s and will only continue. Arbitrary 'viability' cutoffs are dangerous ground to stake out firm moral or even legal positions.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[ChromeAeonium]

My sperm one day could also become human, does that make masturbation a crime if I don't make every attempt possible to fertilize an egg?? Is a woman committing murder because she doesn't attempt to get pregnant every period?? You seem to come from the RIAA school of thought. Is not buying something stealing? Gametes != zygotes, comparing them is a straw man. A good arbitrary point for when a zygote forms is, well, when it forms. Not, the question then is, is a zygote human? Well, human is human. Time is irrelevant in that factor.

It's all arbitrary depending on your beliefs, since there are no scientific or legal definitions for a soul. There is also no scientific definition of right or wrong; this is not a scientific debate. Science is applicable only in its own realm; in this case, serves merely as a deviation from the real issue.

Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end. Yeah, and people are more likely to argue against the death penalty when they don't have to house the criminals. What's your point?

Since embryos can be frozen for years, it should be based on physical development, not length of time. No, it should be based on humanity. What is human? I would propose that human is anything that can now, will be able to, or has been able to answer that question for itself, assuming average capabilities.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Lord Ender]

When we start holding funerals for early-term miscarriages, then we can start debating whether these blobs are "people."

Personally, I've never seen a headstone with the enscription "Here lies Globby the brainless cell cluster -- drowned in his mother's toilet."

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[joocemann]

www.m-w.com defines it as " the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought". True. And a zygote/embryo IS NOT a person. It is a human, but not a person. If you look up personhood, as described by current ethics, you will come to understand the difference between a human and a person. The same applies to humans in persistent vegetative states. It is alive, it has life, it has human dna and is human. But it is not a person, nor is it aware of itself or that which arises (as described) in these experiments. Ethics 101

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[syousef]

They are a mass of cells that one day could become human. My sperm one day could also become human, does that make masturbation a crime if I don't make every attempt possible to fertilize an egg?? Is a woman committing murder because she doesn't attempt to get pregnant every period??

You just reminded me of Monty Python's Meaning of Life and it's portrayal of Catholocism.

"Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If the sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate".

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[lubricated]

a little devil's advocate.

Show me an infant that can survive by itself.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Toonol]

What about the view that killing your neighbor is murder? Is that a religious belief?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[UncleTogie]

A collection of proteins, which will quickly dissipate (or be eaten by random bacteria) outside their ideal environment.

And the definition of an adult human being:

"A collection of proteins, which will quickly dissipate (or be eaten by random bacteria) outside their ideal environment."

Put you as-is in orbit, at the bottom of the Pacific, or on the moon, you're not going to fare too well. Heck, drop most /. readers 50 miles out in the wilderness and you're looking at ugly odds.

You left an important part out: it's dissipating because it's not being fed. Goes from a nutrient solution to nothing. Of course it's going to die; it's death by starvation at the end...

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[mbmiller]

Human sperm are human and they are alive, but on a good day I'll kill several million of mine. I don't expect to be tried for murder. Embryos have a status much closer to that of sperm and ova, both of which may be human, than to that of a baby, a child or an adult.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Danny Rathjens]

Exactly. Racism is simply another expression of that same "like similar/dislike different" instinct that we share with many other animals. Fortunately we humans can sublimate our instincts to some degree with education, reason, and experience.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Yvanhoe]

Most of the people who oppose abortion, see no problem with surgical amputation (when medically justified) even when you take into account that stem cells are killed this way. I mean, this is, after all, autonomous life including self-replicating cells that may or may not have certain dependencies for life.

Is there any official position of any religion on the possibility to make an embryo from a non-sexual adult stem-cell ? It is theoretically feasible and creates a clone of the individual. When are we allowed to "kill" it ? No fecundation occurs in this case.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[KDR_11k]

We care about that which we recognize as human (and which hasn't proven itself hostile). That's how our instincts work and from a resource perspective losing a clump of cells like that is unimportant, you can make dozens more with little time or energy cost. Now, a born baby or a grown human, that took a lot of time and energy to make and losing one would be a big setback.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[KDR_11k]

Not saying I have answers, just questions. Both sides have problems. On the one hand ya have religious zealots singing the "Every Sperm is Sacred" song from _The Meaning of Life_ and on the other hand you have folks who, put bluntly, are pro infanticide. And the binary nature of the question doesn't leave much room for a sane middle ground.

There's a LOT of middle ground between infanticide (killing after birth?) and banning contraceptives. The common pro-abortion stance is that it should be limited to the first X weeks as the thing in the womb isn't much like a human then, after that threshold it should be left alone.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[KDR_11k]

But we can also create a human life from a sperm and an egg, I think it might even be possible to duplicate the genes in an egg and create a (probably deformed) human from that.

Humans should be more than a collection of atoms; in fact, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the philosophies of materialism and scientism.

"Should" is not "is". Proclaiming something as fact because you want it to be true, not because you have found it to be true is just deluding yourself and others.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[aproposofwhat]

OK - I'm responding to an AC.

You and I probably share a rational outlook, but your assertion that an embryo is alive is dishonest.

An embryo requires the support of a womb and placenta to arrive at (minimal) self sufficiency - I would argue that to qualify as 'alive', an organism should be self-sufficient at the very least.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[English French Man]

Your assertion that an embryo is not self-sufficient is dishonest. I don't know about you, but personnally, I still need to eat and drink... so am I self-sufficient or not? Am I not alive?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Arni Inaba]

Choosing birth as the point where a fetus becomes human is no easy position to defend, either. If somebody were to punch a 9 month pregnant woman in the stomach with the intention to kill her "fetus" that would make him a murderer in my eyes. Nothing religious about that.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[somersault]

My definition didn't say that the cat or dog would be human if they could be gestated appropriately in a human, just that the human embryo was 'more human'. By my definition, if a Bongo can be brought to term by an Eland, Bongos and Elands must be very similar species, more like different 'races' of the same species than completely separate species. Unless wombs are very general purpose devices, but I'd think each species' emrbyo has different nourishment requirements? I am obviously not that well versed in biology, I'm more usually interested in physics and chemisty..

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[TGoddard]

My memory from first year biology lectures is getting a bit vague but I'm pretty sure that around three months is when the foetus begins to manufacture its own hormones to control development. Before that the mother's body can supply most of the required hormones. As a result 3 months is a very common time for miscarriage to occur since many defects in the embryo only show up once it has to maintain its own chemical & hormonal equilibrium. A foetus older than three months is significantly more likely to be born than one younger. Perhaps after the first trimester isn't quite as arbitrary as it seems. P.S. Take this with a grain of salt as it depends on the accuracy of my memory. The reasons may be entirely different.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Sody]

I agree with the semi-serious argument that all anti-abortion advocates should have to sign up to adopt all the children that their cause prevents being aborted.

As someone opposed to abortion, I also agree. I think most people opposed to abortion would, too. Infants born in the US do not generally have trouble being adopted. In fact, there are so many more people trying to adopt in this country that many go through immense expenditure of time and money to adopt from outside the country.

The bigger adoption problem is unwillingness to adopt older children. They didn't get where they are by growing up in foster care from infancy, but because of some other problems in their lives, so that's a totally separate problem from abortion vs. adoption.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[slashdotwannabe]

As far as the law is concerned, a soul doesn't exist.
Ahhh... this explains lawyers nicely. Thanks!

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[slashdotwannabe]

I agree with the semi-serious argument that all anti-abortion advocates should have to sign up to adopt all the children that their cause prevents being aborted.
This is one of the most pathetic straw man arguments that anti abortionists pull out... that people who are capable of aborting will have irresponsible sex solely because they CAN abort.
People will have sex, period. Safe/Unsafe/plane/train/box/fox... The fact that this planet is very well populated with Homo Sapiens is proof enough of that. I've known my share of friends and lovers that experienced abortion... not a one of them enjoyed it, to grossly understate. All of them were responsible sexually. Of course, people of your opinion often take the position that abstinence is the only form of sexual responsibility unless procreation is desired.
To which I say, check the latest population figures and tell me if you think the rest of the planet agrees.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[oni]

I would argue that to qualify as 'alive', an organism should be self-sufficient at the very least.

I don't think that works. You have just created a definition that lists most slashdotters (who live in their parents' basement) as not alive. Or, on a more serious note, your definition suggests that parasites aren't alive. I disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions

If you look at the wiki definition, an embryo meets all of that. You might quibble and say that an embryo can't reproduce - but in truth, it can't reproduce *yet* and if left alone it will develop into something that can reproduce. If you get hung up on the "it can't reproduce" issue then my response will be, you have just created a definition in which prepubescent children aren't alive.

This is ridiculous. Clearly, an embryo is alive. Just like a hair follicle is alive. Just like a hair follicle is human life. This isn't an argument against abortion, it's just an argument for honesty. If you (not you in particular, just in general) want to support legal abortion, you can do it without lying and living in a fantasy world where you say that embryos aren't human live.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bob-taro]

Wouldn't that mean they were murdered? That is if you accept the religious side of the house...

Wow! Look at the discussion you started!

I'll put in my 2 cents and say that according to my views, those embryos are murdered, and the scientists at best have an insanity defense, because they don't understand the consequences of their actions.

It's interesting to me that in Genesis, Adam and Eve disobey God in order to eat from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", and today we have all these discussions about science and ethics. I realize there are many different views on ethics, but I'm concerned that on the whole, our society is "bending" their ethical standards for the promises of scientific research, which is basically saying "the ends justifies the means".

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[StalinsNotDead]

Well, I choose the arbitrary point when they learn to take a dump in a toilet on their own. Anything before that and I say they are fair game.

I say they're fair game any time until they get a job.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bombula]

In the case of abortion I am against the whole practice because it _might_ be murder. Until we can prove otherwise I would stick with that.

You proceed from the false assumption that there is a reasonable likelihood that abortion is murder. This is a common logical falacy, closely related (not coincidentally) to the theist-atheist debate about the existance of God. In the case of God, the false assumption is that the likelihood of God existing is equal to the likelihood of God not existing. This is nonsense. The probabilities are not remotely close to being equal. For example, I haven't talked to my wife since this morning, so there is a chance she could have won $100 million in the lottery. I don't know for sure she HASN'T won the lottery, but just because I don't KNOW doesn't automatically mean there is a 50:50 chance she has or hasn't.

Returning to the abortion issue, even if you proceed from the (very weak) position that we must be agnostic about whether abortion is murder, the probability that we will one day 'discover' that it IS murder (for reasons you don't even conjecture) is vanishingly small. The burden is therefore on you, today, to make a compelling case to the contrary. This case is normally made with appeals to 'soul' and 'spirit'. To me, that's just a bunch of horseshit.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Yes, and on that note the State shouldn't subsidize abortions either.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[mattsucks]

1) The Unlawful
2) Killing
3) of a human being
4) by another
5) human being

Murder 2 adds

6) with malice

Murder 1 adds

7) aforethought

....

8) PROFIT!

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[OrangeTide]

> Bad place to draw the line. By modern legal practice a child's life depends entirely upon it's mother until such time as she surrenders (willingly or by court action) custody. Whether it is inside or outside, drawing nutrition through the umbilical cord, breast feeding or fed formula through a bottle.

I'm fine with this. Of course a male is perfectly capable of caring for an infant, you just go to the store and buy baby formula. Plenty of men have raised their children when the mother died during childbirth. And there are plenty of nurses (female and male) who monitor premature births in a neonatal ward.

'kill' is a loaded term, especially when applied to human beings. Unless your purpose is to cause an emotional reaction rather than a rational one, I would suggest you avoid such terms until the debate is settled. Once it is settled and it falls on the side that all embryocide is murder, then feel free to call it killing.

I frankly do not care about partial birth abortions, X days before deliver, etc. I do not see it as a statistically significant problem. Generally mothers either carry their child to term, or they abort right away. Of course a doctor should have some ethical backbone and "do no harm" when it comes to very unreasonable requests for late term abortions (killing as you would say).

The women that go to the abortion clinic 3 times a year are extremely rare. And that sort of person deserves to have her tubes tied rather than being forced to raise a child she so obviously is incapable of raising. I also do not believe the state should pay for abortions, except in circumstances that threaten the life of the mother or the health of the child. (sorry but raising a special needs child is a tremendous burden and not everyone is capable of stepping up to the challenge). But I do believe the state should be willing to hand out free contraceptives or even permanent sterilization to people who would not otherwise be able to afford such a procedure.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[nasor]

The sperm and egg are both very much alive before they join.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Yikes! I guess we should just harvest all embryos from women and use them for science since they have no value. Yes, I'm being sarcastic and if you can't see the problem with what you just said then maybe we need to do some scientific research on you.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Do you have any data on how many blastocytes fail to implant? I tried finding data but I was unsuccessful. The point is I don't think it is a majority. In addition the reason most of the time is that the blastocyte isn't viable to begin with in which case yes it is life but what can you do. No I'd never suggest what you did about monitoring vaginal discharges. That's ridiculous and not really on topic.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

I really would let the roaches live but they shit all over my kitchen counter and that's where I draw the line.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Once again I am in awe of the moronic arguments that former zygotes make concerning things which they once were.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Yes but if I take special care of my sperm they still won't develop into an adult human. That's kind of the point. It's human life that should be protected.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=funeral+for+miscarriage&btnG=Google+Search

Google is your friend.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[jc42]

Hey, I'm in awe of a comment that's so ambiguous that I can't tell whether it's commenting on my comment, or commenting on the arguments that I was commenting on.

So, well played, I guess. ;-)

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

I'm pretty certain ethics professors don't just go around saying this. Ethical debate is a constant one and very few ethical debates are solved and agreed upon by everyone.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

What makes a baby? The fact that it's born?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Fatalis]

tell me, do you feel your life as a zygote was as valuable back then as it is now?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

The point is a zygote can become an adult with only nutrition and shelter and an egg or sperm cannot. If you notice, these are the two things adults need as well; food and shelter.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Yes, because unlike you I can see potential and I know when opportunity comes knocking.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Fatalis]

nice gratuitous attack, and I'm sorry to hear that your life's value hit the roof so early. some of us think that when we improve ourselves and gain experience, we become more valuable as human beings, but apparently an impregnated egg is as valuable as we can be. in fact, the logical conclusion is that the eggs are more valuable than us, because grown humans have already spent a portion of their limited lifespan, so they have less potential. your answer should have been "no, I was more valuable then."

let's try a thought experiment and see how your evaluation of life works out. suppose there was a poisoned embryo and a poisoned 15 year old kid, and you had only one dose of antidote, so you couldn't save them both. according to the above answer, their lives are of equal value, so it'd be just as ethical to save the embryo as the kid. (or even more ethical to save the embryo, since it has more potential.) so do we need to run public opinion polls to say that not choosing to save the kid would be an outrageous choice? I think not, and hopefully you'll think about this

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Fatalis]

that's not "true atheists", but dogmatic atheists. most atheists don't hold that they can prove that gods doesn't exist, just that they can refute the conceptual arguments offered in favor of their existence, that there is no empirical proof for them, and that there exist good conceptual arguments against their existence.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

Stop trying to put the chicken before the egg. The egg has to come first and if I was breeding chickens I would think eggs are pretty valuable.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

About the kid and the embryo the choice I would make (but not be happy about) is to save the kid but not for the reasons you think. The reason is that the kid would have a higher chance of survival. If the embryo had a higher chance of survival I would save it instead.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Fatalis]

if your goal was to have chickens, of course that you would value the eggs, but you would value the chickens more than the non-chickens. also, I did not say that grown humans come before the embryos, so most of your response is irrelevant

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Fatalis]

since this is a thought experiment, we could make the chance of survival exactly the same, because we control the conditions. who would you save then?

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Bryansix]

That wouldn't really happen but if the chance of survival was the same then I guess I'd have to use some arbitrary choice. Each of the parents could play a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" and the winner (best 2 of three) would get to keep their human alive.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Fatalis]

kudos for being consistent about your convictions, but I think that this is a monstrous answer, and if the situation were real, I'd do everything to stop people from preventing the kid being saved. in my eyes, a grown human with memories and thoughts clearly has much more value than an embryo lacking those things. I'm also sure that you value human experiences too, and just haven't connected it to this case.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Lord Ender]

early-term

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[ShakaUVM]

>>"Should" is not "is". Proclaiming something as fact because you want it to be true, not because you have found it to be true is just deluding yourself and others.

The difference between is and ought is a famous one.

There's a number of various ways to discuss the topic, such as that science only deals with what is, and not with what ought to be, so it is illogical to think that science should be responsible for answering the latter sort of questions, but in this case I'll just answer the question directly:
Humans should be, and are, more than just collections of atoms. There is meaning in the ordering of things, as entropy and information theory tell us -- a signal sent down an ethernet cable could be a meaningless time series of voltage potentials, as you suggest, or they could have meaning. Ordered properly, things can have a greater meaning than the ordering of their atoms or the time series of voltage potentials -- it could be an email, or a person. Hence, there is a distinguishable difference between the chaotic and the ordered, and it's logical for us to make ethical arguments making use of that difference.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[Wardish]

Not a lot of data out there on this. On one paper without any references I got figures of 10% to 33%. On another "some OB/GYN's report that as little as 20% of fertilizations result in detectable pregnancies". I would think it's on the low side of the middle of those.

Isn't viable? Due to genetic abnormality, or because the mother's womb has issues and causes failure to implant?

Ridiculous, I agree wholeheartedly. Keep in mind that I'm just logically extending from the belief that all fertilized eggs are people. As a society we go to incredibly lengths to rescue an individual in danger and it logically follows that if this is your belief system you would extend such incredible lengths to this.

Again, I'm not advocating this, I'm just extending the effects of the belief system to it's logical (not necessarily reasonable) conclusion.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[johnlcallaway]

The 'abstain from sex' is a bullshit argument, the only ways to not get pregnant are for a woman to either never have sex, or to have all her eggs removed. Birth control pills, tubal ligation, vasectomies, condoms, spermicide ... none are 100% effective and the more effective ones have serious side effects.

On every birth control device manufactured is a statement along the lines 'only x% effective.' My wife and I were somewhat careful when we got married, and we had a child one year after we were married, so three months of 1-3 times a week sex was enough. Then we became even more careful, and less sexual, and had another one three years later. So we stopped altogether and got divorced after 8 years. Now I'm married to a woman without any ovaries and far happier than I have ever been in my life.

Oh ... notice I said 'had child'. Even though abortion was an option, we choose not to use it. We considered it, but decided not to. So it's also bullshit argument that the availability of abortion makes everyone use it.

It is better to make abortions safer and easier to get than to deny them. A fetus is not a person to a significant set of the population on moral grounds, and to no one on legal grounds. Otherwise, a woman would be able to get a tax deduction or drive in the HOV lane as soon as she became pregnant.

The US legal and political system is based on the desire that the majority cannot force their will upon the majority, which why it is a republic and not a pure democracy. Specifically so that any religious group cannot force their will on people who do not have the same beliefs.

So take your souls and shove 'em.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[johnlcallaway]

There is no such thing as a soul, get over it. There are no scientific or legal basis for anything that survives after death, or enters a fetus as part of being born. There are electrical and chemical processes in the brain that enables thought, which humans and many animals have become complicated enough to be 'self aware'. That is your soul, nothing beyond a mass of brain tissue.

