stem cells

[Gav]

Originally Posted by Maeve_Mari

Here's the kicker. Abortion, is currently still legal!
Therefore not allowing the stem cells from legally conducted abortion is in effect wasting the valuable learning and research that could be done!!

You don't have to tell me that. Tell the the pro-lifers and the ridiculous religous right wingers.

[Insipiens]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

The claim is that once we find a beneficial use for aborted fetuses, we won't want to stop aborting them. The "slippery slope", and all that...

There are other objections raised to the sourcing of stem cells.

Why not just use "spare" sperm to fertilize "spare" eggs so that we can grow a foetus to abort and harvest the stem cells from?

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by Insipiens

There are other objections raised to the sourcing of stem cells.

Why not just use "spare" sperm to fertilize "spare" eggs so that we can grow a foetus to abort and harvest the stem cells from?

What other objections? Enlighten me...

And even if you use "spare" (?) sperm and eggs, the fertilized product is still a human foetus and still aborted for "harvesting". I don't see how that is fundamentally different than abortion carried out in the "normal" way, except that it has the added onus of starting a human life specifically in order to kill it. In effect, your suggestion reduces some human life to an agricultural commodity...not a road down which most of us would like to go, I think.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

What other objections? Enlighten me...

And even if you use "spare" (?) sperm and eggs, the fertilized product is still a human foetus and still aborted for "harvesting". I don't see how that is fundamentally different than abortion carried out in the "normal" way, except that it has the added onus of starting a human life specifically in order to kill it. In effect, your suggestion reduces some human life to an agricultural commodity...not a road down which most of us would like to go, I think.

Or, you could view it as never starting the human life in the first place. The cells never divide or grow into a human being, and even if we wanted to, we could never grow them into a human life. You can't be pessimistic about the moral values of research when cures for diseases are in sight.

[lochinvar]

I'm sorry, mrbiggs, but just how can one fertilize an egg with a sperm without starting a human life? Are they dead to begin with, or is it the fertilization process that renders them dead? Explain your reasoning, if you will...

And you have articulated the very attitude that the opponents of stem cell research fear most--that when "cures for disease are in sight" we will choose to overlook the ethical implications of the means whereby those cures are secured. "The end justifies the means" is usually invoked in support of ethically questionable practices.

[Drifter]

Ahh.. the self-aggrandizing joys of debate set in a vacuum of ignorance. Here, please everyone read. Learn. Enjoy. THEN post. This note is not intended to be insulting, (well...maybe the self-aggrandizing part but I'm just as guilty), only to point out that this is a current debate which VERY few people know anything about save second hand from thier favorite politically biased "news" organization. (Take your pick as to which side of political bias to which I'm refering)

[HOLY GRAIL VOICE]There's some lovely starting information over here...[/HOLY GRAIL VOICE]
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/faqs.asp
http://dictionary.reference.com/sear...f-aggrandizing

[lochinvar]

Ah...the self-aggrandizing arrogance of those who leap to assumptions about how knowlegeable another person is on a given subject and the source of that person's information or misinformation...

Thanks for the link, Drifter, although you were gratuitously snide in providing it.

However, none of the information--most of which I already knew--on that site contradicts what I've said. All of the cell lines mentioned trace their origins to human embryos. Embryos which do not survive the extraction process.

And therein lies the grounds of the objections by the pro-lifers to stem cell research. If they oppose abortion on the moral grounds that it terminates a human embryo, why is everyone disgruntled that they also oppose stem cell research when such stem cells are solely derived from the termination of a human embryo?

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

Ah...the self-aggrandizing arrogance of those who leap to assumptions about how knowlegeable another person is on a given subject and the source of that person's information or misinformation...

Thanks for the link, Drifter, although you were gratuitously snide in providing it.

However, none of the information--most of which I already knew--on that site contradicts what I've said. All of the cell lines mentioned trace their origins to human embryos. Embryos which do not survive the extraction process.

And therein lies the grounds of the objections by the pro-lifers to stem cell research. If they oppose abortion on the moral grounds that it terminates a human embryo, why is everyone disgruntled that they also oppose stem cell research when such stem cells are solely derived from the termination of a human embryo?

I wasn't trying to contradict anything you have said, though I do confess to the gratuitously snide part, I was refering to the thread discussers as a whole. It wasn't my intent to take you or anyone else to task for anything. I just thought my two cents of, "most of us don't know nothin' about this here debate maybe we should read up on it before posting", was valid.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

I'm sorry, mrbiggs, but just how can one fertilize an egg with a sperm without starting a human life? Are they dead to begin with, or is it the fertilization process that renders them dead? Explain your reasoning, if you will...

