I do not believe that I dismissed anyone’s intelligence. If I did, I apologize - please explain.
How is this CRAP? Because you disagree with another does not make their thoughts CRAP! You say that you would give your life for a cure - But would you take another’s life for a potential cure - That is the issue.
And you have a problem with Judeo Christian principles? I do not
What about embryonic stem cell research bothers you though? In your own words. The idea of killing embryos? What about an embryo makes it more valuable than the well being of millions of people, who’s humanity is not a matter of opinion?
Another thing to remember is that not all embryonic stem cells come from aborted babies. Nor do the rest come from embryos created in labs specifically for their stem cells.
Many come from donors. Couples, who couldn’t get pregnant on their own, who’ve had the help of scientists to fertilize the mother’s egg in the lab. Several embryos are usually implanted in the mother, in the hopes that one will attach to the uterine lining and she will be pregnant. However, there are usually left-over embryos. The parents have a choice. They can freeze them to be used later if they wish to have another child. Or they can donate them to another couple (which some couples do, but some don’t feel comfortable with the idea of their embryo becoming a person they’ll never know). Or they can dispose of them. Or…they can donate them for research.
I guess what it all comes down to the viewpoint on ‘what is human life’? Is it life as soon as the egg is fertilized, even though it’s still just a few cells? Or is it human life when it has a heartbeat? Is it human life when the brain begins to develop? I think that’s where the hang-up is…there is no one agreed upon definition, so people’s viewpoints on what we do with the embryos vary.
Very well stated Kari…and I doubt that question will have a definitive answer in our life time
I am very against embryonic stem cell research. It pains me to know that a human life has been taken for any kind of research (they did not have a choice in this, very different than ME choosing to give MY own life for a cure). All human life, from conception to natural death, needs to be protected and I hope that our cure does not come from stealing the life of countless others.
I am definitely not against using other stem cells for research. There is no ethical problem here. But when human lives are taken by using an embryo the slippery slope begins. (I will not get into the slope, that is another huge moral discussion not appropriate for this thread.)
This is one of the first discussions on here that I have found where this controversy has been brought up and I am very sad that those with different view on the subject are putting others other down so quickly.
your interpretation of ‘life’ is ridiculous. a cell does not constitute viable life and you know that.
arguing with people who view a cell as a life is a waste of my time. they are the same type of people who believe that science and religion cannot coexist in a person’s life.
useless.
Oh you meant skin cells! Yes surely a wonderful area of research - No human life is destroyed and I understand that actual cures have been developed using these technologies. That is my point - No cures have been generated (to my limited knowledge) by embryonic stem cell research but other stem cells have shown results. So why even cross the ethicsl debate when non controversial methods are available. Unfortunately you missed the point on Mengel - it was an extrapolation - and by your responce, I think you confirmed my point - that science does need limits. The debate is not if there should be limits but where should those limits be. I surely hope that we cdo not degrade to a society where anything goes.
if sentience is the criterion of full humanness, then the reversibly comatose, the momentarily unconscious, and the sleeping would all have to be declared nonpersons. Like the presentient unborn, these individuals are all at the moment nonsentient though they have the natural inherent capacity to be sentient.
I can not agree that sentience is the definition of human life but I understand that others do.
Most slippery slope arguments are premature. There arent very many cases in modern civilization of one thing leading to another, without a second evaluation taking place. Marijuana isnt a gateway drug. Gay marriage doesn’t lead to bestiality.
Ive never seen an ACTUAL slippery slope, that we have actually slipped down. However, if you are of the opinion that the essentially human part of life, starts at human conception, then its not a matter of a slippery slope at all. We already do lots of fertility science, which is in opposition with fertilization of an egg being the beginning of truly human life. And yet, that slope didn’t turn out to be all that slippery, since we are still undecided on embryonic stem cell research.
(the JDRF president review thread that sort of got me riled up as I started reading that thread after blowing it off since the other thread involved reading the CWD thread, which is also full of entertainment value, but then the dickengel brought the stem cell issue up, not raising any of the many interesting scientific questions surrounding the efficacy of the research calling people Nazis, murderers and foisting his views. To which he’s entitled but he kind of moved in ruining a potentially interesting discussion. Then he started his own thread which really, I should have just left alone since it would be a better place to have discussed the sensitive questions but well, I didn’t. I loathe it when threads get ruined with that stuff. It wasn’t quickly though, as that other thread seemed to have blown up yesterday or thereabouts…)
sentience and consciousness are not the same thing. sentience is a capacity for consciousness, and presentience is a capacity for sentience. If you want to pull the zipper all the way up, then yo cant eat cucumbers because they have the potential to evolve, or mutate, or spontaneously reorganize themself into a sentient being. This is the point of my argument. Potential for a quality, does not make that quality a reality. There is a consensus among most of humanity that a sleeping human, is still human. That consensus does not exist for biological precursors to sleeping humans.
The destruction of human life is what bothers me. If we start the discussion of one life more important than another life, where does it end. Harvesting organs from less valuable lives, Euthanasia? That is an ethical question that is hard to justify. It is like stating that this human life is less important than that human life so I can destroy it. Who has the right to decide which human life is more important?
Personally I disagree with the destruction of an Embryo regardless of the source. I know most don’t agree with that position, but I do not know how you can pick a point other than conception for when a human life exists.
I am actually dissappointed to see this whole discussion. I don’t think it is appropriate to a community that has diabetes in common to bring up an issue that is so decisive. Why would we think we as diabetics have something to resolve the controversy over abortion. Yes, the controversy over abortion. Stem cells are just where the skirmish is being waged.
To quote our sage Alan “Where will this converstation lead?” “NOWHERE”
I refuse to participate in a discussion who’s only purpose sees to me to incite division.
Thank You Elizabeth, You said it better than I. I was afraid that I was the only one here that cared about protection of life from conception to natural death.
An embryo is not a Cell it is a human life. It is many cells that when fed and nurtured will develop into a human being with a unique DNA
I agree with you. I too was VERY disappointed that this was started, as there is no way that it was going to end well, or not get people upset. It’s a bad topic, and I was again disappointed that it was started here. I’ve only had positive experiences at this site until now.
“well, you know, that’s just like, your opinion, man”
-the big lebowski, summing up this controversy in one sentence