You can choose whatever point you want for yourself. I prefer the 'if it can be taken from the placenta and survive without anything means other than feeding' test. It is just as valid as the beating heart argument.

It is very legal for me to take a dog or cat into a vet FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER AND HAVE IT PUT TO SLEEP. So the argument comparing the treatment of dogs and cats v/s fetus would appear to not only sanction abortion but also sanction being able to have any person put to sleep because it's inconvenient. Or you only pick pieces of arguments that fit your needs and ignore the inconvenient parts.

Yes, I do prefer the convenience of an adult life over bring a child into this world when the parents are not capable of supporting it. So what, you think I really give a damn about your opinion of me?? I'm just sick and tired of people like you who think they have some right to force people like me to do something that has no impact on your life at all. Oh, I know, you feel the need to be the protector of those that cannot speak. Spare me, you just like feeling all high and mighty and self-righteous. Otherwise, you would have 10 adopted kids in your home. And not babies, children of drug addicts and abused children. Not just the pretty ones.

Speaking of which, adoption is another bullshit argument that has no basis in fact. There are thousands of children in this country up for adoption today because parents have died or become unable to take care of them after they were born. But because many adults will only adopt a baby, no one wants them. Plus it has become so complicated that many US adults that can afford it are fleeing to other countries to adopt.

So you sanction a continued foster-care life for these unfortunate children by bringing in even more unwanted babies. Shame on you.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[johnlcallaway]

Good .. then don't have an abortion or terminate any of those embryos in your fridge. Leave the rest of us who have the responsibility for our own bodies or refrigerators alone.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[johnlcallaway]

Fertilization is the only logical point to draw a line ans say HERE is where a seperate entity begins. Sperm is just a part of you, the egg is just a part of her. When they meet something is created that isn't either of you. Consult a basic biology text is this isn't clear; The parts about immune system issues between the fetus and mother should be especially instructive.

It's more of a parasitic group of cells than an entity. An entity would be capable of living outside the host or reproducing inside the host and creating some sort of spore or egg that could then transfer to another living organism. It's more a parasite since it takes food and energy from the host but doesn't return anything.

Since you brought it up, until Row v. Wade gets overturned, then I guess we can follow the law. Which means if these cells are less than 90 days developed, into the incinerator they can go. Problem solved, can we move on now???

I have no problems with a mother terminating a child anytime prior to it being able to survive on it's own without medical assistance, only assistance from mom's breasts and warm body. It's her choice, she has to live with that decision. People forcing those mothers to carry children to term don't have to live with their choice and should just shut up. Protest all you want, educate all you want, don't remove the option. Adoption, birth, and abortion all have serious issues and financial and personal repercussions, you have no right to deny a mother the right to choose which burden she wishes to carry with her the rest of her life.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[glitch23]

There is no such thing as a soul, get over it. There are no scientific or legal basis for anything that survives after death, or enters a fetus as part of being born. There are electrical and chemical processes in the brain that enables thought, which humans and many animals have become complicated enough to be 'self aware'. That is your soul, nothing beyond a mass of brain tissue.

You are an ass. Get over it. Whether you like it or not you have a soul. You may not care or believe in it but you do. Ignoring or defying the fact you do doesn't make it so. What gives animals their instinct? I'm not equating instinct to a soul but there is still something else there beyond just normal chemical processes.

It is very legal for me to take a dog or cat into a vet FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER AND HAVE IT PUT TO SLEEP. So the argument comparing the treatment of dogs and cats v/s fetus would appear to not only sanction abortion but also sanction being able to have any person put to sleep because it's inconvenient. Or you only pick pieces of arguments that fit your needs and ignore the inconvenient parts.

Yes it is very legal for you to do that. It is not very legal to do it cruelly and with torture. If anyone is ignoring inconvenience it is you. You prefer to get rid of anything that would inconvenience your life even at the expense of the disposal of another life.

Yes, I do prefer the convenience of an adult life over bring a child into this world when the parents are not capable of supporting it. So what, you think I really give a damn about your opinion of me?? I'm just sick and tired of people like you who think they have some right to force people like me to do something that has no impact on your life at all.

For being someone who is pro-choice you seem to have forgotten about the choice of the baby you are killing. You are selfish and only care about yourself. I guess you prefer to be selfish and only care about your own life and responsibilities. I guess you also like the fact the baby can't speak up for itself otherwise you might actually feel, dare I say, remorse.

So you sanction a continued foster-care life for these unfortunate children by bringing in even more unwanted babies. Shame on you.

Shame on you for supporting mass murder. As soon as you arbitrate what is human and what isn't and what is convenient and what isn't you insert grey where there only exists black and white. You are also arrogant for even thinking you have the power to arbitrate what is convenient/inconvenient or human/inhuman to determine whether someone should live or die. No individual has the right to determine whether someone has the right to live or die, especially if that someone does not have ability to defend their life which is at stake (i.e. a baby). Do you like killing those who cannot defend themselves? May God have mercy on your soul, if you have one.

Re:wouldn't be allowed to develop?

[ShakaUVM]

>>Good .. then don't have an abortion or terminate any of those embryos in your fridge. Leave the rest of us who have the responsibility for our own bodies or refrigerators alone.

Sure, we're all grown up moral relativists here -- I'll leave your bodies and refrigerators alone if you leave the bodies in my refrigerator alone.

what's with the link

[slig]

I'm sure it can't have been slashdotted already. Alternate source here

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[CowboyNealOption]

Seriously though, how many people here would love to be fluorescent green?

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[clonan]

This is a common gene that is added to explore the control mechanism of specific protein...

Like when and where they are produced.

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[Dallas Caley]

I'd be a hit at the next rave i can tell you that for sure!

Why not allow them to be implanted?

[the_humeister]

We have glowing mice and they're doing fine. Why not a glowing human? I think that would be pretty nifty. I really don't see why there would be people who are against such things. This has other implications too. Imagine if we could remove the defect that causes Huntington disease in an embryo. Would people have ethical issues with that?

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[eln]

We can't have glowing humans because they would piss everyone off at movie theatres.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[gdog05]

But at least you could easily corner them in a dark alley afterward.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Bryansix]

I know this is funny but the root problem here is how would YOU feel if you knew you were born out of a scientific experiment?

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[dustman]

I know this is funny but the root problem here is how would YOU feel if you knew you were born out of a scientific experiment? awesome

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Tangent128]

Depends on your personality. Some people might angst, some would think it cool. I'd prefer it to being dead, in any case.

In cases of identity, though, asking "how would YOU feel" isn't as helpful. You weren't born with the ability to glow under a blacklight, so you really wouldn't know what it's like to grow up that way.

That said, people have coped with far worse problems. This wouldn't even be an inconvience, aside from close-minded people fed by Hollywood.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[$0.02]

Ask the first in vitro conceived human.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[G00F]

At least I wouldn't have clean out the lint in my belly button again!

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[bsDaemon]

The bigger question is, would I have been "created" or "intelligently designed?" Though, I'm not sure I see the difference in that case...

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[salveque]

Probably better than if I wasn't born at all...

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[couchslug]

"I know this is funny but the root problem here is how would YOU feel if you knew you were born out of a scientific experiment?"

That would depend on how I turned out.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[amRadioHed]

The obvious reason why they shouldn't be implanted is because not everyone would want to be turned into a glowing mutant. Some people might not mind, but probably most people would rather not be forced to go through middle school with a green hue.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[thewiz]

Hey, I ended up being a scientific experiment AFTER I was born:
Open Heart Surgery #1 - Had a Dacron patch sewn over the VSD in my heart and they tried to rebuild the aortic valve using grafts from the inside of my heart (valvoplasty). The new "cusps" of the aortic valve fell apart about 30-days later.

Open Heart Surgery #2 - Had a very bad case of bacterial endocarditis to the point that the surgeon had to scrap out the inside of my heart. VSD patch had to be replaced; an experimental patch was used. A porcine valve (Hancock Prosthesis) was inserted into the aortic opening. The anesthesist had to use an experimental drug to get my heart restarted.

Open Heart Surgery #3 - Hancock Prosthesis calcified during growth spurt when I was 16; replaced by a St. Jude's artificial valve which was still experimental, at the time.

Personally, I would have preferred that the doctors could have made a minor change in my DNA before I was born so I wouldn't have had to go through all of the above.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[compro01]

for those wondering who that was

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Brown (first in the world)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Jordan_Carr (first in the US)

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[gusilu]

There might be no objective reason not to have them, but it seems a bit sketchy (to say the least) from an ethical point of view to consciously create a person (and by this I don't mean genetically modifying an embryo, but going further and implanting it and it being carried to term and born) that would spend the rest of his or her life as a lab rat, not find an adequate place in society, etc etc.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[tsm_sf]

I don't know, I have the feeling that

scientific experiment > mommy was drunk

for a lot of people. YMMV.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[jgardner100]

I would rather be born from a scientific experiment than not born at all (unless it caused some horrible deformity, and therein lies the problem.)

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Akaihiryuu]

Hey, the main character of a very popular game series was born out of a science experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_snake

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Koiu Lpoi]

not everyone would want to

Now that's a weak argument if I ever heard one. Most people wouldn't want to be born into poverty either, or with birth defects, or maybe (depending on who you ask), to black parents. Should we go around fixing those problems too because people wouldn't want to be that way? Of course not. Reductio ad absurdum.

I agree that we shouldn't make glowing people (just yet), but come on, there's better ways to argue this than sensibilities.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[amRadioHed]

Weak argument? No not everyone is born into perfect circumstances, but parents aren't typically going out of their way to cause these difficulties for their children either. Their is a world of difference between having a child in a less then perfect situation, which basically every parent does, and having a child that you willfully turned into a social outcast. That is not reductio ad absurdum, it is just an absurd argument.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Weezul]

Awesome, yes, absolutely !!!

But you gota ask if it's really fair to condemn a kid to a lifetime being a raver. I mean, smarter great, but glowing?

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[martinQblank]

Ummmm...I'd glow with pride?

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Bryansix]

Ya, because that's how people have done it for many thousands of years.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[mdielmann]

I know this is funny but the root problem here is how would YOU feel if you knew you were born out of a scientific experiment? I was. My dad said to my mom, "Come on, it will be fun." She said, "Are you sure?" His reply: "There's only one way to find out..."

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[nasor]

If we are going to consider the desires of the hypothetical person that the embryo might grow into (like whether or not he would want to be a glowing mutant), surely that hypothetical person would prefer to be born a mutant than to not be born at all.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[nasor]

If the alternative was to not be born at all? I'm pretty sure I know what I would pick.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[amRadioHed]

I'm glad you can speak with such confidence for the unborn. I can not make such a claim myself.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Bryansix]

Or you can look at defects as a manifestation of fallen man. The imperfections are there because we turned from God. We will all be perfected later.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Bryansix]

Exactly. Some people might get rid of many generations of problems with a certain disease. Some people though might have unintended consequences and side effects from the genetic modifications.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[vrmlguy]

I believe that if God REALLY didn't want us doing this stuff, he probably would have either stopped us, made it impossible for us, or given some indication of his intentions, rather than leaving it up to us to figure his opinion out ourselves. God called. He said he'd give us an indication on April 13, 2036. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Bryansix]

Yes I would rather be born. But most of all I'd rather they didn't experiment on me at all.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[nasor]

But we're talking about embryos that would never even be created in the first place were it not for the experimentation.

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[goose-incarnated]

I don't know that I wasn't

Re:Why not allow them to be implanted?

[Bryansix]

And there in lies the problem. That may be true for now but eventually things could change with respect to that. I mean Southpark had a pretty funny take on the whole thing when Cartman started hording aborted fetuses.

Dunno how I feel about this.

[jeiler]

No, I don't want to be preaching "gloom and doom," but it does raise ethical questions. The biggest question: are the ethical questions that such an act raises actual issues of right and wrong, or are they simply the products of Western culture and my own philosophical prejudices? Here's the corrected link.

Re:Dunno how I feel about this.

[flaming error]

are the ethical questions ... actual issues of right and wrong, or are they ... my own philosophical prejudices? Great question, but aren't "right and wrong" culturally defined? Or is there some objective cosmic value system we can mathematically derive?

Re:Dunno how I feel about this.

[jeiler]

Well, that's the question, isn't it? I posit a distinction between morality (culturally defined standards of right and wrong) and ethics (the study of objective right and wrong, the existence of which is so far unproven).

Though I don't know that mathematics would be the best basis for ethics, or even a possible one. There are things in this universe that cannot be derived from mathematics--heck, there are things in this universe that can't even be modeled mathematically. If ethics exist, can they even be modeled mathematically?

And if objective ethics do exist, who says that they have to be some "cosmic" thing? The existence of objective ethics has even been posited within humanist philosophies.

This is a subject I've thought about for years--I can drivel on about it for hours, but it does detract from this specific thread.

Re:Who throws genes?

[jeiler]

Seriously

Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[farbles]

Number 1: More intelligence. Hoo boy do we need this one implemented ASAP.

Number 2: Respiratory bypass system. No more choking to death on pretzels.

Number 3: Two hearts. Works for the Time Lords, howzabout it working for us?

Number 4: Reinforced cerebral circulatory system. No more strokes.

Number 5: Smarter immune system. Get rid of cancer and AIDS before they start, no more auto-immune diseases.

Number 6: Smart metabolism. Good-bye unwanted pounds, save your ass if you crash in the Andes without making your co-survivors menu items.

And so on. Look, we can stand some species improving. Save the default in the genes as a backup and let's get splicing here.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[Afecks]

Save the default in the genes as a backup and let's get splicing here. Goddamn sploicers!

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[$0.02]

Number 7: Profit.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[DavidD_CA]

Prior art.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[TheNarrator]

Why do "rogue nations" pursue boring 60 year old nuclear weapons technologies when they could instead have armies of super intelligent, pretzel proof, two-hearted, stroke proof, aids proof, super-metabolic super warriors?

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[Lvdata]

Now to get this as a Service Patch. Human 1.0 to Human 1.0SP1.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[ShakaUVM]

I think the fluorescent glowing embryo is already a human case mod.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[kurt555gs]

Am I the only one here that has no problem with the genetic engineering of humans? Why wait millions of years for evolution to fix things that are obvious?

There are many things we do not know, but many we do. Why not make beter people? I see it no different that giving antibiotics for strep throat, or immunizing against the flu.

We have upset normal genetics with life saving medicine so as to prolong the life of beings that really shouldn't be from a strict Darwinian sense.

If we can make stronger, smarter, and yes, even better looking people with genetic engineering, then go for it.

This is not flaimbait, it is how I feel, so if you want to comment on it, do it from that prospective.

Cheers

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[jc42]

Number 8: Fluorescent green eyes. Much better than that fake red-eye stuff that cameras produce but can't be duplicated in Real Life.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[fyoder]

Excellent. With my army of genetically altered supermen, I will take over the universe! Hopefully no goody two-shoes starship captain will capture us and maroon us on an inhospitable planet somewhere thus compelling us to seek vengeance when he drops by years later.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[bogjobber]

The problem is that you probably couldn't fix anything without really bad consequences (even for those unreligious folks). If you do genetic modification on a plant and 6 months later it dies, you've killed a plant. If you do genetic modification on a human embryo and it's unsuccessful, you've killed a baby. Or even something less extreme such as sterilization, genetic disease, etc. It's definitely something I wouldn't want on my hands.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[jmorris42]

> Am I the only one here that has no problem with the genetic engineering
> of humans? Why wait millions of years for evolution to fix things that
> are obvious?

Because we are currently clueless. When it comes to understanding how biology actually works we aren't even close to being ready to do more than randomly tinker and watch what happens. That is fine for plants and unless you are a PETA member you are probably OK with that for aminals up to some point where most people go YUCK! The exact point varies from person to person but almost everybody has a limit beyond which they aren't OK with experimenting on animals. For people that line has forever been clouded by the first assholes who experimented on humans like they were animals.

Eventually we will understand. Eventually we will create Human 2.0 in our own image and we will become obsolete. And we will be OK with it because it won't have to involve a bad scifi storyline where we get massacred because the 2.0s won't have a problem waiting us out. Or better yet we will reenginner ourselves and upgrade to 2.0. But it ain't yet time to be thinking about that sort of thing as something that will happen in our lifetime.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[jasonjacks0n]

Am I the only one here that has no problem with the genetic engineering of humans?

Eh, I'm in favor of using it to help eliminate diseases & similar problems. But using it to "improve" people? Well.. that's a little scary.

If genetically-engineered improvements became widespread, how would I continue to compete in the marketplace, for a mate, etc? Especially because since I'm 33 now, those genetically-improved super people would be reaching their prime about the time I'm reaching old age.. I'd be just an elderly, stale, useless "old-style" human. Old age is going to be hard enough as it is.

So I fear that. And honestly, whatever people might say about the issue, I think that at core most people who are opposed to creating "super people" are so at least partly (and maybe mainly) because of some variation on this same basic fear.

Plus if you read about the history of Eugenics, I think it's obvious that creepy, scary people are drawn to the idea of creating a race/sub-race of "super people". However good our initial intentions are, the genetic engineering is likely to be hijacked by unsavory types at some point.

I'm normally not a luddite at all. Heck, if we were talking about cybernetic enhancements, I'd be among the first to volunteer for an implant or augmentation. But genetically engineering people who'd look down on us for our comparative frailty, or stupidity, or whatever - that just doesn't seem very wise, know what I mean?

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[sesshomaru]

For the love of life, there's a trade off. We could lose it all, but we'll go down fighting.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[mattsucks]

It crosses my mind that genetic engineering like this is the only chance left for the human species to "evolve". Modern civilization has pretty much short-circuited natural selection, so that's out as an avenue for us to move forward. People like me (with heinously bad eyesight) can survive quite nicely to pass our less-than-optimal traits on to future generations. Back in the day, I'd be wolf food. Thanks to our current civilized ways, I get glasses, live on, and if I so choose father a batch of pasty allergy-prone nearsighted kids.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[shutdown -p now]

For the record, I fully support further research and experimentation in the area of human genetic engineering. Bring on the transhuman!

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[mdielmann]

Number 6: Smart metabolism. Good-bye unwanted pounds, save your ass if you crash in the Andes without making your co-survivors menu items.

For the record, when the soccer team crashed in the Andes, they ate those who didn't survive (the majority, IIRC). After they ate all the snacks.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[nasor]

We don't know everything, but we are most certainly not "completely clueless," and no one is suggesting that we "randomly tinker and watch what happens." There are many genes whose functions are very well understood.

Re:Cool! I have a list of human mods already!

[eples]

KHAAAAAAAN!!!!!

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[an.echte.trilingue]

Seriously though, how many people here would love to be fluorescent green? The space lawyer probably wouldn't mind.

Could Be Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Children are born to parents who don't want them, they neglect them, abuse them, and even kill them.

There are parents who know they have medical problems related to their genetics, and yet are still selfish enough to "try for one" instead of adopting one of the 50,000+ or so that die of starvation somewhere in the world.

There are people out there who believe that having a baby can help save their relationship / marriage, and so create a whole human being just so they don't have to face up to the fact that they don't belong with somebody.