And you have articulated the very attitude that the opponents of stem cell research fear most--that when "cures for disease are in sight" we will choose to overlook the ethical implications of the means whereby those cures are secured. "The end justifies the means" is usually invoked in support of ethically questionable practices.

It's hard to view it as starting a human life when the cells will never, ever, under any circumstances, become human. As I said, I can understand abortion, where a fetus will become human if not interfered with. But we haven't come to the point where a person can be grown in a laboratory. Once we do, this issue will have to be faced differently.

Well, I guess you COULD describe it as "the ends justify the means." But that's not really my reasoning. I'm not saying that the result justifies any action undertaken to reach it. I'm saying that if you directly weigh the life of a cell that will never become more than that, a cell, and that of thousands of people around the world who are affected by one of these diseases, the choice is pretty clear. (But when the stem cells DO have the potential to become a life, as I said, it will be much different.)

[cowpaste]

Go to fertility clinic. Make embryos. Use a few. Throw away the rest. Go home happy because you are "moral." Yay!

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by cowpaste

Go to fertility clinic. Make embryos. Use a few. Throw away the rest. Go home happy because you are "moral." Yay!

You're going to have to explain to me what this means. I....don't get it.

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

You're going to have to explain to me what this means. I....don't get it.

I think the point was that the cells in the fertility clinic are not going to become humans unless we treat them specifically and so growing embryos from them is a "moral" (in quotes) way to obtain stem cells that does not involve abortion.

For some odd reason, I think it was meant to be a sarcastic comment, but I'm not sure.

On this debate, I understand (though don't agree with) the pro-life stance from a religious principal but can see a number of viable ways to escape from the moral dillema while still using the fundamental source.

Is there the same objection to using animals, like pigs for example, to grow human organs from donor tissue?

What about organ donation? It seems to me that I can object to abortion morally but allow that organ donation is moral. If organ donation is moral, how is fetal donation any different? What about those fetuses that die naturally and are not terminated voluntarily? I can object to the abortion as murder but then don't make the link to the use of that corpse for productive purposes being similarly immoral. Seems to me it is the same as organ donation with the same morality implications.

Just some thoughts.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by jBirch

I think the point was that the cells in the fertility clinic are not going to become humans unless we treat them specifically and so growing embryos from them is a "moral" (in quotes) way to obtain stem cells that does not involve abortion.

Yes, but we CAN'T treat them specifically to become humans. That would be cloning, more or less. Once the baby's out, that's it, right?

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by Drifter

I wasn't trying to contradict anything you have said, though I do confess to the gratuitously snide part, I was refering to the thread discussers as a whole. It wasn't my intent to take you or anyone else to task for anything. I just thought my two cents of, "most of us don't know nothin' about this here debate maybe we should read up on it before posting", was valid.

Oh. Sorry.

I fell victim to the post hoc ergo propter hoc falicy: Since your post immediately followed mine, I assumed referenced mine.

My apologies.

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by jBirch

What about those fetuses that die naturally and are not terminated voluntarily? I can object to the abortion as murder but then don't make the link to the use of that corpse for productive purposes being similarly immoral. Seems to me it is the same as organ donation with the same morality implications.

Though I'm not familiar with the science enough to say definitively--perhaps someone else here can?--I believe that corpses are useless as stem cell raw material: You have to get the stuff while it's still "warm" for it to be any good. Dead cells are useless.

This I infer intutitively from the fact that cell lines are cultured, like lines of spores or bacteria. You can't culture something that's dead; you have to get it into the petri dish while it's still viable, which means you have to move it by the shortest route from it's donor.

By the time we become aware of a fetus that spontaneously aborts through miscarriage or other accident, it's too late to use. Or at least that's my conclusion from everything I've read. As I say, maybe someone else here is more informed on the actual science than I am and will enlighten us.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

I fell victim to the post hoc ergo propter hoc falicy: Since your post immediately followed mine, I assumed referenced mine.

Did I hear someone use a Latin phrase and "fallacy" in the same sentence?

[lochinvar]

Back, vile Philosophile! The dark flames shall avail you nought--you...shall not...PASS!

And if you were paying attention, I said "falicy", a word often mistaken for "fallacy" by hasty and fumble-fingered typists who haven't the benefit of spellcheck.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

Oh. Sorry.

I fell victim to the post hoc ergo propter hoc falicy: Since your post immediately followed mine, I assumed referenced mine.

My apologies.

No worries.

Oh, yeah don't try to cash that check just yet, I just checked my bank acct... There may be a problem...

[lochinvar]

No worry. I don't have enough saved up for an ink pen yet, so I couldn't endorse it anyway.