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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."
A fluorescent protein? Did they want to make a baby that you can find under the black lights in a night club?
Does that mean the kid would have an annoying hum if born?
I'm sure it can't have been slashdotted already. Alternate source here
I'd be a hit at the next rave i can tell you that for sure!
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?
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...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
kc8apf
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?
GPL Deconstructed
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 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.
You had me until the last sentence.
.. I know. Some chose an arbitrary point when an egg and sperm meet to decide what is human.
.. 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.
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
OK
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.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
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
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.
Just to nitpick, you don't need to be religious to view abortion as murder. Just as some religious people are ok with it.
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.
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.
> 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.
Democrat delenda est