There are a host of ethical issues about this genetically modified human embryo, but nothing worse than already exists in the world today.

Re:Could Be Worse

[gusilu]

Shame you posted as an AC. Insighful indeed, wish I could mod you up.

Re:Could Be Worse

[syousef]

There are parents who know they have medical problems related to their genetics, and yet are still selfish enough to "try for one" instead of adopting one of the 50,000+ or so that die of starvation somewhere in the world.

Before trying to create a master race, name me one person that doesn't have some genetic medical problems. Where do you draw the line?
- High blood pressure?
- Flat feet?
- Short or far sightedness?
- Hearing difficulties?
- Sleep apnea?
- Cancer in the family?
- Heart disease in the family?
- Obesity? (Anyone in your family at all being fat).

For someone advocating sympathy, you sure aren't very sympathetic. No wonder you choose to remain AC!

Re:Could Be Worse

[mapkinase]

The highest division bell is between people who think that people should decide what is wrong and what is right and between people who think that God decided what is wrong and what is right.

First opinion is prone to changes. Today we kill babies, tomorrow we save them, same way animals do: in the time of the famine they eat them, and they feed them in the time of relative prosperity. That is the way of the beast

Second opinion is NOT prone to changes. The God's law is absolute and invariant. You do not mess with children. Let them come as they come. That does not change.

Re:Could Be Worse

[moeinvt]

"Before trying to create a master race, name me one person that doesn't have some genetic medical problems. Where do you draw the line?"

There is a vast difference between state-sponsored selective breeding of people based on some arbitrary definition of "desirable" genetic qualities, and using our knowledge of genetics to minimize the risk of producing a child with some serious medical condition. Your question regarding the types of conditions that should legitimately be considered in making a decision of whether or not to reproduce is pertinent, as is the uncertainty regarding the likelihood of a potential offspring actually developing the condition. However, in a genuinely moral context, it's an entirely valid topic for discussion. Your "master race" comment and suggestion that the OP was disingenuous in attempting to strike a moral equivalent between intentional genetic modification and the complete disregard for the genetic consequences of irresponsible reproductive decisions indicates that you don't really want to have that discussion at all. The unfortunate reality is that no such discussion can take place without a Nazi knee-jerk. 60+ years and we're still letting those bastards manipulate our moral discourse.

Re:Could Be Worse

[shutdown -p now]

Second opinion is NOT prone to changes. The God's law is absolute and invariant. You do not mess with children. Let them come as they come. That does not change.

It changes when your tribe/nation/species dies out from starvation in a destroyed environment caused by overpopulation.

But God's faithful (of whatever monotheistic religion) know that it will always magically turn out alright regardless of what they do, so long as the "sacred laws" are kept, so I understand it's no argument for you. Well, you are welcome to keep waiting for your Mahdi...

Re:Could Be Worse

[Adam Hazzlebank]

There are parents who know they have medical problems related to their genetics, and yet are still selfish enough to "try for one" instead of adopting one of the 50,000+ or so that die of starvation somewhere in the world.

Why would your DNA want to being up someone else's child?

captcha: condom

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[vertinox]

And when the embryo is not brought to term the soul would go to hell... or would that be heaven since it hasn't committed sin yet? Wait what are the thorny ethical questions again?

So does god send unborn yet dead people to hell or heaven?

If he sends them to heaven then its sweet deal for the person involved.

If he sends them to hell... Well... I'm not sure if that is a kind and loving god. Could you worship something like that?

Slashdotted.

[telchine]

The actual article can be found here...

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/the-first-genet.html

If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

At this age they are not self aware. Basically they don't know they exist. I don't see the difference between studying an embryo of that age and studyng plants.

We are already using animals that are aware of their existance in labs. Apes can recognise themselves in front of a mirror and we are using them so I feel this is really not a big issue and we should let science go ahead.

Now I'm going to start a very heated debate. We know that babies start to be self aware around the age of 2 so if you really want to test my logic I'll tell you my opinion. We could logically use babies to make tests. Why this horrifies people is because they are attached to their own babies but since these newborns are not sentient yet, where is the harm in using "lab babies"? They would have to be grown in artificial wombs and all that to dehumanize them but logically it shouldn't be stopped.

I might be modded down for opening a can of worms but try to have fun with this ethical puzzle.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[ArsonSmith]

I'm fine with it. I'm fine with abortions up to the 75th trimester.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[LithiumX]

When you're deciding on who gets human rights, and who doesn't, you have to err on the side of caution.

For example, assuming wild swings in opinion over time (as tends to happen), would you be more concerned about chimpanzees being granted full human rights (something I consider overly drastic), or about the severely retarded (and I mean severely - minimally functional vs a funny-looking slow guy who can't make it on his own) having their rights downgraded due to missing critical elements of a human mind?

I'm not personally concerned about the fate of an embryo - it's not quite a "baby" yet. I AM concerned about the precedents set by it's fate, and the inevitable results of applying too much logic to the value of human life. Your life only has as much value as society gives it, and the only safe standards have to be overly accepting - otherwise you see how quickly they can erode.

Another issue... are these embryo's property? If some experimenter chose not to terminate, and had the technology to keep it going, at what point would they cross a line? Definitely not sentience, as it would be very easy to prevent a developing human from ever having that level of intelligence. Would YOU like to see a number of purposefully brain damaged homo sapiens vat grown for medical experimentation?

Sad thing is, I'm pretty certain that's the future. When opportunity meets ethics, ethics never wins (given time).

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[NonSequor]

If you reduce all ethical questions to their impact on the conscious experiences of humans, you're going to end up wandering into "Brave New World" territory.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

I found your post quite interesting so I am definitely taking some time to answer.

There is a big difference between having the right to live and having human rights. For example, Apes are sentient but they do not understand our laws so they can't be held responsible. I wouldn't want to give special human rights to a being that can't respect my own human rights.

Would YOU like to see a number of purposefully brain damaged homo sapiens vat grown for medical experimentation?

To tell you the truth, I have no problem with that. These corpses have the "shell" of a human being but they are not mentally functional. They are not sentient. So basically they can't understand what we are doing to them... like a flower.

Also, I don't know if we can use "too much logic" when talking about life. If a person is physically sick or weak but sentient, we should try to help that person like we would like others to help us. If it's not the body but the brain that is sick then I feel otherwise. If someone is brain-dead we shouldn't keep the body alive.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[RobinH]

If someone killed your one year old child, is it not murder then?

Can we let parents off the hook for screwing up their kids before they age of two, as long as they kill the kid before they become "sentient"?

It sounds ludicrous to me.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Mr. Roadkill]

where is the harm in using "lab babies"? They would have to be grown in artificial wombs and all that to dehumanize them but logically it shouldn't be stopped.

And once we're there, it's only a stone's throw to cloning complete organisms for organ harvesting for transplants - and vat-grown beef, pork, lamb and even long-pig.

Actually, on the subject of cloning for organ harvesting, I see no reason why that couldn't be done provided brain development was suppressed...and maybe the reproductive system too. I'd probably get a little squeamish about vivisecting a copy of me that had a working brain, but I'd have few problems receiving the heart and lungs and liver from a headless incubator and having a barbecue with the leftovers.

I can think of a situation in which a working reproductive system might be desirable, though - chemotherapy or disease can render people infertile, and it could be handy to have an ovary or testicle available for harvesting (for use in IVF) or even for transplantation. It might even be possible to replace a uterus lost to disease or accident or abuse in this way.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[SyntaxFeline]

You raise some very valid points here. You say you are certain that this is the future - I am not so sure. It certainly will be the future in forward-thinking jurisdictions, but I am pessimistic about the United States ever allowing any sorts of restrictions though. The conservative religious voting block is simply too large to ignore.

That having been said, however, I personally wouldn't have an issue with embryos being property, should they be developed. There's incredible applications for vat grown homo sapiens - least of which I can think of being transplants, and absolutely incredible insight into how disease develops. The medical and scientific knowledge to be gained from this type of experimentation certainly outweighs the negative implications - we simply need refinement in the law to state what is, and isn't permissible, and have that stand to court challenges.

The truly hard thing about living in a time when humanity is on the cusp of a second renaissance pertaining to knowledge and the ability to push beyond is the holdouts who prevent the progress. Litigate it, I say!

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Krishnoid]

I might be modded down for opening a can of worms

Hey, stick the right kinds of genes into those, turn them into some of these and you can have all my mod points into perpetuity. Now to find a good African real-estate agent ...

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[ivan_w]

If I still had my mod points (which I wasted yesterday by not doing anything), I would have modded this as 'insightful'..

I kinda agree with you on those points. What is a difference between a 2 weeks old embryo and say.. err.. a blood sample of an adult ? Well... the only diff is : different DNA and different cell composition - that's all.

What throw people off is that an embryo is a 'potential' human being (which a blood sample is not aside from using white cells for cloning).

It's an ethical puzzle alright.. And the can of worm MUST be opened.. Unless we solve this, we, as a human race, are doomed to just stray down the evolutionary path.. Man.. we are the first known species that may be capable of altering its own evolution (we may already have done so).

My opinion : let's try it out.. not without discussing it (like I have any power in this.. well.. maybe I do !) - but let's make "ethics" evolve - because we can.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[SyntaxFeline]

They often are let off the hook - witness every one of those parents who walks away free after 'forgetting' they left their kid strapped in the car on a hundred degree day.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

If someone killed your one year old child, is it not murder then?

Yes, but it would logically be the same kind of murder as if you killed my dog. The emotional link and the strenght of my hopes and dreams for my kid would be the reasons my own baby would be more important to me than my own dog. On the other hand, if you were talking about laws, do not forget that they do not necesseraly follow logic.

Can we let parents off the hook for screwing up their kids before they age of two, as long as they kill the kid before they become "sentient"? It sounds ludicrous to me.

This is an extremely interesting question. Logically I don't see why not. The baby is not sentient so if it is killed there would be no problem. Since we are there, babies that show physical problems could be terminated too before they become sentient.

The thing is, babies are "embryos" that are continuing to develope in the real world. They receive stimuli and can react to stimuli but they are nothing more than small robots at that age. By that I mean they are not sentient yet.

If the parents willingly screw up their baby after the mother has had that creature in her belly for so long and then kill it without hesitation, I would be more concerned about the parents than the baby to tell you the truth...

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[amRadioHed]

vat-grown beef, pork, lamb... Why would that be an ethical problem

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[cdrguru]

Yes, but... given a suitable profit motive, what would be wrong with creating a new life form, human-like but with sub-normal brain development as a slave class? Imagine having personal servants that not only didn't mind but saw no other possible life other than service to their masters.

This is indeed within our grasp. Should it be possible, and I am certain it is, can you imagine a situation where a large multi-national corporation wouldn't do it? For the profits?

I guess you need to ask yourself if you would like to be living in that world.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[LithiumX]

The truly hard thing about living in a time when humanity is on the cusp of a second renaissance pertaining to knowledge and the ability to push beyond is the holdouts who prevent the progress. Litigate it, I say!

Let's see:

We have mastered the atom, we can grow food in what used to be inhospitable deserts, we can cure (and barely notice) the vast majority of lethal diseases, we can make premature infants live - and the elderly live longer. We can cross the globe in hours, go to the moon, and hurl probes beyond the solar system. We can rebuild even the most gruesome injuries (if we can reach the injured quickly enough), we virtually all own computers that make the giant machines of our parents look like calculators, literacy is at an all-time high, and we can give our pets medical care that our grandparents couldn't imagine. Every day, we are bombarded by more products of human imagination than were possible in a year a few generations back. Every single area of the arts now enjoys patronage and levels of activity unimaginable during the last renaissance, and for all of the inevitable garbage there are works that are without a doubt among the finest our species has ever produced. We live longer, do more, and through the wonders of technology, lead richer, fuller, lives.

We are in that renaissance now - at least, we are in relative comparison to the previous one.

But trust me, understanding a bit more about the human genome won't really make our lives that much better, because technology and science bring incremental improvements, but never societal epiphany.

Consider: Thanks to the wonders of technology, most of the population is now literate... but the common reading level is frighteningly low - 6th grade level, last I heard. The standard vocabulary has many technical terms, but fewer fine shades of meaning. While it's true that the vast majority can now read, that's all they can do. Shakespeare was directed at a post-medieval common population with limited literacy (due to lack of books) but with the capacity to see the subtext - but today most of the population can no longer read between the lines (even when translated into modern English) - and has to have it grossly spelled out for them in a visual format (with most of the content lost).

Consider: Medical science has developed by leaps and bounds, we can cure almost every disease we know, and are now focused on those that are of far less importance. We even have the luxury of bemoaning the (historically, in ratio to the population) minor deaths caused by AIDS, Cancer, and other incurables, because death by disease is no longer the hard every-day reality it once was for most people - most of us have to watch the news for that. We eat better, and are individually more healthy. But... our lifespan has only improved slightly, we now die of old but previously-uncommon causes, and a significant portion of the population lives with problems that we can sustain indefinitely (often in torment), but not fix. We revel in how young the middle aged appear today, but ignore the fact that they will still live, if accidents and disease don't kill them, about as long as their grandparents did - and little more. And accidents - brutal, meat-mangling, horrific accidents - are now more likely to kill them than ever before.

Consider: We live in a land of plenty. There is more food, and better distribution of that food, than has ever existed - globally. There are farms in the middle of deserts, breeds of corn, wheat, and other plants far superior to those of previous centuries, and better knowledge of nutrition. Those who live in breadbaskets are doing very well - if they choose. Yet large areas of the world are now constantly on the edge of starvation - because all those medical advances have made our population explode, and because our technology now allows small and ill-equipped groups of individuals to devastate entire regions, destabilize entire cultures, and throw m

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[rastoboy29]

If you made this comment on a normal website, yes, it would be controversial.  But this is Slashdot...baby experiments are fine, move on.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[JanneM]

And once we're there, it's only a stone's throw to cloning complete organisms for organ harvesting for transplants - and vat-grown beef, pork, lamb and even long-pig. Great!

Growing "spare bodies" for its organs would help a lot of people, especially if you can alter the genetic makeup a bit to remove deleterious mutations - sicle-cell anemics could get their own bone marrow, but corrected, for instance. Old people with filing hearts could get their own heart, but young; you'd get your own kidneys, or liver - or hand, if you're accident prone.

Vat-grown meat, if it can be made cheap and structurally sound, should be another boon. No longer having to go through the inefficient, disease-prone roundabout way of raising and killing an animal, and with much better control over the whole production process.

Looking forward to this.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Mr. Roadkill]

I guess you need to ask yourself if you would like to be living in that world.

"Oh brave new world, that has such people in it"

I'm sure the underclasses wouldn't mind. They'd be conditioned not to. In fact, I'm sure that on the whole you'd find that happiness and satisfaction with one's lot would be far more widespread than today. You ought to re-read Huxley some time, he has some good digs at both Henry Ford style capitalism/production/consumption and Socialism, as well as painting a world in which most people are happier than at any other time in history. But I'm not sure it's somewhere I'd like to live.

I'm not sure that breeding a slave-race would really be cost-effective, either. It'd take too long for them to mature sufficiently to be useful, and you'd need to have training and education for them. Additionally, I'm not sure they'd be appropriate for hazardous conditions - I get a little leery of those who deliberately mistreat animals, so I'm not sure I'd be happy with someone deliberately sending semi-humans down the asbestos mines or similar either. It's not the kind of thing that I think would be useful for a modern multi-national - it'd probably only work well if society was re-engineered a'la Huxley's nightmare.

I suspect that our future slave-race will be mechanical, rather than biological - or perhaps a hybrid of the two, the self-healing and self-replicating features of greater and lesser primates perhaps, augmented by implants. A troupe of spider monkeys, augmented by on-board and centralised processing, could be great for general park maintenance - and could alert the computer to get the the orangutan with the pruning saw. Remote-controlled rabbits could keep the grass mowed - general directions on where to go or direct nervous system overrides where appropriate, a jolt to the pleasure centre when they got the grass to the right height, discomfort when they did things wrong, like living in a world-wide Skinner box with a built-in crack dispenser.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Chandon Seldon]

Both "Brave New World" and "1984" both describe societies with the same three key problems - both societies are structured to stay unchanged indefinitely, both societies place no value on individual rights, and both societies have successfully encompassed all of humanity.

As long as we can keep separate sovereign nations some of which value individual rights, we should be reasonably safe from the utter nightmare scenarios that those books describe - even if some fraction of people are stuck in places like North Korea.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[4D6963]

I don't know what self aware means, but I have a memory of an afternoon that took place when I was 10 month old (took my years to prove it to my family mostly that it was an undocumented event) and I can tell you there's nothing about being ten month old that's not human. I remember thinking that the brunette on my left was hot, I remember the faces of a few persons around the table, I remember freaking out that I'd never see my mother again when she put me on the couch alone downstairs and saw her climbing the stairs, but most importantly I remember the plastic train wagon and the plastic ball that wouldn't quite fit in the wagon they gave me to play with.

I said importantly because that's what made of hold on to this memory. I thought this wagon and that ball had been offered to me, so for years I would ask my mother about them in order to determine what had happened to them. Of course she wouldn't know what I was talking about because this major element of my young life was just another afternoon to her.

My point is, babies are not pooping robots, they also have beliefs, fears and they can get attached to things.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Chandon Seldon]

The emotional link and the strength of my hopes and dreams for my kid would be the reasons my own baby would be more important to me than my own dog.

This, by itself, is enough to justify treating infants with mothers as people from a legal perspective. If the legal system didn't value emotional damage, then rape with a condom would simply be "battery".

Yes, but it would logically be the same kind of murder as if you killed my dog.

We should absolutely be using logic to analyze legal questions, but when you make statements like that with oversimplified logic you make it look like anyone who values rationality is a psychopath (which is absurd - psychopath make irrational decisions all the time).

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[NonSequor]

I believe that the main point of "Brave New World" was that naive utilitarianism (using happiness as the metric of what is and isn't good) could result in a society that we would find repulsive.

I believe that basing a society on any metric that does not include a concept of human dignity leads to the Huxleyian trap.

I think it's wisest to try to avoid any scenarios that entail medical facilities that resemble slaughterhouses. That seems to be the direction some people seem to be steering the conversation. I'm not even sure why people keep bringing up the headless bodies in vats thing when technologies like organ printing may be possible within our lifetimes.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[ChromeAeonium]

We know that babies start to be self aware around the age of 2 Citation needed. We don't give rights based on ability, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a world where what you were capable of determined your legal status. We tried that once or twice, wasn't pretty. Even if babies weren't sentient, that still wouldn't make it ethical.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[syousef]

Where did you get a figure like 2 years? I've seen 6 months old that were perfectly aware of their own presence.

Here's something that talks about self awareness in the first month:
http://www.evenflo.com/Home/ParentingResources/Articles/Month1AwakeningAwareness/tabid/115/Default.aspx

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Roxton]

Same reason we pass laws protecting corpses. What people feel matters. When we try to rationalize it into ideological laws, we make caricatures of ourselves.

I believe this applies to fetuses as well. But you know what? I'd tack up my grandfather's corpse on a tree in the public square and tear flesh from it in public if it would save a friend from the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy.

