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U.S. falling behind in stem cell research (pg. 2)
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| tathi |
NeoPhono would you say that if you lived your life in a wheel chair? :/
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Hmmm. I'm not that bothered by it solely because I don't think it's wise to with nature too much. Bad things can happen. Very bad things. |
"Stephen Hawking in a Schwarzenegger" aka Izzy :nervous: |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | | NeoPhono would you say that if you lived your life in a wheel chair? :/ |
If I truly felt that someone was being killed so that I *might* be able to walk again, then yes I would feel that way. Everything is relative, I don't have 20/20 vision, but I wouldn't kill someone to have it. I'm sure that if given a choice, someone would rather be given the ability to live in a wheelchair then die so that someone in one might walk again. My wants for a better living cannot supercede the right of even one person to life. |
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| tathi |
I just don't understand how someone can classify the early stages of an unborn baby as something precious. I realise that throughout history infant mortality rates were so high that a child may not even be named before their 5th birthday for fear of attachment, but i think this is different, unborn baby's arn't cognitively aware, to me it just reminds me of dogmatic christian values, "every sperm every egg is sacred and shouldn't be killed"
This may sound harsh but you would get the same reaction out of me from deleting an AI script from a computer as you would from carrying out an abortion, neither are consciously cognitive, whats the difference? (but our cultures are very different, abortion is held in a very different light in Australia)
Sorry if this sounds like a flame neo thats not my intention :/ |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
I'm going to pay devil's advocate here. :whip:
Here's the "moral" issue behind stem cell research. In legal cases, except in the matter of abortion, a fetus is considered a human being. If I kill a pregnant woman, or willfully cause her to miscarriage, I will be charged with murder or double murder, respectfully. Seeing as stem cells for research (at least the bulk) come from fetuses discarded from fertility clinics, many consider that to be the killing a human in the hopes of helping another.
A common analogy is human organ transplants. Organ transplants help many people. So what if we found people and used them soley to donate their organs. We killed them, and then distributed the organs out to those who needed them. We have now helped, maybe saved, tens of lives with donated kidneys, a liver, lungs, a heart, etc., but we still killed someone to do it. Is that killing justified?
Now, you may say the fetuses from those fertility clinics, or existing cell lines should be used, because they're going to be killed anyway...might as well put them to good use. However, killing someone to benefit yourself cannot be excused by the fact that you were going to kill them anyway. If I murdered my dad to get my inheritance sooner, would I be able to say, "if I killed him for no good reason it would be bad, but if I did it for money to help myself, it's justifiable.
Here's another common analogy. Suppose that some militant racist group went around lynching black people. Hundreds of innocent blacks are killed. Public outrage grows. Then one day this group announces a new program: Whenever they lynch a black person, they will promptly deliver the body to the nearest hospital, where organs can be removed for transplant. Even if you don't approve of lynching or racism, they say, surely you must applaud us for this. Think of all that good that can be done. Maybe a lynching is a tragedy, but at least this way some good will come of it.
Now with all that said, you can shoot it down by saying a fetus isn't a human, etc. But to some it is, and that's where the problem comes in. Hell, as I said before, the law even considers a fetus to be a human most of the time. I think its easy to get caught up with what *could* happen with stem cell research. But do the ends justify the means? I really don't know where I stand on this issue. Stem cells are also found in fatty tissue and ambilical cords. If they want to take them from there I have no problem. But with current methods, I'm just not so sure. |
One thing I'll never understand is why you guys love the fetus so much, but then hate it after it's born. :conf:
One of the great mysteries...:D
I got this in email:
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The Bush Administration has stepped up its campaign against a woman's right to choose, with a new and deeply troubling assault on personal privacy.
Help stop the Bush Administration and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Pro-choice Americans must stand up to these challenges to our privacy rights and say, "Enough is enough!"
First, John Ashcroft's Justice Department has subpoenaed the private medical records of women across the country who've had abortion care. The Ashcroft Justice Department actually argued in court that the law shouldn't honor the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship.
And today we learned that Bush's hand-picked head of the Food and Drug Administration may reject the recommendation of his own advisory committee and deny an application allowing emergency contraception to be sold over-the-counter. FDA observers say that such recommendations are rarely ignored. But political pressure from the White House and Congress could trump sound science. Already the pressure has led the FDA to delay its decision, further holding women's access to this important option hostage.
As the political arm of the pro-choice movement, NARAL Pro-Choice America is prepared to fight these outrageous actions. We are the strongest voice for women's privacy rights and a woman's right to choose, and we will use every tool at our disposal to make sure the American people know how George W. Bush, John Ashcroft and their anti-choice cronies are dismantling medical privacy and a woman's right to choose.
