Human Embryo Stem Cell Research Allowed

glitch13 writes "This article from MSNBC discusses the federal go-ahead (read: money) to start research on stem cells from human embryos."

lotsa rules

[AbbyNormal]

There appear to be a lot of regulations as to how the cells are used? I don't know but IMHO, it seems like a waste as the article points out: "federal money could not be used for the destruction of embryos to get the cells. That job would have to be done by privately funded researchers who could then pass the useful cells to federally supported scientists, creating a separation of responsibility for the embryo's destruction that opponents have criticized as morally meaningless."

Politics at its best. The embryos are destined to be "discarded" anyway. What the heck is the difference?

--
You are a unique individual, just like everyone else.


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Re:Scientists discover key to invisibility [Way OT

[interiot]

Apparently they want that story, it's on the front page.

• A lot of people have written in regarding the announcement [chron.com] from scientists at the University of Texas @ Austin discovering "invisibilty". Well, sort of. What it does do is make small areas of skin (humans have not been tested) transparent for a short amount of time. By transparent, I mean 1/10 mm of transparency - not exactly enough to make me Inside Out Boy. Yet.

I don't know how they pick stories either. Maybe a shorter description?

Maybe they don't really try to get all the good stories because there's too many to look through?

About time

[human bean]

I thought I was going to have to send my father-in-law off to Japan or Brazil to get something done about his Alzhiemers.

George Bush Sr. pays off some of his political debts to some foaming-at-the-mouth radical right-wingers who are deluded enough to think they know what God has wants for the rest of us, and we are left to suffer the consequences of lack of basic research. I wonder what those people who exhorted president Bush to cut off funding for embryo research will say when they hit seventy and start forgetting where they live? I'll bet you they run right off to other countries and get their treatments. After all it isn't sinful if the neighbors don't know. Maybe stem cell treatments will become the old folk's version of "visiting her aunt in Duluth".

I love this country, but I swear I worry about seeing Handmaidens on the streets, any day now.

Re:lotsa rules

[tesserae]

Politics at its best.

Unfortunately, the religious right has completely politicized what should have been a personal, private issue all along... along with a bunch of other issues, which I'll save space by not going into.

Political solutions are the only possible solutions at this point, then -- and I'm glad that those are at least possible. It could easily be worse, and might get that way soon; I think my .sig pretty much says it all.

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Re:lotsa rules

[AbbyNormal]

Completely agree. *Sigh*. You think we would have learned from common sense and thousands of cases throughout history that politics and religion do not mix. Nor should they. Witch trials, Spanish Inquisition, Crusades..list goes on and on.


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Re:lotsa rules

[linzeal]

Well considering that there are logical arguments against the practice of said "personal, private issues" and that not all pro-lifers are relegious let alone right-wing I would have to disagree with you.

A list of pro-lifers that do not fit into your mold (aka prejudice) [mindspring.com]

Re:About time

[linzeal]

Do people run off to China to get black market organs?

Re:lotsa rules

[tesserae]

While you have a valid point about the inarguable fact that non-rightwing, non-religious pro-lifers do exist, that doesn't contradict my statement that it was the religious right who politicized the issue. I don't see how you can disagree with that statement -- just look at the people who introduced and then passed the legislation. Not many pagans, anarchists, libertarians, etc. in that group...

The simple existence of logical arguments opposed to my own logical arguments doesn't give either of us the right to legislate our own particular views. It would seem reasonable to therefore leave the implementation of those views in the personal and private realm.

Are you then arguing that political solutions aren't be the only recourse now? If we don't accept political solutions (i.e., "compromises"), it goes right back to the "religious" approach, doesn't it?

Verbal fencing aside, why do you assume that I'm prejudiced, simply because I disagree with you? I prefer my universe to be tolerant of diversity, thus allowing people like you and me to hold (and practice) their viewpoints.

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Ack

[The Queen]

I'm not an AC, I don't know why it posted that way... crap. That's mine up there. Sorry.

The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

Good question, maybe Fedex is the answer?

[human bean]

Or DHL?

Re:Interesting Link

[tesserae]

Yep, "mind-bending" is about right.

For me, the resolution goes like this: everyone gets to have their own opinion, regardless, and gets to exercise it at their discretion unless somebody else demonstrates conclusively that such exercise will damage said someone else. A logical extension argues that third parties should also be included, which is where the right-to-life issue stalls out.