The human connection with babies is a very real one; we're hardwired for it. In fact, if a mother were willing to give up her infant for scientific study, that would be a pretty good sign that she needs urgent psychiatric care. I'm not sure that science is worth overriding that link.

Further, we have a very useful allergy to dehumanization. As lizard-brained humans, we're not very good at separation of concerns. When it comes to dehumanization, things that shouldn't be slippery slopes are, in fact, slippery slopes.

When it comes to neuroscience, the benefit of working on humans as opposed to chimps is that humans can tell you things. You don't have that benefit with infants.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

Lewis, M. (1991). Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness of consciousness. Developmental Review, 11, 231-243.

Asendorpf, J. B., Warkentin, V., & Baudonniere, P. (1996). Self-awareness and other-awareness. II: Mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 313-321.

Bullock, M., &Lutkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36, 217-238.

Also, you didn't explain why it would be unethical. If you want to protect life that is not sentient, plants and lab animals should be protected as much as babies. You are thinking with your emotions, not logic.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

Lewis, M. (1991). Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness of consciousness. Developmental Review, 11, 231-243.

Asendorpf, J. B., Warkentin, V., & Baudonniere, P. (1996). Self-awareness and other-awareness. II: Mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 313-321.

Bullock, M., & Lutkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36, 217-238.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[ChromeAeonium]

You are thinking with your emotions, not logic. That's the point, Spock. Why is murder unethical, why is rape unethical, why is thievery unethical? You can logically get a nice justification for all three, but ethics and logic aren't related. Logic's great for some things, not too hot for others. What's illogical is not knowing where and when to apply logic.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

Same reason we pass laws protecting corpses. What people feel matters. When we try to rationalize it into ideological laws, we make caricatures of ourselves.

If a law is based on logic and if that law itself is logical and not a caricature of the observed fact, I don't see where it could lead to problems. If you base laws on feelings, you get laws based on "sins". These laws can't be explained except by "It doesn't feel right but I can't explain it".

The human connection with babies is a very real one; we're hardwired for it. In fact, if a mother were willing to give up her infant for scientific study, that would be a pretty good sign that she needs urgent psychiatric care. I'm not sure that science is worth overriding that link.

I agree and this is why I say that they should be grown artificially to make sure there is no emotional link. Some mothers might be able to do it but there is an emotional risk. It has nothing to do with the baby itself though.

Further, we have a very useful allergy to dehumanization. As lizard-brained humans, we're not very good at separation of concerns. When it comes to dehumanization, things that shouldn't be slippery slopes are, in fact, slippery slopes.

Well, that is not really true. If it was, then slaves would have never been used. I don't see any objective basis for your argument. Could you, perhaps, clarify your point?

When it comes to neuroscience, the benefit of working on humans as opposed to chimps is that humans can tell you things. You don't have that benefit with infants.

The earth, the cells and the atoms don't talk either and yet we can still study them. You don't have to talk to your subject to learn something from it.

Anyway, when you observe a subject, you must make sure it doesn't know you are studying it because of the Pygmalion effect. So, I don't think your last point is really relevant.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

Ok look, you are not backing your ideas with facts. You are simply asking more questions. Murder and thievery can be ethical under opression so it's a question of context. As for rape, it can be ethical in a bdsm scenario I guess.

Your argument seems to be that babies, sentient or not, must be protected. If that's the case, any other being that is not sentient has the same rights to be protected and that includes plants. If you disagree, you must explain why.

If you say that a being must be able to feel pain to be protected, then that rules out plants but it doesn't rule out animals. So if you want to make an exception for human babies, you must explain why.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[greyhueofdoubt]

I share P.K. Dick's view on sentience: Until a 'person' can demonstrate an understanding of algebra, they can be aborted.

(yeah yeah I know the real point of that story, I just think it's funny)

-b

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[eratosthene]

Just curious, where are you getting your information that babies become self-aware around the age of 2? Having been around babies, both my own and others, for a good many years now, I think I'd have to debate that. It could be that I just don't have a good grasp of what you mean by self-aware, though. I know my ten-month-old seems pretty aware of his environment, can respond to his name, knows me as da-da, and happily plays with his reflection in a mirror. Does that count?

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Roxton]

Thanks for taking the time to address my points.

You can't create a law purely from logic. You can try to create a system of laws derived from as few subjective value judgments as possible, but then you end up blindly overriding some concerns with others, ala Libertarianism.

That's kind of a tangential debate, so we don't have to beat each other up on that.

Making irrelevant (is there a verb for that?) the emotional link between mother and child would definitely crucial in infant experimentation. I don't think it's good enough, though. It's an emotional strain on the scientists who work with them, and it's an emotional strain on the citizenry who find themselves contemplating the horrifying existence of experiment-babies. It's not rational, but it doesn't have to be.

I conveyed the wrong idea with my last point. My point was that there's not much to be gained with experimenting on infants as opposed to chimps, at least at this stage. When I wrote that, though, I was thinking of neuroscience. There are plenty of advantages to experimenting on infants in other contexts, so it really isn't a good point.

In this limited slice of history, the western world has very negative feelings about eugenics, genocide, and forced abortions. This hasn't always been the case, and it isn't the case everywhere in the world. We've been sensitized. You risk losing that sensitivity when you start challenging people's perceptions of the value of life. This is simultaneously a very weak point and a very important one.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

I already gave my references here. Understand that it was a very general number to make the discussion easier.

While it is true that between 8 and 12 months a baby has a sense of the self, they don't yet understand that they are a unique individual in the world. They just understand that they can interact with the world. Babies understand that they are unique individuals between the age of 18 and 24 months.

I have a test, I mean a "game", for you and your kid. :)

Place him in front of a big mirror, alone. Let him watch himself for a few minutes. He will most probably try to interact with his reflection. After a while, pretend to wipe his face with a piece of clothing but, instead, put a mark on his nose with it. Now let him continue to interact with the mirror.

The day your kid starts to touch his own nose instead of the nose in the mirror is the day he starts to understand that he exists as an independant object in this world. It has been observed that no kid between 8 and 12 months touched their nose but 75% of the kids did at 21 months (Asendorpf, Warkentin and Baudonniere, 1996).

In other words, babies do not become sentient at the same time but almost all of them are at 24 months. So for biological experiments, I'd recommend not using babies after the age of 12 months. We could always use tests like the mirror test after that but we would definitely be playing with fire...

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

I now understand your opinion. It seems we agree on everything except one point:

Making irrelevant (is there a verb for that?) the emotional link between mother and child would definitely crucial in infant experimentation. I don't think it's good enough, though. It's an emotional strain on the scientists who work with them, and it's an emotional strain on the citizenry who find themselves contemplating the horrifying existence of experiment-babies. It's not rational, but it doesn't have to be.

It seems that because you wouldn't be able to do it that you think nobody would be able to do it. Am I right? Yet, there are scientists that are doing tests on animals and they don't really care. Veterinarians have to learn with corpses of animals freshly killed and they accept the situation. When it is for a good cause, some scientists close their eyes without a second thought.

As for citizens, well, we have slaughterhouses and nobody wants to think about them and we have scientists experimenting on animals and nobody wants to think about that either. So I don't think the majority would mind that much if it is not done in vain. Sure, a minority are against all that but society at large accepts the situation.

Of course, I'm only right if scientists explain clearly the whole situation to the rest of the world. Not everyone knows about babies not being sentient so we might not be there yet. When society understands the whole subject more, I am sure experimenting on newborns will be the next logical step if we need it. Meanwhile, baby monkeys will always be more acceptable for society. It's not too bad when it's not your own people right?

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Roxton]

Solid points all around.

It seems that because you wouldn't be able to do it that you think nobody would be able to do it. Am I right?

I'm suggesting that it's not fundamentally incorrect to disallow such research for ethical reasons, even if everyone had perfect information. You're right on a number of points, though. I may be overstating the case for disallowing such research.

Whether or not such research will be disallowed for the foreseeable future will depend on dialog among a (hopefully) increasingly educated public.

On a related note, primate abuse was one of the reasons I stopped pursuing a Ph.D. in the field of neuroscience.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[IdeaMan]

or about the severely retarded (and I mean severely - minimally functional vs a funny-looking slow guy who can't make it on his own) having their rights downgraded due to missing critical elements of a human mind? Retarded peoples rights are downgraded. If they injure or kill someone they are not held legally responsible for their actions. They are denied other rights in order to protect them from being injured or from injuring themselves.

If I ever am severely brain damaged I would rather be terminated than continue living. Making that call for someone else is really really hard. See the cases of families deciding when to pull the plug.

The property issue isn't. If you argue that man can be owned, well, the last time that happened it took a civil war to kill of that idea. Decide whether or not it is man, and you will know based on the Declaration of Independence whether or not it has the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[Bragador]

I think you should read the other posts. Especially this one.

Re:If they are not self aware, why not?

[eratosthene]

That's a very interesting test, I'll give it a shot. Hadn't ever heard of it before.

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[vertinox]

By sweet deal... I meant going to heaven without ever having the chance to go to hell. If you are born and live into adulthood you've got a 50/50 chance to going to hell (maybe more if you were born in the wrong country) so statically speaking if god does send miscarriages and abortions to heaven its a 100% success rate in which the person involved should be thankful for not being put at risk of going to hell... If it is that bad of a place.

After market upgrade genome

[moteyalpha]

I have added fluorescent protein in the lab with e. Coli and it is very simple. There have been quite a few more unusual experiments that involve taking human brain cells and growing them in mice and adding human genes to animals. I think the door is already wide open as they can claim it is not human if it does not have 100% human genome. I wonder if this non human gene is in a human, then are they not human any more by this definition?

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[jeiler]

Hell = eternity with cable television ... that plays nothing but infomercials for products you don't want.

Invalid arguement

[Nerdposeur]

First, you lump all religious people (hint: this is most of the planet) into the category of "people who cause genocide." Second, you offhandedly pronounce that, on the whole, the effects of religion are evil. Then, you conclude that religious viewpoints should not be heard. I say that you can't back up any of those statements.

It would be just as easy to out-of-hand dismiss Slashdot users (the only group I can knowingly lump you into) as incapable of reasonable political debate.

The fact is, this is an ethical question. It presumes that human life is valuable, and asks whether embryos qualify, and then asks how their interests balance against the other considerations.

The idea that human life IS valuable is just as much a belief as the idea that embryos do or don't qualify as humans. Whether you call that belief "religious" or not, it's still a belief.

I happen to believe that human life is valuable because we "are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights." I make no argument about the faith of the Founding Fathers, but they did start with that premise. If you toss out the Creator, I assume you have some alternate rationale, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that any religious basis for valuing human life is irrelevant.

Re:Invalid arguement

[aztektum]

The effects of religion have proven time and again to be more than overwhelmingly negative. They're only competition for motivation to reap atrocities on mankind is lust for money.

Point out where I said this wasn't an ethically ambiguous question? Granted my comment was made hastily; I was splitting my attention between 3 things. Given the detailed history of religious followers to shoot first and refuse to ask/answer questions later, I personally give little value to their opinions.

It would be just as easy to out-of-hand dismiss Slashdot users (the only group I can knowingly lump you into) as incapable of reasonable political debate. I'm not here to have reasonable political debate. This isn't a political forum. I'm not running for office. I want nothing to do with "politics".

What I'm saying is, I tire of religious rhetoric impacting the lives of those who do not follow a religious association. If to you this has ethical implications along religious principles, fine. To me it does not, to many others it does not. I have no desire to see science and the future of humanities advancement marginalized because somethings make people feel icky.

My beliefs are not your beliefs. Yours are not mine. Science should always recognize this accordingly and avoid being influenced by either.

Re:Invalid arguement

[LandDolphin]

I tend to lean towards human life not being valuable.


There are already too many people on the planet as it is, and thousands of them die on a daily basis. There is no "magic" to creating life and the resources (Sperm and Eggs) are plentiful. Might as well get something from the resources via scientific study, instead of just letting them go to waste.

Re:Invalid arguement

[aztektum]

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas Jefferson

This is where I was coming from with my original comment. Ones religion is between them and their God(s). Leave the rest of the world out of it.

Re:Invalid arguement

[aztektum]

I submit that religion can have a profoundly positive impact on an individual. Personally, religions are usually seen as a means to an end - the end being manipulation and control of the population. Example A

Religion as a world-view for a person is great. Key to that is realizing it is that persons world-view. Not the world's. If other's share a similar world-view, then by all means get together and have a pow-wow to discuss your views.

I personally do not feel a desire to view the world via religious principles. I want to view it though experience, experimentation, extrapolation, discovery, etc. I hold these views to be mine and mine alone. I have friends and family that share similar view and we discuss them.

I do not feel the need to push these ideas onto others. I have no wish to see the exercise of religion banned or otherwise controlled by laws. However... Example B Example C Example D

No matter how counter to ones own beliefs, allowing everyone the free exercise of their beliefs is of utmost importance to me. Given the blatant desire by religious zealots to squash that for their own personal comfort, as my original comment suggested, I feel little weight should be given to religious views concerning the topic at hand. Partially because they're already well known; additionally because they tend to offer little in the way of leeway when it comes to constructive discussion. Especially concerning subjects like in the article.

Re:Invalid arguement

[Iamthecheese]

I tend to lean towards human life not being valuable. There are already too many people on the planet as it is, and thousands of them die on a daily basis. There is no "magic" to creating life and the resources (Sperm and Eggs) are plentiful. Might as well get something from the resources via scientific study, instead of just letting them go to waste. So lets fertalize those eggs and create an army of slaves!

Re:Invalid arguement

[Borathian]

The effects of religion have proven time and again to be more than overwhelmingly negative. They're only competition for motivation to reap atrocities on mankind is lust for money. Religion holds no contest for atrocities compared to the acquisition of wealth and power nor does any thing in the history of the world. I can think of vary few "atrocities" committed by religions because of there religious views, as every other is simply the work of those in power in the religion using the religion as a way to accomplish there nefarious plots. A good example of this is the Roman Catholic Church as up until about 2 Popes ago almost EVERY Pope either did not believe in God altogether or worshiped wealth above Him, like Pope John XII who had many mistresses and neglected his duties as Pope almost entirely, Pope Benedict IX who was actually banned from Rome for his atrocities, Pope Benedict IX who almost bankrupted Rome, and the list goes on...extensively, which is one of the many reasons Martin Luther separated from the catholic church, and wrote his 95 thesis and proceeded to translate the Bible from Latin into German to take the power out of the hand of the people who had corrupted it, and put it in the hand of the common people so they could learn from it themselves. I can also think of many similar things in many other religions from Buddhism to Islam's jihads of which I have never head of 1 that was actually waged on behalf of the actual religion(or its beliefs) but rather exclusively for the purposes of gaining wealth, land, power, etc. Basically the effects of religions themselves are not truly negative but rather have negativity forced upon them by those vile enough to use religions as tools of malevolence. the only thing about religion that I can think of that is truly "overwhelmingly negative" that actually has to do with religion, is the ability of the believers to believe that those in power within the religion are infallible, and thusly cater to there corruption without suspicion there of. please forgive my lack of punctuational abilities, and the lack of knowledge to make spaces between my frigging sentences on this site.

Re:Invalid arguement

[tsm_sf]

Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men....when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret...."

Re:Invalid arguement

[jc42]

What I'm saying is, I tire of religious rhetoric impacting the lives of those who do not follow a religious association. If to you this has ethical implications along religious principles, fine. To me it does not, to many others it does not. I have no desire to see science and the future of humanities advancement marginalized because somethings make people feel icky.

Ah, but don'cha know that the whole point of having religious beliefs is so that I can use them as an excuse to impose my beliefs on you. Or, if you refuse to follow my beliefs, I can have you jailed or killed for your recalcitrance.

If I can't use my religious beliefs as others have done so often in the past, why would I bother to have them?

There have been a number of surveys showing that, while religious people may hate others who follow a different religion, they usually reserve their most fervent hatred for those who follow no religion at all. Thus, in American political surveys, it usually turns out that most religious people would with some reluctance vote for a politician who is a member of a different religious group, but they would never vote for an atheist.

Re:Invalid arguement

[servognome]

The effects of religion have proven time and again to be more than overwhelmingly negative. They're only competition for motivation to reap atrocities on mankind is lust for money.

Religious atrocities are just an extension of basic tribalism - associating with those like us, and fearing those not like us; religion, nationalism, and racism are not causes they are excuses for following our primal survival instincts. It comes down to people are overwhelmingly negative when they feel their social and philosophical values are threatened - whether it has to do with religion, law, economics, or science.
Religion has been used to justify ideas like natural rights, promoted education, and equality - it is also used to justify the opposite ideas.

What I'm saying is, I tire of religious rhetoric impacting the lives of those who do not follow a religious association. If to you this has ethical implications along religious principles, fine. To me it does not, to many others it does not. I have no desire to see science and the future of humanities advancement marginalized because somethings make people feel icky.
My beliefs are not your beliefs. Yours are not mine. Science should always recognize this accordingly and avoid being influenced by either.

Yes we each have our own beliefs, the problem is people must coexist in the same world. Trying to pretend science exists in a vacuum is naive. First you have resource allocation, you can't fund all science. Second the value of science vs the potential impact on society should be weighed. Is a scientist allowed to experiment on humans without their consent? That isn't a science issue it's a values one.
Yes the religious zealots are a pain in the ass because they prefer their views rather than open discussion and dialogue... but in a society of equality their opinions have just as much value as anybody else's.

Re:Invalid arguement

[dg__83]

No matter how counter to ones own beliefs, allowing everyone the free exercise of their beliefs is of utmost importance to me. Given the blatant desire by religious zealots to squash that for their own personal comfort,, as my original comment suggested, I feel little weight should be given to religious views concerning the topic at hand. Partially because they're already well known; additionally because they tend to offer little in the way of leeway when it comes to constructive discussion. fixed that for you:

Depending how counter to my own beliefs, allowing some people the free exercise of their beliefs is of utmost importance to me. Given the blatant desire by religious zealots to exercise their own beliefs, as my original comment suggested, I feel little weight should be given to religious views concerning the topic at hand. Partially because they're already well known; additionally because they tend to offer little in the way of leeway when it comes to agreeing with me.

Re:Invalid arguement

[Dracophile]

First, you lump all religious people (hint: this is most of the planet) into the category of "people who cause genocide." Second, you offhandedly pronounce that, on the whole, the effects of religion are evil. Then, you conclude that religious viewpoints should not be heard.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:Invalid arguement

[aztektum]

Way to turn an individuals opinion into a generalized group mentality. I stand by what I wrote. Thank you for fixing it to fit a point of view that is more easily acceptable to you.

Re:Invalid arguement

[aztektum]

How do you choose a moral framework to put on science then? Ultimately you're going to offend someone. I think what you mean is "Human beings need a moral framework.". Science is a method we utilize to understand the physical world. It should not give unnecessary weight to human compunction or self righteousness. Placing a moral framework on the method immediately reduces the benefits of that method.

When you begin to impose a "moral framework" on it, you get things like banning the teaching of evolution. You get crusades to defend the morally superior. You get jihads. You get unnecessary suffering wrought by people who have decided that simply, in reality, they don't agree with you.