Now more than ever, we need your financial support to help stop the Bush Administration and Attorney General John Ashcroft from trampling our rights. Pro-choice Americans must stand up to these challenges to our privacy rights and say, "Enough is enough!"
The idea of John Ashcroft rifling through our medical records is exactly what NARAL Pro-Choice America fears most. This is a man who opposes oral contraceptives, the IUD, and Depo-Provera - the very tools needed to make abortion less necessary - because he believes contraception is the same as abortion.
That view is obviously spreading throughout the Bush Administration. The FDA's looming decision can only be explained as an act of far-right politics. Emergency contraception has an excellent safety record, and it's the best way to make abortion less necessary by preventing unintended pregnancy. But far-right ideologues oppose it, and the White House has made clear that politics, not science, should rule.
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Why are they opposing something (emergency contraception) which will reduce the amount of abortions? That doesn't make any sense, but then their social policies have never made sense. This is another clear abuse of power by this Administration. |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | | Sorry if this seems like a flame neo thats not my intention :/ |
No problem, and I see where you're coming from.
This is how I see it (yes I am anti-abortion). The only two factors that make abortion tolerable by most is science and location. I'll start with location. The only thing that seperates a premature infant in an intensive care unit and a child the same age still in the womb is location. If that child on life support were to be killed, it would be murder, in the womb it is a legal abortion. That being said, as science gets better, our ability to keep alive babies born at increasingly earlier stages or pregnancy increases. As this ability gets better, I have no doubt that some day we will be able to "grow" a child from conception to what would normally be birth completely artifically. The question then becomes at what point did that "thing" become cognitive and thus human? There is no answer to that. I would argue that at birth most humans are not aware of their surroundings or necessarily "cognitive." Does this mean a child can be killed until an age at which he is self-aware?
To me it is rediculous that the only thing that makes abortion legal is that the child is still inside of the mother. Using our technolgy many of these aborted fetuses could be kept alive and flourish under artifical conditions. On the same note a baby killed while on this life support would be murder. It is not a black and white world, and I understand that, but to me I must draw a line at which point I consider something to be human life, even in a primative form. To me this is when those first cells divide, because after which there is no clear deliniation at which point you can unequivicoally say "human." |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
you can unequivicoally say "human." |
I say when the baby grows limbs.. You can't have a human without limbs... can you?:conf: |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
I suppose then that you are against genetically modified crops of which most of the US's agriculture are? Isn't harnessing the power of the atom also "ing with nature"?
So what exactly are you against with stem celled research? It's merely one tool to understand genes and our bodies with the hopes of curing diseases. If you don't want to "" with nature we might as well abandon most modern medical technologies and treatments as they all go against nature.
This story truly ing pisses me off. I don't mind religion but for s sake keep it out of science.
The US has a vastly competitive advantage over the rest of the world in medical breakthroughs and I'd like to keep it that way. |
Sorry, I went off and got drunk and this thread got some responses.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of science and technology, and I think it's great to understand how the world works, down to the sub-atomic particle. I even think it's cool to be able to manipulate variables and experiment and new ways to improve life.
What I worry about is the constant pushing of the envelope against the laws of nature. And don't get me wrong here, I think it's a good thing to always push to know more. I just fear that there's a limit to what should and shouldn't be ed with and it's not something that will be known until after the button has already been pressed. Do I think stem cell research and cloning will be said button? In all liklihood, no. I just sometimes wonder how much is too much and how much longer mankind can survive before we destroy ourselves.
I think genetically modified plants are a pretty cool technological/scientific breakthrough that's certainly a wonderful advancement. I'm not so sure I feel the same way about goldfish that glow in the dark, but at the same time, it's pretty cool stuff. It's just a gut feeling I have more than anything.:p |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
I think genetically modified plants are a pretty cool technological/scientific breakthrough that's certainly a wonderful advancement. I'm not so sure I feel the same way about goldfish that glow in the dark, but at the same time, it's pretty cool stuff. It's just a gut feeling I have more than anything.:p |
ohh this just started to get me thinking!!:eyes:
And I've decided to put my evil zionist scientist to work developing a new type of fish!
Yes! The glowing mustardfish of Zion!