As far as I can tell, though, this is something pretty new: from my viewpoint, the whole thing pretty much swings on the brilliant (or perhaps I mean "diabolical") coining of the term "right to life," which is pretty damned hard to fight... But it's interesting to note that virtually every right-to-lifer I've talked to only feels that way about embryonic people -- when it comes to war or capital punishment, they're on the other side (despite the fact that innocents die those ways, too).

So, Queen-hunny, I can't really answer the question except to say that accommodating the largest possible number of divergent viewpoints means having the least possible set of rules, regardless of how much any particular subgroup wants their own special set. Otherwise, you're going to annoy almost everyone, instead of annoying only a small subgroup (regardless of their conviction that they have the holy truth).

In the real world (the US part of it, anyway), however, it's getting harder and harder to defend this sort of freedom. On bad days, I think your last sentence most likely portends our future...

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Re:About time

[Valdrax]

I wonder what those people who exhorted president Bush to cut off funding for embryo research will say when they hit seventy and start forgetting where they live? I'll bet you they run right off to other countries and get their treatments. After all it isn't sinful if the neighbors don't know. Nonsense. Some of us have higher ethics that don't boil down to "what everyone else thinks." There's something just wrong about mining dead babies for medical treatments. It's somewhere lower that Niven's "corpscicle" raiding, but I'm sure that society will come up with the same morally indifferent excuses if this kind of research continues. I'm appalled by this kind of research. This is just a step below "organlegging."

Re:lotsa rules

[Valdrax]

Okay, how is this different from sci-fi author Niven's "organ bootlegging?" Oh, right. We're making it legal. After all, they're not really human. Their humanity is a "personal, private issue."

Sick. If this research goes anywhere, it'll open up a whole new world of mining dead babies for medical resources. I'm sure that once some benefit comes from it, people will all demand that it's their right as well. It's this kind of shrugging off ethics once something profits you that's the core of everything that's wrong in society from corporate pollution to drug dealing.

Re:lotsa rules

[tesserae]

how is this different from sci-fi author Niven's "organ bootlegging?" ...they're not really human. Their humanity is a "personal, private issue."

There is a world of difference between the mature, functional adults who were "broken up for parts" in Niven's stories, and a fertilized embryo which hasn't even begun to differentiate. If you can't see that, I can't help you (except to comment that no one I've talked to would even think of a full-scale funeral for a miscarried embryo at that stage -- it's extremely unlikely that the mother would notice anything more than a heavy period).

Sick. If this research goes anywhere, it'll open up a whole new world of mining dead babies for medical resources.

One more time: not "dead babies," but undifferentiated embryos. The ones under discussion are left over from in-vitreo fertilizations for couples unable to conceive; since they aren't used and are otherwise going to be destroyed, this use makes sense.

But I'm sure I'm wasting my breath (or finger motion, as the case is...) -- you no doubt have some problem with helping infertile women conceive, too. So let me further confuse the issue for you, and ask if (since the Scottish successes in cloning non-stem cells from adult animals) every cell in your body has recently acquired some sacrosanct status? Remember that you naturally shed a lot of skin cells...

It's this kind of shrugging off ethics once something profits you that's the core of everything that's wrong in society from corporate pollution to drug dealing.

I suspect you actually mean "morals" instead of "ethics," but the reply isn't that different between the two cases:

I'm going to challenge you to come up with a set of rules for us to follow, which incorporate the entire US population's collective set of ethics (and morals, just for good measure), without either limiting anyone's freedom or forcing anyone to do something they find morally or ethically repugnant. Note that the population under discussion includes a wide variety of Christian faiths, Islamic faiths, Hindu, assorted Asian and African and Native American religions, plus atheists and agnostics who don't practice any religious behavior but do have their own morals and ethics, and a whole lot more. And I'll tell you in advance that you can't do that -- there's too much internal inconsistency in the data set.

The only possible resolution I see is to have the minimal set of rules which are required behavior (another post of mine on this topic discusses this), and otherwise allow the individuals to decide within their own framework what they will or will not morally and ethically do. Otherwise, you're in the position of forcing your morality on others, and I can tell you in advance that's not going to work. Aside from constitutional issues, people aren't going to sit still for it.

But that requires people to be responsible for themselves, which is an unpopular notion at the moment, especially in some religious circles...

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Re:About time

[bmacy]

Please understand that these "foaming-at-the-mouth radical right-wingers" are simply being consistent. If you believe human life starts at the point of conception then this kind of research is at the expense of ending an innocent human life.

And though you might not agree with the belief, can you see why someone who takes such a stance would not be able to tolerate the behavior of people with the other view? To them they are standing by while human lives are being taken by the thousands.

Brian Macy