If someone chooses to act outside the moral framework, it is to no detriment of you. Unless those actions quantitatively effect others in a negative way and not in a "Oo that makes me *feel* uncomfortable." they should be allowed the freedom to continue what they're doing.

Re:Invalid arguement

[zoney_ie]

The problem isn't religion, it's humans. People are capable of the worst excesses ascribed to religion regardless of whether they are doing it "for religion" or not.

People who are allegedly not religious (as in practicing a religion) are usually just as religious as anyone else, or even more so, when it comes to the issues they care about.

Re:Invalid arguement

[aproposofwhat]

but in a society of equality their opinions have just as much value as anybody else's.

No, no, no!

Their opinions have the right to be heard as much as anyone elses, but the matter of value is totally separate.

If their opinions are stupid and backwards, why should we give them the same value as rational, progressive opinions?

Any argument invoking the FSM or any other noodly deity should be immediately ignored.

Re:Invalid arguement

[Nerdposeur]

My beliefs are not your beliefs. Yours are not mine. Science should always recognize this accordingly and avoid being influenced by either.

There is no possible source of ethical judgment in science other than non-scientific belief. Science is observation and experiment. Any guidelines as to what it should or shouldn't do will always be non-scientific.

Should we experiment on animals? Should we research to cure cancer? Should we euthanize the elderly? Science cannot answer those questions. We have to decide whether these things are good or bad based on non-scientific concepts like "human dignity" and "the evil of suffering." Even a rational principle like "the greatest good for the greatest number of people" assumes that we know what "good" is, and that's a value judgment.

I can just as easily dismiss your value judgments as you can dismiss mine. But hopefully, that's not how our society works. Hopefully we can recognize that everyone's opinion should at least be considered before we make collective decisions - whether or not we find the grounds for each other's opinions to be solid or not.

Re:Invalid arguement

[Nerdposeur]

This is where I was coming from with my original comment. Ones religion is between them and their God(s). Leave the rest of the world out of it.

Sure. And please leave your atheism out of it when you come to talk about public policy. Don't foist your a-religious opinions on the rest of us. (Tongue in cheek.)

"I believe it's wrong to overtax the poor - but I'm not saying why!"

Re:Invalid arguement

[kalirion]

My beliefs are not your beliefs. Yours are not mine. Science should always recognize this accordingly and avoid being influenced by either.

That's your belief ;)

Re:Invalid arguement

[ittybad]

Cat's Cradle is a 1963 science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I encourage you to read it. It explores "science for the sake of science" as opposed to "science for a reason." I feel that it has major significance with your last line. As to your comment on the "effects of religion" being proven "overwhelmingly negative," I would like to dissect your use of "proven." As this discussion in on/about science, I would use the definition: To determine the quality of by testing; try out. To use "proven" as you have, I believe you have to look at religion as it stands today (not during the crusades, or the Spanish inquisition). Can you show, by way of evidence, that religion has had overwhelmingly negative effects on a society such as the one we enjoy in the United States? That is to say, can you show that the over all effect of religion is negative (as opposed to positive) in a free, non-oppressive society? I venture to say you cannot. I also venture to say that many, many, many people will give anecdotal evidence touting how religion has made their lives better (Catholic alter-boys aside).

Re:Invalid arguement

[servognome]

If their opinions are stupid and backwards, why should we give them the same value as rational, progressive opinions?

What constitutes stupid and backwards? Religion does not necessarily mean lack of rational thought, it can serve as a container for a value set that have rational backgrounds. Rational ideas like human equality and fundamental rights in the US grew out of the religious belief in nature's God. Also progressive opinions do not necessarily result from rational thinking - for example the idea of "we do, because we can."

Any argument invoking the FSM or any other noodly deity should be immediately ignored.

And the "faithful" would say moral judgements from those without God should be ignored. Both arguments are equally intolerant. Outright dismissal of opinions for any reason can be detrimental, because we should take time to pause and consider other opinions when our decisions will impact those people. It doesn't mean the ultimate decision will be swayed, but at least thoughtful consideration of even extremist views can be valuable, because when you dig deep into those opinions there may be something that can be learned.

Not carried to term

[Steneub]

Give a medical reason why not.

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[Facetious]

Actually, I'm in hell right now. It's not the heat that bothers me, it's that every url gets routed to 66.35.250.150.

What is "human" to you?

[Anonymous Coward]

> You are presenting one side of an issue as the only side. You've chosen the side that embryos are human and alive and thus this is murder.

Forget whether it's "murder" or not for a second (that's an emotive word that will only derail discussion) and focus on the "human" aspect of things, please.

Fertilized embryos and zygotes are living homo sapien organisms--not some other species, right? They're becoming something we all recognize as human, or would given food and shelter?

So what's the other side of that (and ONLY that--no "murder" discussion, please)? They can't feel or understand pain so it's speciesist to give them special treatment merely because they're homo sapiens. Or perhaps, "What's the difference between them and cell cultures removed from your body? Especially if we could clone those?", ignoring that fertilized embryos are becoming human and samples are not?

I merely want to understand, so no flames please. I would like to hear your reasoning and your philosophy, not your anger.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[MMC Monster]

How about Humanity being defined as having brain activity that allows them to respond to stimuli in a non-reflexive manner?

If someone has no brain activity, they are often declared dead. That being said, they may still have some nerve reflexed (as do detached muscle cells).

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Straker Skunk]

An embryo is human (Homo sapiens) and living (not dead tissue), in the technical sense. That has nothing to do with whether it is "a person who { is, should be } granted societal protection from being killed." After all, a brainless vegetable is also human and living, and most folks don't see a problem with pulling the plug on one. (The Terry Schiavo case hinged on whether she really was "brainless," in the public consciousness.)

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Tangent128]

Or perhaps, "What's the difference between them and cell cultures removed from your body? Especially if we could clone those?", ignoring that fertilized embryos are becoming human and samples are not? If you destroy a culture from your body, you remain alive. In the case of an embryo, that culture is their body.

In the end, it does seem to come down to what defines an "individual". The (practically always) new combination of DNA formed during fertilization seems the most explicit.

The situation of cloning from a sample of your own tissue muddles things, though. The fact that tissue doesn't naturally revert into an embryo would seem to be the clearest line here. Once a human has delibrately set the cell line on an organism-replicating path, one may as well treat it as a new individual, as one would have essentially "thrown the switch" normally reserved for post-fertilization development.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[wizardforce]

"What's the difference between them and cell cultures removed from your body?

some would argue that if left to its own devices, embryonic cells would grow to become a human child where as cell cultures derived from your body would not.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[frosty_tsm]

I don't have a full answer, but at one point there is a sense of awareness (even if it's not mature). For example, a born baby cries and likes to be held by it's mother.

At the other end, a freshly fertilized egg does not have a sense of awareness (at least, none that science can detect or explain).

I think this plays a part in the discussion. The embryo is human, but is an embryo self-aware?

Re:What is "human" to you?

[afaik_ianal]

I think your argument would be more convincing if you had any idea what a verb was :-|.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Spy der Mann]

Effectively, by accepting that if they don't feel pain (or anything for that matter) they can be disposed, opens the door to euthanasia in case of people in coma - and also to abortion and to extract embryos from pregnant women to do experiments on them. But also it opens the door to murder, just by giving anesthesics to people before they die. But that opens the door to ethnical cleansing. Later it won't make any difference if the people murdered died a quick painless death (i.e. a gunshot in the head, or even a nuke quick enough to guarantee they won't feel pain), or even a pleasureable death (i.e. drugs).

When that happens, good bye, humanism.... good morning, Soylent Green!

Re:What is "human" to you?

[tsm_sf]

I'm pretty sure that if an embryo were left to its own devices it would decay rapidly.

So... if you have an embryo in a lab, are you morally bound to implant it into a host? If there are no volunteers are you morally bound to impregnate someone against their will?

It would be an interesting question if there were not people starving to death on our planet.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Iamthecheese]

This reminds me of Polly. The researchers said something to the effect of, "its ethical because if they start acting human, we'll kill them immediately." The problem being, of course, that if they're acting human it becomes less, not more, "right" to kill the sheep.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[BungaDunga]

That scoops up most animal life though, doesn't it? Your average chimpanzee isn't working on reflex, arguably neither is your average starfish.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[2short]

So you're saying that by his standard, an adult chimpanzee has a greater moral status than a single-celled human zygote?

Well, OK, so I agree and think his standard is doing well so far.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The embryo is human, but not an actualized human being in the sense of possessing the qualities we value as significant in human beings (mind, not genetics). It is a potential human being. I realize that this may also apply to infanticide. That doesn't disturb me. I eat more intelligent things for dinner.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious difficulty with that standard is its application to human infants. Most people are not willing to take it that far, and so for them it fails (or ought to fail) as a standard.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ArcherB]

> You are presenting one side of an issue as the only side. You've chosen the side that embryos are human and alive and thus this is murder.

Forget whether it's "murder" or not for a second (that's an emotive word that will only derail discussion) and focus on the "human" aspect of things, please.

Fertilized embryos and zygotes are living homo sapien organisms--not some other species, right? They're becoming something we all recognize as human, or would given food and shelter?

So what's the other side of that (and ONLY that--no "murder" discussion, please)? They can't feel or understand pain so it's speciesist to give them special treatment merely because they're homo sapiens. Or perhaps, "What's the difference between them and cell cultures removed from your body? Especially if we could clone those?", ignoring that fertilized embryos are becoming human and samples are not?

I merely want to understand, so no flames please. I would like to hear your reasoning and your philosophy, not your anger. Human tissue is a part of a human. Tissue, by design will not naturally form a new human being.

An embryo is the whole human, although just very young. In its natural state, it WILL grow, form a personality and wreck daddy's car in about 17 years.

That help?

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ArcherB]

I'm pretty sure that if an embryo were left to its own devices it would decay rapidly.

So... if you have an embryo in a lab, are you morally bound to implant it into a host? If there are no volunteers are you morally bound to impregnate someone against their will?

It would be an interesting question if there were not people starving to death on our planet. Sticky little ethical paradoxes like that one is why we don't experiment on humans against their will, EVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN!

The very minute you are able to declare who is human and who is not is the minute you give someone with German accent the ability to claim that someone with a star made of triangles patch on their clothes is not human and start shipping them off to labor camps, gas showers and ... wait for it... medical experimentation.

I hate to invoke Godwin, but when I read "Never Again", I take it seriously.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Epistax]

I don't think the parent was suggesting that humans aren't hypocritical dumbasses. That said, I do like my steak medium-rare.

We make the decision every day as to what deserves to live and die in the animal kingdom. Being a part of the animal kingdom means that we are not above that, unless there is really no logic behind it. If the argument is intelligence, I submit that a one-year-old pig is more sentient than a one-year-old baby (humans develop more slowly), and would therefore have a stronger "right" to live. If the argument is potential intelligence, then what of mentally handicapped?

Not making an argument, this is just what goes through my head. Again, I like my steak medium rare.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[fyoder]

The embryo is human, but not an actualized human being in the sense of possessing the qualities we value as significant in human beings (mind, not genetics). It's simpler to say that it's not a person. Personhood is an important legal concept, since it is to persons that rights attach. Cells don't have rights, Homo sapiens or otherwise, which is a good thing, or else it could be argued that we shouldn't try to 'murder' cancer cells.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[EEPROMS]

> Fertilized embryos and zygotes are living homo sapien organisms--not some other species, right? They're becoming something we all recognize as human, or would given food and shelter? Actually no, an embryo is a "potential human" made up of a bunch of cells with just as much relationship to a sentient human as you have to the blood that spills when you cut yourself shaving. You may say "but blood isnt a human", sorry but it is in the right hands. For example thanks to modern technology I can clone another human from your blood, thus the question can be raised are you a murderer when you destroy your own blood if you follow the thought process that an embryo is a human. Then you have other quirky realities to deal with such as 3 in 5 embryos are rejected by the mother before their third trimester is she a murdered ? In fact a sexually active woman will abort hundreds of fertalised embryos in a life time naturally (natures quality control ?). Then you have others saying a human is a sentient self aware organism, but babies become partially self aware between 18-24 months after birth and fully aware usually after 2-3 years. My personal view is the same as the law in that a child that has reached 18 weeks can not be aborted unless it is horribly deformed or puts the womans life in danger (Im so so on the rape excuse).

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Domino2020]

You pretty much got it yourself.

I wouldn't bother questioning that these are "human" although I might argue that they aren't "humans". But I would say that being "human" carries no moral consequence.

Moral consequence derives from, firstly, the ability to suffer. Secondly, from the ability to desire to live, which is necessarily dependent on the ability to perceive of one's own self over time. It's this second ability from which the right to life derives. The right to freedom (along with some others) derives from the first ability.

Neither are present in a cluster of cells, regardless of the species they are associated with.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ceoyoyo]

If you lose your head it's quite possible to keep your body alive, provided you're hooked up to the necessary life support fast enough. So there you are, a headless body. Your body is undoubtedly human, and it is alive by any criteria by which an embryo is alive. So is it unethical to turn off the life support?

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ceoyoyo]

There's a difference between shooting someone up with anesthetic and then killing them, and failing to keep alive either a brain dead patient or an embryo. One requires action (murder) while the other is inaction. In the former case the subject would happily live without your interference. In the other the subject(s) require your continual support to remain alive.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ceoyoyo]

Only if it happens to reside in a uterus, gets all the right chemical signals at all the right times, and even then about 50% of the time it fails to come to term.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[rrohbeck]

"What's the difference between them and cell cultures removed from your body? Especially if we could clone those?", ignoring that fertilized embryos are becoming human and samples are not? We can clone those. Dolly the sheep was cloned from an ordinary (somatic) body cell.

Now, each time you blow your nose or take a dump do you commit mass murder? You're killing millions of viable cells in each case.

This is not a rational argument. It's a theological one.

That embryo is a pile of cells that has the potential to become a human being. More than half of naturally conceived embryos die before a pregnancy is established and nobody cares.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[rrohbeck]

Careful with that argument. A newborn's brain capacity is lower than that of an adult or even juvenile chimpanzee (or other ape.)

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Jurily]

Failing to keep an embryo alive?

Just leave it in its mom ferchrissake.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[rohan972]

How about Humanity being defined as having brain activity that allows them to respond to stimuli in a non-reflexive manner?

The are people who do not believe in free will. This belief, combined with your definition would mean that no-one is human.

As far as I can see, there are basically two ways we could define whether a developing being originating from human sperm and ovum is a human, by developed characteristic or by genetic heritage. I am personally convinced that to define humanity by genetic heritage is the only viable option. That doesn't mean that no fertilised ovum could ever be killed, as we already have circumstances we consider it justifiable to kill an adult human. The risk of an inadequate definition based on developed characteristics removing legal protection from people as a result of them being judged non-human or less human is too great. Check out Peter Singer and you will know what I mean, even if you don't agree with me.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[KDR_11k]

Aware and self-aware are different things. A baby isn't self-aware for a few years IIRC.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[KDR_11k]

What if it doesn't stay there? Or if it was created outside of any mother?

Re:What is "human" to you?

[jotok]

Are there going to be gradations of brain activity, or is it more of an "either-or" decision?
Historically, people with mental handicaps have been treated as if they have fewer rights, and people who possess greater intellects (or at least believe they do) sometimes have justified their domination over simply average people.

If it's just going to be a binary question, then what criteria do we use to say "You need to have all of these features or you're not thinking and therefore you're not human?" I think we really need to tread carefully to avoid question-begging: You have suggested that brain activity is a good metric, but why?

Sorry if I'm getting into the weeds here, interesting topic is all...

Re:What is "human" to you?

[jotok]

That's a genetic definition of "human." I think we're discussing a more philosophical definition of what it means to "be human."

There are other wrinkles. We agree other people are human and we do terrible things to them all the time...so why should a baby or fetus or clump of cells get special treatment?

Interesting that you bring up the free will thing, I have noticed the Lefty blogosphere all abuzz with the idea that free will is a canard ever since the last season finale of BSG.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[jotok]

Quite right, but that difference is not under debate at the moment.
Stick to one issue at a time--the argument "It doesn't feel pain, it's ok to kill it" is under fire here.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Jurily]

If it doesn't stay there, it's basically already dead. If it was created elsewhere, it's nothing more than a lab rat. Kind of how cows bred for food and milk are nothing more than food and/or source of milk.

Human superiority is deeply entrenched in our ethics, we need to decide if we want to keep it that way. If not, we need new religions, and good luck converting >3 billion people.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[English French Man]

AFAIK, no chemical signals are needed from another organism than the embryo himself in the uterus. So yeah, he needs a uterus... for food and shelter. (Note that I could be wrong of course, I am not a specialist)

But, I could argue that I still need food and shelter now that I am an adult, capable of reproduction...

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Kashgarinn]

I think most people don't understand that the line between ethical and unethical is an arbitrary one.

Is it ethical to eat a baby? Well, when you eat veal, that's what you're doing, it's not the same species as you, but you're eating a child of that species, a living, breathing individual with its own characteristics and persona.

Children are being killed, eaten and abused of all types of species, is that ethical? If we take this to the extreme, left: is it ethical to kill any other living thing for your consumption? right: is it ethical to deny your right to kill and eat what you wish?

If you accept that we kill individuals and children from other species for food and we deem that as ethical, why do we deem embryo testing as something unethical?

I'm guessing it's the ignorance of news-media and the people consuming the news that's the problem.

In my opinion the experiments are of legitimate use, it's up to the experts and the companies they work at to make sure that they at least define the line for themselves and the regulations to keep them on the right side of their own definitions.

K.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[rohan972]

That's a genetic definition of "human." I think we're discussing a more philosophical definition of what it means to "be human."

I think the discussion is really about how we are to define "human" legally, in particular how do we decide whether to give legal protection of human rights.

There are other wrinkles. We agree other people are human and we do terrible things to them all the time...so why should a baby or fetus or clump of cells get special treatment?

As I said: "That doesn't mean that no fertilised ovum could ever be killed, as we already have circumstances we consider it justifiable to kill an adult human." Not always is it terrible. While some may differ in opinion, most wouldn't think it terrible to kill for the protection of your family. Many places it can be a legally protected action if done within guidlines.

Interesting that you bring up the free will thing, I have noticed the Lefty ...

Just to clarify, I'm not a lefty and I do believe in free will. I brought it up for an example of how attributing humanity on the basis of other than genetics can easily go awry.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Dekortage]

Children are being killed, eaten and abused of all types of species, is that ethical?

I'll answer you after breakfast -- eggs, scrambled, with a side of sausage.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Dekortage]

My toenail is human tissue, but it is not a human. And what is the distinguishing feature of a human as opposed to human tissue? Sentience, self-awareness. Until a fetus becomes sentient or self-aware, then it is merely human, and not yet a human.

Your toenail is not self-aware, and it never will be. It is not even other-aware or observant in any way. Other than purely biochemical reactions, it does not react to its environment. Hence, not sentient.

Your fetus (as you were once) was not self-aware initially, but seems to be now. It was observant and other-aware at birth, likely having developed this in utero, responding to parent's voices, etc. Hence, it (you) became sentient in the womb, and self-aware afterwards.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Dekortage]

Of course you have to keep it alive. In fact, now that you are brainless and lack sensing ability, you now have a great career ahead of you in government work!

Re:What is "human" to you?