Buhahahahahaha muhahahahaha!:eek: |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
This is how I see it (yes I am anti-abortion). The only two factors that make abortion tolerable by most is science and location. I'll start with location. The only thing that seperates a premature infant in an intensive care unit and a child the same age still in the womb is location. If that child on life support were to be killed, it would be murder, in the womb it is a legal abortion. That being said, as science gets better, our ability to keep alive babies born at increasingly earlier stages or pregnancy increases. As this ability gets better, I have no doubt that some day we will be able to "grow" a child from conception to what would normally be birth completely artifically. The question then becomes at what point did that "thing" become cognitive and thus human? There is no answer to that. I would argue that at birth most humans are not aware of their surroundings or necessarily "cognitive." Does this mean a child can be killed until an age at which he is self-aware? |
if you think this way, you should stop to jerk off or have sex with protection :rolleyes:
just because you _can_ save a child doesn't mean it's more living... i agree with you that an infant isn't really a living creature either, not more than any animal that we kill/eat everyday. though extremely few people should be able to kill an infant, but many could do an abort, it has more to do with our conscience than the actual science definition of "what is a living thing". so place does matter a lot! also how it looks does matter a lot, there is a lot harder to make an abortion to a child that is almost fully developed and looks almost like an born infant... |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
if you think this way, you should stop to jerk off or have sex with protection :rolleyes: |
I don't have any problem with "wasting" gametes. If that were the case I'd be morning every period my girlfriend has (which I assure you I'm not). It's those loveable little zygotes that get me every time. :p
| quote: | | it has more to do with our conscience than the actual science definition of "what is a living thing". |
I agree about the conscience part, although a single cell is considered a "living thing." In the end it's a judgement call. I feel that because I cannot find a satisfactory point after fertilization at which I can say human or not human, I have to use conception as that point. If you want to use birth control, or whack off into a sock, more power to you. But once that chain of events begins as fertilization, you have a human, or at least what will become human if "nature works its course." To me it's like if I see a car rolling down a hill towards a bunch of kids playing in a playground. If I jump in and stop that car before it reaches the bottom, no one is going to say "hey, thanks for stopping that car from rolling down the hill" they're going to say "thanks for saving those kids." To me you have to look at the end result, and abortion *is* ultimately stopping a child from being born. |
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| Cyrus King |
If "sacrificing" these fetus's for the sake of curing diseases and advancing medicine to make the health of future generations and ours to be more specific, better, then i think its worth it.
I think "unparalyzing" thousands IS worth studying these fetus's.
In the long run.. it will save more lives than kill. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
No problem, and I see where you're coming from.
This is how I see it (yes I am anti-abortion). The only two factors that make abortion tolerable by most is science and location. I'll start with location. The only thing that seperates a premature infant in an intensive care unit and a child the same age still in the womb is location. If that child on life support were to be killed, it would be murder, in the womb it is a legal abortion. That being said, as science gets better, our ability to keep alive babies born at increasingly earlier stages or pregnancy increases. As this ability gets better, I have no doubt that some day we will be able to "grow" a child from conception to what would normally be birth completely artifically. The question then becomes at what point did that "thing" become cognitive and thus human? There is no answer to that. I would argue that at birth most humans are not aware of their surroundings or necessarily "cognitive." Does this mean a child can be killed until an age at which he is self-aware?
To me it is rediculous that the only thing that makes abortion legal is that the child is still inside of the mother. Using our technolgy many of these aborted fetuses could be kept alive and flourish under artifical conditions. On the same note a baby killed while on this life support would be murder. It is not a black and white world, and I understand that, but to me I must draw a line at which point I consider something to be human life, even in a primative form. To me this is when those first cells divide, because after which there is no clear deliniation at which point you can unequivicoally say "human." |
I agree with you to an extent, as I myself am largely anti-abortion. However, since this is a very important and promising technology, I believe it would be in the best interest to find some compromise on this matter. Let's start first things first, and that is the abortion that is already taking place. Since nobody is aborting fetuses because of the stem cell research, using already aborted fetuses should not be considered morally wrong. Once they're aborted, they can either go to waste or be used for research. I'd say it's better for them to be redirected to research, as you could say they did something useful for the humanity although they were never even born.
But even if we regard adoption as immoral and unethical, there is a way to circumnavigate the problem in two ways. Even if we prohibit abortion, there will always be several situations in which the abortion is necessary. If a fetus presents a fatal threat to it's mother or if it has severe genetic defects, then I believe we agree an abortion should be the preffered option. So although the amount of fetuses would be lowered, we'd still have enough of them to do the research. The second option is to use female gametes in which we'd insert our own DNA. So in a way those cells would be our own cells, and once the zygote begins to grow into stem cells, those cells could be just reinserted into their ancestral organism. So you wouldn't really be killing a fetus more than a potential fetus dies whenever a single living cell falls off your body. |
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