[greyhueofdoubt]

That's a good point; however, I would point out that brainless vegetables will remain brainless vegetables and usually die on their own pretty quick, while human embryos will, given the chance, develop into laughing, running juvenile delinquents.

We have been agonizing over the idea of 'personhood' for our entire existence; it seems self-absorbed to expect the answer to come about to conveniently end a very specific ethical debate.

Personally I don't see why unborn clumps of cells get more respect and care than sentient, breathing, suffering people on our own streets. That is what makes me really sick about the whole thing.

-b

Re:What is "human" to you?

[greyhueofdoubt]

I think that they don't feel pain in the same way that a rock or a puddle doesn't feel pain. It doesn't have the capacity to feel anything. No one is going to argue that breaking rocks starts a slippery slope to gov't sponsored euthanasia. I think you are taking that part of the definition out of context.

There is a world of difference between a normal adult who has been anesthetized and a collection of ~3 grams of undesignated cells supported solely by the host body. And it's foolish to argue that the same set of ethics applies to both cases.

-b

Re:What is "human" to you?

[kalirion]

As far as I'm concerned, if it has any sort of thought process/feeling/etc, it should be protected. If it has ever had those and there's a chance of regaining them, it should be protected. If it has been in a coma for its entire existence it doesn't need any rights even if it's 20 years old.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ceoyoyo]

I doubt these embryos were ever in their mother.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Intron]

Your definition has a big problem. What will an embryo which is part human and part something else be? Will it have 90% rights? One of the things this research will lead to is splicing in DNA from other sources - human or animal - in order to modify the genome.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ceoyoyo]

My reply was a precise rebuttal to the post it replied to. Did you read it? Let me quote, from the grandparent:

"Effectively, by accepting that if they don't feel pain (or anything for that matter) they can be disposed, opens the door to... also it opens the door to murder, just by giving anesthesics to people before they die. But that opens the door to ethnical cleansing."

My reply? No, it does not.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[ceoyoyo]

No. Development in utero is a crazy environment of precisely choreographed bidirectional signals between the embryo and the mother. If it weren't, only crazy hippies would carry children to term. The majority of us would be decanted from glass jugs after nine months.

For example, proper hormonal cues from the mother are required for proper differentiation of an XY embryo into a male. As my physiology professor said, a developing embryo is really much like a tumor. It's very much part of its mother (or host), and voraciously grabs resources. The uterus is designed to deal with it, but if the embryo happens to get out, such as in an untreated ectopic pregnancy, it behaves very much like a tumor, including eventually killing the mother.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[bryce4president]

They pulled the plug on Terry Schaivo because they felt she no longer had the "potential" for awareness and life. An embryo or zygote still has that potential. There is a difference between "brainless" that has a brain that is not functioning and "brainless" that consists of a developing clump of nerves and cells. Both are still human. One has potential, one does not. We let the one without potential die because it was consuming resources without any possibility of showing "signs of life". There was no awareness potential.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[2short]

Well, I'm not saying I think his standard is at all complete, or the end-all-be-all of defining what is valuable life. I'm just saying, if you point out that it says an adult chimpanzee deserves more protection than a single cell that happens to contain human DNA... don't expect me to take your observation as an objection. Obviously the chimp deserves more protection; what sort of monster would say otherwise?

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Spy der Mann]

Undesirable people can be disposed of specially if their mere existence is a disease that needs to be stopped - like... jews, according to Adolf. The point is that once a human being can be declared not worthy of living, making the step is almost trivial.

Of course, given the circumstances of the embryo the article talks about (it was unviable, i.e. couldn't develop to survive due to a genetic malfunction), perhaps the matter won't be so critical. But then again, who can assure us that the embryo in question was actually non-viable and that it wasn't just something the scientist said to save himself from public judgement?

Re:What is "human" to you?

[KDR_11k]

We can either try to get everyone to agree or we could just go ahead and ignore them.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[rohan972]

That's interesting, but I think it is not as big as the problems of development based definitions because:

1. Part human embryos are currently not known to exist.
2. As soon as they are known to exist, various radical religious groups are likely to kill them and their makers.
3. Even if (2) doesn't happen, they are likely to be a very small minority for a long time to come.

I don't think it necessary to take this into account at this stage. I think it is better to give reality as it is far greater weight in our deliberations than something that might possibly be someday.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[Intron]

The point of the article is that a part human embryo was created, although probably not viable. The article discusses this research opening the door to future work, and we can only guess where it will go. As for radical religion, look at the Raëlians. They sponsored cloning research. Religion is a force, but it can be directed toward various ends by the people who control it.

Your definition may be as good as any; but any definition will have ragged edges near birth and death. People are all different and in different circumstances.

Re:What is "human" to you?

[rohan972]

The point of the article is that a part human embryo was created, although probably not viable.

Oops. You caught me out. I posted that the day after I read the summary. Didn't RTFA until now.

... any definition will have ragged edges near birth and death.

A definition based on genetics doesn't, that's my point. You then define the rights or lack thereof rather than the humanity. As we already assign different levels of rights to people in different circumstances (including but not limited to actively killing people), this does not need to be the problem that many seem to think. As an example, we do not define our military adversaries as non-human (sure it is in propaganda, but there has been no legal arguement defining enemies as non-human) and this is not an obstacle to killing them. It is supposed to mean that certain boundaries of behaviour are in place that would not apply to an animal that we wish to kill, for example.

If pets look like their owners...

[peipas]

We could both be fluorescent!

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Ahahahahahaha, oh the flamewars this will cause!

LIES

[unity100]

"They say embryos wouldn't be allowed to develop for more than a few weeks, much less implanted in a woman and brought to term." this is what it would be like if governments said "nuclear energy is going to be used for peaceful purposes only" back in 1930s.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should

[BearRanger]

In the long run the Cornell scientists have probably done a good thing, as I'm sure this will be a milestone in manipulating our genome. A great proof of concept. But you have to wonder if, as a species, we're ready for this.

Few people would object to using genetic manipulation to eliminate diseases or birth defects. What about homosexuality? Or dark skin? Or some other socially marginalized trait that has no bearing on the genetic fitness of the individual? What effect would "enhanced humans" have on a society built by "mundane" humans?

I personally believe we don't yet have the wisdom or foresight necessary to manipulate our genes. Until we can reach some sort of ethical consensus on the how, why and when of human genome manipulation we should collectively say no.

Re:Just because you can doesn't mean you should

[osu-neko]

... But you have to wonder if, as a species, we're ready for this. ... I personally believe we don't yet have the wisdom or foresight necessary to manipulate our genes. Until we can reach some sort of ethical consensus on the how, why and when of human genome manipulation we should collectively say no.

In other words, you believe with should never do it, ever. There's no possible way for us to gain the wisdom and foresight we need if we eschew heading down the path, and it would utterly unprecedented in the history of mankind for us to reach a consensus on any medical issue before it becomes either commonplace and obviously not harmful, or results in significant tragedy. We must proceed if we are ever to gain that consensus. Making reaching a consensus a prerequisite it just a stealth way of saying, "No, not now, not ever."

Re:Just because you can doesn't mean you should

[BlueHands]

This is just another stage of the evolution we have been doing for billions of years. If we select out some trait that we need, evolution will let us know by the only way it knows: death.

Or turn it around:

We will never know if we are wise enough for something until we try. We have no outside source to consult, no oracle to give guidance, no teacher to give us passing marks. Internally there will always be those who are not ready, who will not want it.

In fact, I will disagree with myself slightly and say we will never be ready, never be wise enough until we enter this new world. We have no clue about where this will take us and we never will until we do it. We didn't have any clue what computers would become, changing the very nature of ourselves will be even more mysterious.

Re:Just because you can doesn't mean you should

[BearRanger]

Not at all. If I truly believed "not now, not ever" I wouldn't have said this was a good thing or a milestone.

I think we can reach a consensus on ethical issues. After all, we've done it before. How many cultures used to sanction slavery as part of a viable economic model? I think we've pretty much rejected that today. In the same way I think we can reach a consensus on specific ways to use genetic engineering in humans. It won't be easy. Nor should it be. Consensus doesn't mean everyone agrees. But the dissenters should have their say and they should be listened to and their concerns should be addressed before we blindly press ahead.

As I said, I doubt if anyone would object to using genetic manipulation to cure diseases, and I'm sure we could reach a consensus quickly on some of the more horrible ones. But like all powerful scientific tools the potential for abuse and misuse is pretty great, and the only way to prevent that from happening is to tread carefully during the early stages of the tools' development.

Another poster said that this is just another stage of our evolution, and perhaps that's so. But unlike natural selection we're consciously choosing to manipulate our DNA without regard to external factors or competition. At this stage we don't *need* to do this to survive. What's wrong with taking our time to consider the ramifications?

Re:Just because you can doesn't mean you should

[JesseMcDonald]

How many cultures used to sanction slavery as part of a viable economic model? I think we've pretty much rejected that today.

That's mainly the result of economic development, not any conscious consensus. Widespread slave labor simply isn't practical in a specialized, high-technology society. A show of force can motivate someone to perform menial tasks, but will not significantly encourage the development of complex skills, or the trust relationships essential to meaningful participating in any team effort.

Re:Just because you can doesn't mean you should

[Thing 1]

What's wrong with taking our time to consider the ramifications?

Bluntly: people will be dying while you're dragging the discussion on.

I, for one, welcome our glow-in-the-dark overlords

[Ungrounded Lightning]

(It makes them much better targets.)

I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[jdb2]

First, I haven't RTFA due to the /. effect but I can tell you that the "thorny moral questions" being raised are caused by the media's incorrect use of the word "embryo" -- either to cater to a dumbed down audience or to be "politically (in)correct" such as to not anger the fundies too much.

There are *2* stages of development before the blob of a few hundred cells is considered an "embryo". First, there's the formation of the zygote after fertilization, and then there's the formation of the blastocyst. The blastocyst is basically a hollow fluid filled sphere consisting of an outer layer of trophoblast cells which eventually become the placenta and an inner blob of cells called the embryoblast which eventually forms the embryo after the blastocyst phase.

When talking of "embryos", scientists are usually talking about the extracted embryoblast cells which are pluripotent stem cells. These cells are *NOT* viable and are just that : cells -- they're not going to grow into a baby, or an "embryo" for that matter. Even I would be upset if it were found out that the real embryo, after the start of cell differentiation, had been tampered with.

To conclude, stem cells are not embryos -- they're just a multiplying blob of undifferentiated pluripotent Human cells and as such, they should be put in the same class as pond scum, although pond scum is actually far more highly developed -- the aforementioned stem cells cannot survive outside of a Petri dish (unless they're implanted into another nutrient source, such as the Human body for purposes of healing)

jdb2

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[NonSequor]

I figured that they were probably talking about a mass of undifferentiated cells, but I don't think that dismisses all questions here.

I have no problem with stem-cells being collected from an embryoblast to create a culture. However, if the cells of a zygote or embryoblast are genetically modified in place without disrupting its structure so that it would develop into an embryo if allowed to proceed along its current course then it falls into a gray area. The article doesn't make it clear exactly what was done.

Exactly how long should something that could conceivably be brought to term, but which we would not want to see brought to term be kept around?

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[Crazy Taco]

Many would accuse you of dodging the issue with that definition. The problem is that to get those stem cells, a fertilized human egg is, at some point, stopped from developing farther. If life begins at conception, trying to tell people you only killed a blastocyst, not an embryo, isn't going to do much for you.

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[Toonol]

And the ethics of a particular matter can sometimes really hinge on nitty-gritty specific details. Thanks for your post.

I would be against genetically modifying a viable human fetus, or even something that would normally develop into one. However, I wouldn't be against culturing human cells, and would love to hear that they're growing kidneys in a lab someday.

But when you're doing experiments on individual stem cells, it becomes hard to tell those two situations apart, and our common-sense notions of morality get befuddled. It's like an ethical version of quantum mechanics.

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[jdb2]

if the cells of a zygote or embryoblast are genetically modified in place without disrupting its structure so that it would develop into an embryo if allowed to proceed along its current course then it falls into a gray area.

Exactly. :) In my opinion, this is the "start" of a Human life, since the cell mass' structure hasn't been destroyed, and if allowed to continue development would form a viable Human being.

jdb2

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[rrohbeck]

Many would accuse you of dodging the issue with that definition. The problem is that to get those stem cells, a fertilized human egg is, at some point, stopped from developing farther. If life begins at conception, trying to tell people you only killed a blastocyst, not an embryo, isn't going to do much for you.

Yes life begins at conception. That doesn't mean we can't kill it. There's always a trade off. When does the potential of that life to become a human being (it's not yet) outweigh the burden on the mother, the family and society? You flush lots of human life down the toilet or throw it in the trash every day. There's nothing magic about it.
There's no doubt that a viable fetus is worth preserving and bringing to term, but before that the door is open for discussion.

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[rrohbeck]

I would be against genetically modifying a viable human fetus, or even something that would normally develop into one. Even if we had a safe way to fix a genetic defect? Say both parents have a known genetic condition and selecting embryos for the presence of that defect wouldn't work.

Obviously a slippery slope. "Less than 140 IQ" is a known genetic defect too...

Re:I am sick and tired of the word "embryo"

[justinlee37]

There's no doubt that a viable fetus is worth preserving and bringing to term

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement would disagree with you there, and I think they might be on to something too. Food prices are already too high!

Right and wrong are not cultural

[Nerdposeur]

Great question, but aren't "right and wrong" culturally defined?

If right and wrong are culturally defined (not just specific application, but the general principles), I would argue that they don't exist. There is a big difference between "I/we prefer you don't do X" and "X is wrong."

Imagine that you're walking down the street and trip on someone's foot. You're annoyed, right? Now imagine that you realize the person tripped you on purpose, and is laughing. Now you're indigent. Tripping people is wrong!

Clearly your anger has less to do with the pain of falling than with your deep-seated feeling that "it's wrong to harm others." You would not describe this as a preference.

Whatever we say about the source of morality, I think everyone feels that certain things are simply wrong. To deny this removes an important aspect of what it means to be human.

I know that someone will say that different cultures have different concepts of morality, but I don't buy it. There are different applications, yes; but no culture values cowardice and treason and murder. Some cultures defend their genocide and slavery by arguing that the victims aren't human, for example, but they do this because they must justify their actions against the standard that genocide and slavery are wrong. Our instinct to make excuses shows that we agree with the standard.

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[maxume]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[FatMacDaddy]

"If right and wrong are culturally defined (not just specific application, but the general principles), I would argue that they don't exist." - Nerdposeur

"There is nothing good or bad but that thinking makes it so." - Hamlet (well, Shakespeare but you know what I mean.)

I would argue that most things we regard as morals are entirely culturally based. We are just so thoroughly steeped in our Judeo-Christian roots that we don't see that any more. For example, homosexuality was accepted as natural in ancient Greece but is a moral and legal crime in the US until recently and still is in many places. I would also say that almost all cultures accept and glorify murder as long as it's done for that society's benefit, even if that is just entertainment. (Gladitorial Rome, for example.)As another example, we are horrified by a young woman being beaten to death by a crowd for being caught in a car with a man who is not her husband. But to the family members and villagers who killed her, this was an act of moral obligation. Personally, I find it sickening while they find it honorable.

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[scrum_hp]

We are a product of our time. Were this even two hundred years ago you very likely wouldn't object to slavery. A hundred years hence and your progeny will probably think you were barbaric for your beliefs. And the products you purchased at such low prices.

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[ceoyoyo]

You've successfully argued that some parts of morality probably have a biological basis. That doesn't mean the universe gives a fig.

Even then it's a little fuzzy. There are lots of human cultures that practiced human sacrifice. In some cases you'd sacrifice an enemy you deemed less than human, but in many you'd sacrifice a valuable member of your own community (thus a sacrifice). The person who did the deed was usually someone with VERY high standing in the community.

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[pleappleappleap]

Now you're indigent. Why would you be homeless if someone tripped you? Indigent != indignant.

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[greyhueofdoubt]

Another interesting experiment would be 'unjustly' treating subjects, especially wrt punishment. Any conscious, normal human will be outraged if they are punished for something that another person did, or that no one did.

I think it would good for the scientific community to come up with a set of these immutable ethical absolutes to use as a standard when solving ethical dilemmas. I imagine it would be less than ten simple, universal rules of human behavior.

Such as:
-My example, people abhor injustice (with a special, specific definition of injustice wrt the individual)
-Your example, something along the lines of the golden rule
-etc.

It's too early in the morning for me to come up with more. But I still think it's neat.

-b

Re:Right and wrong are not cultural

[Nerdposeur]

Sorry, I forgot to clarify that they tripped you, making you late to pay your rent, which got you evicted, and without a place to take a shower, you lost your job, so you're poor.

So you're pretty mad. ;)

Axolotl Tanks

[flyingfsck]

Frank Herbert's Dune: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axlotl_tank

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[clem]

You think it's easy being green?

Potential for life? What is life, then?

[Animaether]

Even if an egg is fertilized by a sperm, there are a thousands of things that can go wrong that would cause it to just never divide, divide wrongly and get auto-aborted, not settle to the lining in the womb and get auto-aborted, nevermind complications further down the road that could cause a late auto-abortion or a stillborn delivery. At which point are any of the above examples ever a life?

Without defining 'life' we can't really define whether something had a potential for life in the first place... if you define 'a fertilized egg' as being 'life', then you -must- also say that every egg has a potential for life as long as it gets fertilized. We're not fertilizing every egg (thank goodness), so are we in effect denying millions of potential lives every day simply by a woman having her period instead of sitting around pregnant? ( Can't really fault the men for not using every single sperm on an egg, the ratio of eggs to sperm is just entirely too low to justify that. ) The GP was being funny more than serious, but when it comes down to it - you have to accept that there's a core truth to the funniness.

Then again, you asked in another comment how somebody would feel being the result of a science experiment and I really do hope that the child commenter pointing out in-vitro fertilization has been modded +5 Insightful by the time I press Submit on this comment.

I'd feel great.

[Tavor]

Honestly, I'm really pissed they didn't have this 20 years ago. Cause I'd be all for having several genetic mods in my body. (And if you don't like me having them, too bad. MY body, not yours.)

'Ethical Issues'

[SyntaxFeline]

Does anyone here actually remember being an embryo? Does an embryo feel pain? If it cannot remember when developed, nor express that pain before it has, how is this in any way, shape, or form, an ethical issue? We have laboratories and science to expand our knowledge. We can create life in a lab, and use it to expand knowledge. How does this become ethically problematic? If it is not viable to sustain life on its own, without the aid of technology, I fail to see how there are any ethical issues with using an 'embryo' for research purposes. Seriously. I point my finger squarely at the religious types who claim that this is somehow a sin unto god, wherein these same people, while championing the birth of babies, look the other way while this baby starves in some cesspool.

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[I don't want to spen]

Ethics is not just about the subject of the experiment, but also about the experimenter.

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[cdrguru]

I don't believe there is necessarily a religious connection to saying "this is wrong." Why is it wrong? For starters, do you actually believe no such creations will be allowed to come to term? If you were offered, secretly, to have a "superior, genetically enhanced" child would you not take the offer? Don't you want your offspring to be the very best they could possibly be?

Genetic modification holds the promise and the threat of changing the face of humanity. Literally in some ways. But the real problem isn't just making green people but people that are not human and do not share humanity with the rest of the people on the planet. This is a fundamental point; we can have a society because of a shared heritage. Messing around with things that at this point we have little knowledge of is an open invitation to creating a branch of the human species which shares no common heritage.

What would we, meaning the current humans on the planet, do with someone that was both human and not human? Not human because they, for example, believed and acted like they were a superior form of life and that all others were placed within their view for their own amusement? OK, one such being would be a curiosity. 100 would be a threat and 1000 would be a war. What part of the Star Trek episode "Botany Bay" did you not understand?

I'm not sure I would say this is an "ethical" problem, but it certainly is a problem that we do not have to address. We can choose not to go down this road. We, as the humans on the planet, must not go down this road as it stands a really good chance of leading to disaster, potentially on a global scale.

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[jvkjvk]

I don't believe there is necessarily a religious connection to saying "this is wrong." Why is it wrong? For starters, do you actually believe no such creations will be allowed to come to term? If you were offered, secretly, to have a "superior, genetically enhanced" child would you not take the offer? Don't you want your offspring to be the very best they could possibly be?

But, tell me how this is wrong? I would think that it's just the opposite - if we can spare someone from having a miserable existence due to a debilitating disease shouldn't we? Or should we just say "them's the breaks". I think you are trying to use our current medical moral landscape to bolster you point where it is in itself incorrect. Western medicine is fixated on the "rightness" of correcting dis-ease and generally at the best ambivalent about actually improving people through science. They like to make sick people healthy, not healthy people whole or whole people better. So I believe your first point is playing off of that. If most everyone wants their children to be more intelligent, stronger, whatever, how is it wrong if we are able to do just that?

Genetic modification holds the promise and the threat of changing the face of humanity. Literally in some ways. But the real problem isn't just making green people but people that are not human and do not share humanity with the rest of the people on the planet. This is a fundamental point; we can have a society because of a shared heritage. Messing around with things that at this point we have little knowledge of is an open invitation to creating a branch of the human species which shares no common heritage.

How much common heritage do you really share with a native from the Amazon Basin? Do you think that you would share more or less "heritage" with someone like that or a genetically modified person who went to your Secondary School? Are you basing this division strictly on "genetic heritage"? Are you saying that a genetically modified human would no longer feel "humanity"?

Given people like you, who say things like genetically modified people "are not human and do not share humanity with the rest of people on the planet" I can see the type of bias such humans are likely to face. It will probably be a stigma for quite some time. It seems to me that you are the one who is not sharing humanity...

What would we, meaning the current humans on the planet, do with someone that was both human and not human? Not human because they, for example, believed and acted like they were a superior form of life and that all others were placed within their view for their own amusement? OK, one such being would be a curiosity. 100 would be a threat and 1000 would be a war. What part of the Star Trek episode "Botany Bay" did you not understand?

Well, I'm pretty sure I understood the part about it being a TV show. I could also swear that I've already met humans that "believed and acted like they were a superior form of life and that all others were placed within their view for their own amusement" - have you been around Slashdot long? Such an attitude seems like it would be incredibly human, the first half for sure, the second appears to be a defect (although also seen in the general population, called sociopaths).

I'm not sure I would say this is an "ethical" problem, but it certainly is a problem that we do not have to address. We can choose not to go down this road. We, as the humans on the planet, must not go down this road as it stands a really good chance of leading to disaster, potentially on a global scale.

No, we can't. I do not believe teh human race is capable of refraining from poking a stick at things that look interesting (the stick in this case being science). We search down through all avenues of knowledge and try stuff out. We will not leave anything alone unless we are certain there's nothing there for us. It's just wh

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[Deanalator]

We can choose not to go down this road. First of all, I don't think we can choose that. The US is not the only nation in the world. I doubt genetic research will go the way of nuclear weapons, and even if it does, there will always be rogue nations working on it.

We as a race have too much to gain from genetic research to just ignore it. Why should we choose this arbitrary point to stop advancing science?

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[rrohbeck]

Ain't gonna work. Not everybody has those same convictions and parents will want the best for their children that they can afford. And not every country in the world will have the same restrictions on germ cell modifications as most of the developed nations today.

It'll start with fixing known genetic defects. As the combined effects of groups of genes are better understood, basic functions can be improved. Better overall health or longevity doesn't sound too bad to me. How about improved resistance against cardiovascular disease (there's clearly a genetic component that can be considered a defect) or Alzheimer's? AIDS resistance? Malaria resistance without sickle cell disease?

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[EvilAlphonso]

This is a fundamental point; we can have a society because of a shared heritage. Messing around with things that at this point we have little knowledge of is an open invitation to creating a branch of the human species which shares no common heritage.

A bit like kids of interracial marriage 60 years ago, right?

I'm european (non-militant atheist), my wife is Japanese (nichiren buddhist) and we live in a country (mainly protestant) foreign to both of us. If we ever get around to having kids, they would share close to no common heritage whatsoever with us. They would be different from either of us, they would share minimal cultural heritage with either of us or with the other kids as school... does that make them non-human in your book?

Additionally, if we could make sure somehow that our kids don't get the juvenile lung problems that run on my side of the tree or the skin issues that run on my wife's side of the tree... that would be swell. Nothing major, just to be sure they can enjoy a normal childhood and don't need to wait until they hit puberty before being able to play sports. Does wishing our kids to be better off than we are make us monsters?

I'm not sure I would say this is an "ethical" problem, but it certainly is a problem that we do not have to address. We can choose not to go down this road. We, as the humans on the planet, must not go down this road as it stands a really good chance of leading to disaster, potentially on a global scale.

Absolutely everything we have done ever since we climbed down the tree to walk in the savannah has "stood a really good chance of leading to disaster, potentially on a global scale"...

Just look at the 20th century:

• splitting the atom
• women's suffrage
• placing stuff in orbit
• the end of Jim Crow
• the proxy wars
• sending man in orbit
• the cold war and MAD
• the reunification of Germany
• the 2 world wars
• Trinity
• the fall of the colonial empires

Every single one of them has been argued either as "standing a chance of leading to a global disaster" or as "slippery slope to the end of the world as we know it" by some people. We're here having that discussion, so I guess they were wrong. Even if it were true this time, not going down that path isn't a solution... it would just take one rogue nation doing it to lead to that disaster if your fears a correct.

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>If it cannot remember when developed, nor express that pain before it has, how is this in any way, shape, or form, an ethical issue?

The people who think that it is wrong think it is wrong for the same reason they think it would be wrong to rape someone in their sleep even if they would never know it happened, or look through people's bedroom windows even if they never knew you were doing it.

I think that, for these people, it boils down to a Kantian kind of principle- Your actions are ethical if you would be ok with everyone else doing the same thing. Or two change it up a little, an action on a person is ethical if you would be ok with it being done on you in the same circumstances. This is why I don't believe in torture or prison sentences for simple drug possession. People with this viewpoint would consider it wrong to experiment on embryos or fetuses because they would not have wanted it to happen to them.

I am perfectly OK with this research because these aren't embryos that are being experimented on. They are I believe blastocysts or basically tiny blobs of undifferentiated cells. You could say that I am skirting the real issue, which is that life is still being prevented since the blastocyst requires an egg and a sperm, but I'd respond that life doesn't begin at conception, not in any substantial sense. I might go so far as to say that life doesn't begin until the fetus could reasonably be expected to stay alive if born, and that would be sometime in the third trimester.

Or you could say that they aren't sentient until they understand algebra, which is OK by me.

-b

Re:'Ethical Issues'

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>Don't you want your offspring to be the very best they could possibly be?

Oh good heavens, no. My offspring will grow up and learn to accept living in their father's long, dark shadow. If there is anything that history has taught me, it is that you must always be aware of your children's dark plots to kill you and steal your honorable name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricide

-b

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[somersault]

"Why are those rhythmically pulsating bushes glowing?"

i think you have to get baptized

[Yaur]

to get into heaven and since unborn children haven't been they aren't allowed in and go to purgatory instead. But I'm not religious so what do I know...

Re:i think you have to get baptized

[Borathian]

Purgatory is specifically Catholic. the Bible says God is compassionate and thus non baptised children/babies go to heaven.

Tripping the Homeless

[flaming error]

There is a big difference between "I/we prefer you don't do X" and "X is wrong." What is that big difference? That we shouldn't hurt others?

You argue that it's wrong to trip me. Is it okay to trip a puppy and laugh at it? Flip a bug on its back? Put a nail in a tree? Uproot and eat a carrot? Exterminate a nuisance rat? Jail a troubled youth? Execute a murderer? Wage war?

Do you really think there is anything all humans agree on?

everyone feels that certain things are simply wrong... no culture values cowardice and treason and murder The culture I was born into values these things:

cowardice:

"discretion is the better part of valor" treason:

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another... murder: Holy Bible, KJV, Deuternonomy 20, God allows/commands Israelite army to kill every man in a city:

When you march up to attack a city, first offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor. But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you battle, lay siege to it, and when the LORD, your God, delivers it into your hand, put every male in it to the sword; but the women and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth plundering you may take as your booty, and you may use this plunder of your enemies which the LORD, your God, has given you. If you have a timeless, acultural, objective test to distinguish right from wrong, I'd sure like to hear it.

Re:Tripping the Homeless

[Fatalis]

thing is, you can't argue universal ethical relativism. you aren't sophisticated if you try to, you just lack imagination. want an example of a moral truth that holds across all cultures? find me one that thinks killing children for sport is ethical, please.

Re:Wrong questioning.

[jeiler]

....you're assuming that there is some global (meaning absolute) definition of right and wrong.

Not "assuming"--I'm taking the position that the existence or non-existence of objective right and wrong is not proven.

Re:A sad time for humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll stop eating delicious sugar, fats and salt as soon as I'm genetically engineered to get the same great taste and satisfaction from eating celery and carrots.

Make all ingle gene knockouts

[cpricejones]

I think that if the moral problems are resolved, it would be very beneficial to go ahead with obtaining knockout embryos. This has been accomplished for yeast and is underway for other higher eukaryotes. Having knockout embryos/fetuses/cells for all human genes could have great potential in curing any number of diseases. It would also facilitate a much deeper understanding of the human body in the sense that the effect of knocking out genes on early development would be better understood.

Of course, the moral problems are incredibly difficult, and that aside, the knockouts would take a long, long time to procure. But in my opinion, this proof of principle is a step in the right direction.

You're a couple thousand years too late

[ScentCone]

I personally believe we don't yet have the wisdom or foresight necessary to manipulate our genes

Nonsense. What do you think the thousands-of-years-old practice of arrangement marriages was all about? Not strictly village economics. Parents also sized up prospective mates for their kids based on the health, history, and talents of thei prospective mate and his/her family. Yeah, yeah, eugenics. Except, that's exactly what it is, and was for a long time.

We can (the old fasioned way) make new specialized breeds of livestock, dogs, and chickens with only a few decades of paying attention to cause and effect. Cultures do the same thing - it just takes longer. And that's why - whether anyone wants to admit it or not - you can spot, in a given geographic region - people that have a "peasant" look/build and other people that have an "aristrocratic" look/build. Genetic manipulation.

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[bogjobber]

And that's why - whether anyone wants to admit it or not - you can spot, in a given geographic region - people that have a "peasant" look/build and other people that have an "aristrocratic" look/build. Genetic manipulation.

They said the same thing about Europe and Mesoamerica hundreds of years ago, but it turns out it was a difference in diet and nutrition problem, not genetics. Would you have any scientific evidence on these? Specifically which geographic regions you're talking about, and genetic testing to show the peasant/aristocratic difference?

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[ScentCone]

it turns out it was a difference in diet and nutrition

The steady flow of which, in a particular vein, causes different populations to adapted over time. There's a reason that Inuits look the way they do. I guarantee that if you take someone with a sub-Saharan diet and available nutrition, but raise them in Norway eating herring cold weather root vegetables, they will not become pasty pale, and grow blond hair. Neither will the Norwegian, transplanted to Papua, take on the local look - no matter what she eats.

Very well fed and nutritionally well-taken-care-of Vietnamese folks aren't going to have the same body type as a large-boned Teutonic alp-dweller, complete with turbo-powered fat cells designed for packing on the pounds before the cold whether sets in. It's breeding... adaptation.

And now that we're all past the geographic re-inforcing of these traits by virtue of a more globe-wandering population, you're forced to look at what people actually DO. You can't have made it past high school without recognizing the trend (with exceptions, of course) for lanky, attractive people to tend to wind up with each other, and with similar children. Likewise with the more trollish body types. This is slashdot, you know what I mean.

Would you have any scientific evidence on these?

No need, really. Just use your eyes. For purposes of this discussion, you know exactly what I mean. If you travel, you can spot it instantly. In a given area, economic classes can show a visible differences that are not strictly quality-of-dinner related. I have no axe to grind here - just calling like I've actually seen it. In Pennsylvania, in Verona, in Athens, in Denver, in Mexico City.

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[joocemann]

No way. The vast population of the world is way to uneducated to understand genetics. And since our 'majority' usually makes decisions, they will make ignorant decisions. Example? 90% of people polled in the US are against eating meat from a cloned cow. This is ignorant, as they do not even realize that most the fruit they are eating is cloned fruit. They also fail to realize that aside from the first moments of producing the clone, the life-form is as equally viable as its parent. I'm starting to notice that education for the majority is failing to keep up with the minority of people actually doing progressive research. This is a problem, as our populous will not make educated decisions and will react wrongly simply due to not knowing what is actually going on. Hell, most people in modern nations are not even aware of the physics that are applied to producing all their cool techno-goodies. Time to start investing in schools or coming up with corrals for the sheeple, while the masters make progress.

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[greyhueofdoubt]

You took the words out of my mouth. One thing I'd add is that we as parents already choose almost everything for our children- arguments about free will and nature vs nurture aside, you have to admit there is a striking correlation between parents and children in terms of: religion, socioeconomic status, language, personality, etc.

When two short-sighted people have a child, they must be aware on some level that the child they produce will most likely also be shortsighted, but they do it anyways. If we are OK with casually causing genetic harm to our children, why do we have a problem causing good genetic changes?

It gets pretty darned frustrating to be around parents- parents aren't like me anymore. They seem human, but their mind has been taken over by their children. Subjects that wouldn't have piqued their interest before they were parents are now cause for federal hearings. I guess what I'm saying is that parents annoy me by reminding me that we are, as a species, still very much animals- I hate thinking that I am under the control of ancient instincts and chemical processes. I hate thinking that most of my emotionally-based decisions were decided on the whims of whatever hormone was dominant in my brain at the time, or that there are a huge number of decisions that I could have made rationally had I simply not been so emotional at the time without even realizing it.

Maybe one of their experiments could be removing that emotional hardwiring and seeing what happens.

-b

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[Descalzo]

I'm thinking of the huge increases in average height in Japan following WWII.

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[Descalzo]

For all of our history parents have taken the position of adult birds teaching young birds how to fly. Are you suggesting we now have the State, or scientists, or whatever, start taking the position of chicken farmers? That is, the position of enlightened men, assuming this position for their own reasons, raising young birds for other purposes of which the young birds know nothing.

One of the problems with causing genetic good to our children is that the people proposing such good to children is that they are very seldom proposing genetic changes to their own children. Who shall decide? And why?

I can understand your frustration with being around parents. As a friend and I said once to each other, "Growing up is for the birds." It's hard. Life does come at you fast. Once people have a stake in society, once society is going to have an effect on what matters to them most, their perspective is going to change quite drastically. For a parent to want to protect his offspring can hardly be irrational.

Maybe one of their experiments could be removing that emotional hardwiring and seeing what happens. That would be very interesting. I doubt a person with no emotional hardwiring would do much of anything at all.

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[bogjobber]

I was trying to be polite in my first post, but I'll just come out and say it. You're an idiot. Please read up on actual genetics and the scientific theory, and why simply using "your eyes" is not an appropriate way to prove a theory. Seriously, return your mind to the modern world, where we have disproved these silly theories many decades ago.

Re:You're a couple thousand years too late

[BearRanger]

You're right, but there's a huge difference between selective breeding--which allows for a certain amount of randomization--and genetic engineering, which is highly specific. One big difference, as you say, is the timeframe in which the genome changes occur. A few decades of hit and miss breeding can allow plenty of time for social systems to adapt. And there are no guarantees that the traits you're selecting will breed true. There's much less uncertainty with genetic engineering. You could choose a specific trait without regard to its genetic fitness and select for or against it, specifically, in a single generation. That conscious, specific targeting is what I don't think we're ready for just now.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to beat a dead horse. But I did want to acknowledge your point because you're right, manipulating our genes isn't something new. It's just that the scope is now different.

This is immoral

[dtjohnson]

There are no "thorny ethical issues." It is immoral to sacrifice one life to benefit another and it is immoral to experiment with human embryos. It is also immoral to experiment with racially unpopular groups, mentally retarded people, impoverished people, uneducated/unaware people, or undeveloped people, be they 'embryos', babies, or children. We are called upon by God to respect life and this fails to do that. Sorry...

Re:This is immoral

[Wardish]

If your statements are correct, then why did god make so many fertilized eggs not implant and get washed out with the next menstrual period? Not to mention all the other lack of respect for human life that is documented in the bible.

I believe that any embryo that is going to be tossed out in the trash, weather by nature/god or by the rules of the lab for excess embryo's should be just as useful as a body that is donated to science. In either case you have authority from the next of kin for a tissue sample that won't survive.

Re:This is immoral

[W1sdOm_tOOth]

Simply put⦠Think about a true definition for this word - âoeLIFEâ Unfortunately, Bible failed to present a clear definition for this phenomenon⦠According to my conclusions, after reading books like Bible, New Testament and so on, the closest definition for âoeLIFEâ is something that has SINNED and needs to be redeemed. Unfortunately thatâ(TM)s it! Forget about âoesinâ definition⦠and what ever we have been called by Godâ¦

Re:This is immoral

[pandrijeczko]

Okay, I'll bite...

Let's assume for one minute that this God entity exists. Then it's his "divine influence" that gave us the free will to decide for ourselves what we consider moral or ethical. So why give us free will in the first place if all it creates is an ability to decide that we reject the existence of God anyway?

It is immoral to sacrifice one life to benefit another

Ooh, let me think about that one for the moment. What about if you had the chance to kill Adolf Hitler in the womb? Would it be immoral to sacrifice him in favour of those that died in battle or in concentration camps?

Re:This is immoral

[Doctor Faustus]

There are no "thorny ethical issues." It is immoral to sacrifice one life to benefit another
Are you a vegetarian?

There is a non-arbitrary point

[celtic_hackr]

THere is a point beyond which it cannot be argued that it is a human. That point is the point at which the fetus can survive without the mother and without artificial means. That point is generally about 7 months, although modern science has pushed that arguably back further, but most normal fetus can survive and continue to develop normally at a bout 7 months gestation.

So, it is indisputalbe that a normal fetus at 7 months is a living human, and should be afforded all the protections of such. Except in certain cases, such as the health and life of mother. At this point you sometimes need to choose between which life to save.

Any embryo, under a week old really shouldn't qualify, as ther eis currntly no way to grow and embryo to full term without implanting into a living host. So anything under 4 months really shouldn't qualify as human life since the only way to get an embryo that young to develop require a living being with a womb. No human embryo has ever been able to be sustained beyond 3 months in a laboratory.

Unethical Question to the Mind of the Religious

[9InchRails]

The so-called "fundies" have one undeniable fact in their favor: the cells in that petri dish have DNA distinct from the donor mother and father. We can choose to ignore this if we like, but that won't make the reality any different. Those cell have a distinct DNA from the theorethical moment of conception, and that is precisely why people far out on the right believe a collection of cells is a person. We can try to impose artificial constraints on what makes people people - like viability, ability to feel pain, self conciousness - but we still don't have legitimate arguments. Take viability - who among us would be viable long in a jungle or desert? Self conciousness is another no brainer; the Nazis absolutely believed "vegatables" should be exterminated - do we really want to uphold that? We're wandering into really dangerous territory when we don't have resolution on this issues, and the experiments continue anyway. The term "hubris" comes to mind.

Re:Would you EAT a human embryo?

[Bragador]

I'll answer just for fun. No it doesn't disgust me though I am trying to cut back on meat, especially red meat. Anyway, all the meat you eat is coming from cadavers and I bet you don't care. :)

More seriously, not liking to eat meat has no link with giving the right to live to a creature that is not sentient. You could decide to not eat meat for medical reasons for example. Your argument is flawed.

You can see the head

[lawn.ninja]

If you look at the bottom of the image, in the article, you can see its already developing alien head! It looks like an alien aligator ready to eat human brains. Good job science! I would elaborate further, but as an American and I can barely spell the word science.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[gujo-odori]

Thank you. I was just about to comment that people were hanged for things less heinous than this following the war crimes trials at the end of WW II. If Mengele were alive and practicing today, there are many who would not bat an eye at his experiments, so long as he avoided selecting his experimental subjects on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.

If we want to remove the Mengele reference (because some will falsely accuse us of playing the Nazi card, even though Mengele's being a Nazi isn't the point; atrocities then and atrocities now are the point), read Frankenstein. The Dr. Frankenstein of the novel is not really any different than the ones doing monstrous experiments like the one described in TFA: he has what he considers to be good motivations, but the bottom line is that he's doing a monstrous thing because he can, and that's all the justification he needs. And of course, "For the greater good" has always been used to justify all manner of atrocities.

Sadly, bioethics seems to have joined business ethics on the scrap heap of oxymorons.

Implant in a cow...

[master5o1]

If you can't implant it in a human, implant it in something non-human: Cows, gorillas, horses, politicians....the list is endless.

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[gusilu]

Isn't that what Purgatory is for?

No Problem

[PPH]

...embryos wouldn't be allowed to develop for more than a few weeks, much less implanted in a woman and brought to term. My army of superhuman clones will see to that.

Toying with it

[choke]

How long before someone implants one of these embryos into a viable animal that can host a fetus? I need a citation, but I understand that pigs are considered very 'close' to us in terms of metabolism.

If you grafted a gene that would theoretically improve viability, wouldn't you be excited to see if it would develop?

Human nature being what it is, I have a hard time believing that they really destroyed these embryos as quickly as they are claiming.

Re:Not to flame

[Attila Dimedici]

Religion is responsible for more genocide than anything else. Today's rallying cry of "Save the babies!" is typically political babble to earn votes. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Darwinists all. So what persons of religion come anywhere close to their murder totals?

Indigent?

[GoddessOfDeath]

Imagine that you're walking down the street and trip on someone's foot. You're annoyed, right? Now imagine that you realize the person tripped you on purpose, and is laughing. Now you're indigent. Tripping people is wrong! If only tripping people on purpose made them homeless - I can think of a few people I would want to try that on...

you think so? you poor, innocent child.....

[Steve Hamlin]

>>Wouldn't that mean they were murdered? That is if you accept the religious side of the house...

>I think not. Most people can differentiate between the potential for life (semen and eggs) and actual life itself (autonomous life including self-replicating cells that may or may not have certain dependencies for life; don't we all?).

You really think so?! In the Unites States (if you're here)?!?!

Anyway, this isn't that. The embryo being destroyed in the article already IS your second type - that's EXACTLY what some people are upset about.

(note: rest of post intended to be NPOV)

The article is talking about a genetically-modified human embryo being destroyed - a fertilized human egg, your "self replicating cells". Not gametes, or reproductive cells. A complete, viable set of DNA with 23 pairs of chromosomes, generated from 2 people - tend to it a bit and you've almost got a baby :)

The strict pro-life position, and that of the Catholic Church, is that life beings at conception, at fertilization - not at implantation, spinal fusion, viability, or live birth. The destruction of any embryo (egg fertilized by sperm) in order to get embryonic stem cells is viewed by a non-insignificant (potentially even majority) portion of the U.S. population as the destruction of a potential human life, a human life, a human being, or even murder.

Destruction of frozen embryos with 50 cells, produced in the course of petri-dish fertilization and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen, is viewed by some as destruction of human life. Legal custody battles have been fought over such embryos.

Opponents of the emergency contraceptive Plan B (Levonelle, NorLevo) which is taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, even argue that because the drug, which prevents implantation, may instead cause a newly-implanted embryo to be immediately shed, it is an abortifacient, rather than birth control. Destruction of life, rather than prevention of it.

-

This announcement seems a bit underwhelming, given it's significance. Granted, it's easy to lose sight in the face of weekly news articles about advances in cloning, DNA research, stem cells, genetic modification, etc. But HOLY SHIT - they've MADE A GENETICALLY MODIFIED HUMAN EMBRYO. We went from animal GM embryos to live GM births to cloned embryos to cloned GM animals in a decade or two. We could probably do significant GM changes resulting in live human births in 5 years, and this is a major first step. Wow. Post-human Singularity, here we come !

No, you wouldn't be that cavalier

[Steve Hamlin]

I'd probably get a little squeamish about vivisecting a copy of me that had a working brain, but I'd have few problems receiving the heart and lungs and liver from a headless incubator and having a barbecue with the leftovers.

Bullshit.

I'm sure a lot of people would like to think that's how they would react, but I bet most would act otherwise when the time came.

Only a little squeamish about killing your sentient clone?

You think you could harvesting lungs and a rump roast from an adult-sized version of you that had intentional hydroencephalopathy so that biological systems would work and develop, but not sentient brain functions? Minimal sentience? Mind of a cow? Monkey? Would you feel more 'squeamish' the more consciousness was left intact?

Do you hunt? If not, I'd say you have no real idea of whether you could kill a deer, much less a clone of yourself.

Re:Someone think of ME!!

[kanweg]

Hey, I'm going to heaven. I would disgust me to have embryo's walking around. Or are embryos allowed to develop further? If I strike a conversation with attractive soul: "Hey, how was your life?", will that be the same faux pas as I make here on earth?

Bert
Heaven is a stupid concept, For a clearer understanding, go here: http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[servognome]

And for those wondering, yes Cablevision has a monopoly on providing service and satellite isn't even an option that far underground... truly hell.

I don 't know, maybe I would - others would be.

[Mr. Roadkill]

Do you hunt? If not, I'd say you have no real idea of whether you could kill a deer, much less a clone of yourself.

A deer, personally? Probably not. I do eat venison, and crocodile, and yes beef and pork and chicken and lamb and cute little bunny rabbits and they're all delicious and I have been known to go fishing and even enjoy it. But I've also fed the stray rabbit that took up residence in my back yard, and enjoyed having it around. I suppose part of it has to do with whether you have to "meet the meat", and how readily you can anthropomorphise it - which is a little difficult with fish and crustaceans and molluscs. And, of course, the survival-impulse that makes us omnivores happy to eat someone elses handiwork with lower animals is just as likely kick in and make us perfectly happy to run around using organs grown and harvested by someone else - with a nice rump roast of long-pork as an added benefit.

As for the more-squeamish-with-more-consciousness bit... well, yeah, of course. I guess we're getting down to what defines a human being, something that people have struggled with from time to time. And I suspect that the definitions may get a little rubbery around the edges, as we try to accomodate different people and their different needs and beliefs. My hydroencephalopathic adult-sized clone (hell, why not stunt cranial and limb development if we can, if we're primarily after a liver and pancreas and lungs and heart I'm sure that tech to suppress expression of the limb development genes will become available if we get as far as tank-grown organ-donors) is an unthinking lump of flesh and mass of spare parts, grown from my own flesh for the purpose of repairing my body and maybe having a nice rib-roast too. Someone elses hydroencephalopathic newborn is crushed dreams, a life that will never be, sadness for all the "I love you too, Daddy"'s that will never be said. Both have similar amounts of brain function, and are genetically "human" for whatever that's worth, but I'd like to believe that it would be wrong to equate my purpose-grown organ-farm with someone elses stillborn child on those criteria alone.

I would have no problems donating my own organs if I "died", which to me means brain function ceased and my body no longer housed the person I was ... by extension, I would like to believe that I would have no problems using organs or flesh that were grown from my own flesh and had never been a person in the sense that they never had the potential to become a human being. Yeah, I know, there are probably rationalisations and a whole lot of circular reasoning underlying that.

Thank you for calling "Bullshit". Thank you for making me think about this some more. I can see from your resume that you probably have a lot of experience with dealing with people, their actual motivations and beliefs, what they believe they are and what they say they are. Thank you for making me examine mine, and how they may differ from what I'd like to believe they are.

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[ceoyoyo]

Depends on which religion you ask, of course. The Catholics used to say Hell (although just the outermost circle), but I seem to remember something about the last Pope deciding Hell doesn't really exist.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[Jedi Alec]

The Dr. Frankenstein of the novel is not really any different than the ones doing monstrous experiments like the one described in TFA: he has what he considers to be good motivations, but the bottom line is that he's doing a monstrous thing because he can, and that's all the justification he needs. And of course, "For the greater good" has always been used to justify all manner of atrocities.

Taking the above out of the context of TFA and your Mengele reference for a moment, the only thing the good doctor did wrong would be stealing the parts, imo.

Heck, if a modern scientist could get a number of people to sign off on their bodies after death and he'd be able to lego a fresh body together from their bodyparts and use a nice jolt of power to get it alive...oh wait, we already do that anyway.

Our DNA?

[TeXMaster]

"Human" is defined by our DNA

Is it, now. So what characterizes exactly the DNA of the typical human? And how much discrepancy between the DNA of an individual and the median DNA sequence of human beings are you willing to accept before said individual is NOT considered human anymore? For example how many chromosomes more (or less) than our typical 46 chromosomes are you willing to accept into such a human being (e.g. what about Down syndrome?) How many variations?

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[rrohbeck]

I'd be a hit at the next rave i can tell you that for sure! Amen. Attention from the chicks => Huge evolutionary advantage. That gene would spread like wildfire.

Fur or Quilted?

[RealGene]

"Right, then! I do the best I can for you, the bloody best, to set up your sniveling, snotty-nosed kid you want, and all I get in return for fifteen years of poring research into the bloody boring composition of the bloody damn DNA molecule, is a pair of pathetic twits, who, when confronted with bloody stats start a pathetic wiffle-waffle. Right now, Mr. and Mrs. Stolwry, you have a perfect, beautiful walking specimen of a stocky, blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, quilted, male shrimp-head welder, with pods! Now, what more do you bloody want?! Frankly, it makes me sick! Why don't you go have your child naturally?" Eric Idle, Genetic Counselor Sketch, SNL 1976
[Gene]

Dark Angel anybody?

[lord3nd3r]

Dark Angel anyone?

Consider the parrots

[cavebison]

They say a parrot has the brain capacity of an 8-year old human.

Now, assuming the parrot isn't already dead or pining, and you kill it, is that the same as killing an 8-year-old human? Of course not! many would snort. Some would snort otherwise, must most would agree it's "not really the same thing".

So what exactly is the issue at stake then, if intelligence itself doesn't determine the morality/legality of killing another organism? I'm not saying wanton parrot popping is acceptable behaviour, but it certainly doesn't carry the weight of condemnation as, say, caging a toddler with nothing but a seed-bell to peck on for years on end.

Where and how do we draw the line between "hey asshole you killed my parrot" and "omg you killed me, you psychotic murderer I hope you get life in prison. Ack." ?

We generally place more importance on human life, above other forms of life, but on what basis? Well, probably because we are one and we can. I mean to say it has no objective basis, nobody tells us it is so, except other human beings, who are arguably biased on the matter. It is certainly not a position supported by nature - since when has an earthquake or cyclone saved more people than parrots? Does that make parrots favoured in the eyes of an all-mighty? It's completely arbitrary, and humans rail against the unholy Arbitrariness Of It All by making up stories as to why we're so damned important and everything bad that happens is for a reason which has our ultimate best interest at heart.

The problem is not in saying, "religion is important," it's the habit of placing greater importance on one religion/race/interest than another. "Mine is better than yours" is the default approach and this speaks of humanity's great immaturity. We haven't yet learned to give equal consideration to all, and how to manage that if we did.

Given this behaviour, our history; are we actually qualified to make judgements about the importance of life? I say we're not, and would add we don't have the wisdom or capacity to even begin to determine such things. Human behaviour is still based around survival and very, very limited collective interest.

The willingness to accept or impose some kind of external moralising factor on our lives, simply implies that, deep down, we fear we are fundamentally less important than parrots.

Re:Consider the parrots

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>We generally place more importance on human life, above other forms of life, but on what basis?

It is a biological imperative that we respect human life and eat everyone else. It is hardwired into us the same way we are forced to care for our children, lust after women, seek food and shelter when we need it, etc. We can temporarily overcome all of these instincts, but only at the cost of our mental well-being (and ostracism from fellow humans).

I for one am not happy about being a puppet to evolution, but I'll get over it.

-b

Re:Consider the parrots

[cavebison]

> I for one am not happy about being a puppet to evolution, but I'll get over it.

Only because you're conditioned to. :)

Strange ride we're on, to be sure.

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[aproposofwhat]

Fuck off, Kermitt

Re:WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?

[Kyokushi]

Gives a whole lot new meaning to Soylent Green.

key word... life

[keirre23hu]

I usually dodge these discussions but here goes: Humans & animal LIFE in general have some level of brain activity. Thus, is it not reasonable to say that lack of brain or brain activity == lack of life (for animals)?

I'm NOT ok with this.

[sherriw]

How can the government stomp down on stem-cell research... but allow this to happen? This is many, many times worse, and does not have a more moral alternative (like harvesting stem cells from umbilical cords).

I really hope this sparks a public outrage, but sadly I doubt it will.

Re:I'm NOT ok with this.

[VeNoM0619]

Stem-cells require fetus' (matured embryos in the wombs)
This research is just an embryo (not even with the womb)

The only public that will be outraged is people who don't understand.

Besides the government shouldn't be pushing its moral agenda on it's citizens, that's how we've been stepping into so many messes here lately.

Re:Someone think of the embryo!

[greyhueofdoubt]

I'm not a christian and I might be wrong, but I seem to recall a concept called 'original sin' which implies that we are all, from conception to death, sinners.

There are also certain christians who believe that you would go to hell if you died before being baptized. And there are some christians who believe that a cracker is the body of christ (actual, not symbolic) so it's hard for me to care one way or the other what they think.

Christians are no more qualified to debate morality than a tv viewer is qualified to debate which camera is best for studio work.

-b

Re:Not to flame

[DerangedAlchemist]

The Nazi regime was very religious. The SS had 'God with us' as the slogan on their belts. That was religious extermination, as it doesn't make any Darwinian sense (why were the jews inferior again? Something about worship, right? Or was it superior banking/business skills that made them 'inferior'?) Whatever Hitler may have said about his beliefs in private, in public he was a devout Catholic. Mao never attacked the cult of Mao, where people started worshiping him. He just attacked everything, religious, political, personal, whatever threatened his power. Same with Stalin. But maybe you have a point, some groups murdered so many people they are competitive with religions. But overall, religions are an incredible source of immorality and evil. No one needs religion to make the 'Thou shall not steal', 'Thou shall not murder' laws, secular countries have no problem using reason to come up with this. To murder someone for drawing a picture of Mohamed and feel justified, now that takes a religion. When the catholic church had power, it committed incredible atrocities (witch burnings, genocides, etc). Luckily, that power was taken away, after which what we consider moral behavior began to emerge. Countries where religion still holds power, like the middle east, uphold religious standards most secular nations would consider immoral.

Re:Not to flame

[shutdown -p now]

Stalin was an Orthodox Christian and Hitler was a Protestant. Neither were "Darwinists".

RTFA

[ittybad]

I don't like the F in RTFA. I will try to use RTA. If you RTA, the embryos being utilized were "left overs" from fertilization techniques and efforts. They were on their way to be destroyed. I believe the possibilities for helping man kind with extreme illnesses (as opposed to custom-tailoring your children)is well worth the time to mess with an embryo that was already on its way out. No harm done and man kind has the opportunity to rid itself of horrible diseases.

Re:Potential for life? What is life, then?

[Bryansix]

Of course things can happen. I even said that life is dependent on things. As adults we still depend on food and shelter and income to buy those things and clean water and a place to shit.

Yes people have miscarriages. It happens. You do what you can to prevent them. If you have any doubt whether those miscarried fetuses were alive then just ask the mothers. Most have a very distinct emotional attachment to each and its not an irrational emotion either.

Embryo's, Zygote's, Fetuses, whatever you want to call them have dependencies. They have to have viable DNA and they have to be attached to the Uterine lining. I don't see these dependencies much different from what Adult humans face.

Re:you think so? you poor, innocent child.....

[Bryansix]

No, you took my quote out of context. I was responding to the part about semen spilled into a kleenex being life.

Lack of Imagination

[flaming error]

Examples of general agreement do not prove "right and wrong" transcends culture.

You'll convince me "right and wrong" are unrelated to cultural contexts if you show me a deterministic algorithm without cultural inputs. Pseudo-code is fine.

Re:Lack of Imagination

[Fatalis]

I didn't argue for an objective ethical standard, I argued against universal ethical relativism, by showing that there are clear exceptions to that. once again, you're not clever for arguing relativism, just confused. there certainly are ethical values that depend entirely on their surrounding culture, but there are also values that are shared across all cultures, like the aforementioned example of killing children for sport being universally unethical.

Stalin and Hitler were Christians? Doubtful.

[Nerdposeur]

More likely they paid Christianity lip service when it was politically convenient - just like American politicians. But what did their actions say?

...over 180 million people have been killed by their own secular humanist governments in the 20th Century....Joseph Stalin closed down over 48 000 churches, and attempted the liquidation of the entire Christian Church.

Whatever Stalin claimed, he oppressed and killed Christians.

Hitler's "Christianity" is highly debatable.

Historian Paul Johnson wrote that Hitler hated Christianity with a passion, adding that shortly after assuming power in 1933, Hitler told Hermann Rauschnig that he intended "to stamp out Christianity root and branch."

I have a very poor knowledge of history, so I don't presume to have authority on this question, but it seems to me that dictatorships always oppose religion. They do not wish any citizen to have any higher allegiance than their allegiance to the state. If you want to see oppressive group mentalities, look to these people's governments sooner than to religion.