Stem Cells Derived from Human Clones 594
catbutt writes "Wired News reports that South Korean scientists have made a dramatic breakthrough by deriving stem cells from cloned embryos of patients with spinal cord injuries. It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out." From the article: "Researchers must test the cells in animals before they can try the therapy in humans. But embryonic stem-cell researchers were shocked and delighted by the advance, which many had referred to as a distant possibility until they saw this study by Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues at Seoul National University, which appears in the May 20 issue of Science."
Still need those eggs... (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
This is certainly good news, but human eggs are still needed, and from what I understand, harvesting them is still time-consuming, painful, and risky.
From Aurora Health Care [aurorahealthcare.org]:
Ouch.
A truly significant advance would be to use these stem cells to grow a human ovary in the lab, and harvest eggs from that. Such an advance would dramaatically decrease the need for additional female donors.
Re:Still need those eggs... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still need those eggs... (Score:5, Informative)
In the article, you'll see that one of the reasons why the technique was so successful is because they avoided using the frozen eggs. Freshly harvested eggs are better.
eggs, no prob. (Score:2)
So, this egg research specifically suggested that it was a technique expected to reduce the need for eggs from donors.
I don't have the link, but it could be at betterhumans. I'll go take a loo
Okay, found that link. (Score:4, Informative)
Google cached version [66.102.7.104]
Here's the BBC with their coverage of the same story. [bbc.co.uk]
Re:eggs, no prob. (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you are saying is that we can now breed 47 generations of people without having to actually go to the trouble of actually growing the people. Just reproduce the gametes and you can have sexual reproduction.
In theory you could do experiments on people that previously were only practical on rats/bacteria (which have shorter generation times).
How's that for an ethics nightmare?
Re:Still need those eggs... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still need those eggs... (Score:3, Insightful)
There would be the added benifit of those cells having the same mitocondria (though I don't believe that has ever been a
and here is the correct link (Score:3, Interesting)
anyways here is the link:
Oogenesis in cultures derived from adult human ovaries [rbej.com]
The horrible truth. (Score:5, Funny)
It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out.
Customer: I'd like a replacement arm, hand and penis, please.
Service Tech: Ah, you must be from Slashdot!
I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
Why would those parts wear out all at ... oh .
You obviously suffer from poor technique.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Funny)
You can prevent most repetitive stress injuries with a slight alteration to your routine.
Then again, I'm amibidextrous.
It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a s (Score:2)
Right about the time we have too-cheap-to-meter fusion power.
I keep thinking there's a Jengo Fett joke lurking in this subject, somewhere.
Re:The horrible truth. (Score:2)
Ah, you must be from Slashdot!
You do that to Slashdot posts? And I thought overweight men in diapers was a weird fetish.
Yup (Score:5, Funny)
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news (Score:2, Troll)
Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
If these guys are smart, then they will describe an embryo as a fertilized egg. Since the harvested egg is never fertilized (they are just using the cell itself, not its nucleus) they might define this as a new category of material and get around the ban on embyotic stem cells.
Just my $0.02 USD.
Zaphod Beeblebrox anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
hmm... other possibilites are coming to mind... wonder how many happy girlfriends there will be once people start getting second.... nevermind.
Re:Zaphod Beeblebrox anyone? (Score:2)
Re:Zaphod Beeblebrox anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Zaphod Beeblebrox anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
I absolutely refuse to get another head .. or toungue for that matter.
And I don't need two heads - my brain is already a dual coreRe:Zaphod Beeblebrox anyone? (Score:3, Funny)
So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil? (Score:2)
Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that simple.
If you have Organization A -- say, a university -- which does LOTS of things other than stem cell research. If they do that kind of research without using the cells that W approves, then they lose federal funding for the WHOLE UNIVERSITY. Not just the Stem Cell Dept.
So, yeah, it is a showstopper for many places.
But hey, I'm sure the US won't mind outsourcing it's health care to Asia in the future.
Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
And as far as the whole "Axis of Evil" thing, we have too much economic and military interest in South Korea to safely piss them off.
This has gotta be a gag by some students.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This has gotta be a gag by some students.. (Score:4, Funny)
Well it's starting to become reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, as it was pointed out multiple times, that just wasn't true. Of course, as was predicted, the places that do allow that sort of research will move in leaps and bounds ahead of the US in these fields.
Didn't think it would be quite that quick though..
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank you so very much, neoconservatives.
I know Christopher Reeve would like to thank you too...unfortunately he's feeling rather dead at the moment.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you are confused about something.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:3, Insightful)
So because the scientists in private companies don't get to suck off the teet[sic] of government tax money they simply won't innovate?
How wonderfully simple you make things...simply wrong, that is.
Look...you have two teams of researchers, both trying to be the first to spearhead innovations in the field. One team gets funding from their government. The other does not. All other things being equal, which team do you think is going to cross the finish line first?
Hope this makes things clearer for you.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:2, Troll)
The multibillion dollar drug industries who do this research seem to be doing just fine off of their own capitalistic powers at the time.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:2)
"Communism"?
For a while there you were actually making some kind of sense. Too bad it couldn't last.
Happy trolling to you.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:4, Insightful)
neoconservatives
Neoconservative refers primarily to somebody's position on foreign policy.
Perhaps you meant, simply, "conservatives"? Or "social conservatives," as that viewpoint opposes destruction of embryoes? Or "fiscal conservatives," as that viewpoint opposes government funding of research?
Overuse of "neoconservative" has just about drained the meaning of this alleged insult.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:5, Informative)
"Neoconservative" originally (back in the '70's) referred to market-oriented conservatives like Irving Kristol and the Chicago-school economists. They had very little to say about foreign policy, and a great deal to say about domestic policy, although when translated it mostly came out as "the market will take care of it."
They were called "neoconservatives" to distinguish them from old-style conservatives, who were still in favour of various kinds of paternalistic government intervention, and very much tied to religious causes. Old-style conservatives were anti-civil-rights, pro-big-military, pro-God and anti-abortion. Neocons were pro-civil-rights, anti-big-military, non-religious and pro-choice.
Other than a few policy advisory positions and Reagan's first budget chief, who didn't last long, the neo-conservatives never gained any significant degree of political power.
GWB is not a neo-conservative. He's an old-style conservative. Neo-conservatism was a practical failure in the United States. The major neoconservative policy initiatives--like reducing government spending--were never even tried.
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are saying that I shouldn't get to choose where my taxes go regarding morally ambiguous activities?
The federal funds that go into scientific research are always moderated by various groups that push and pull based on morals they feel are important, as well as those who push based on monetary objectives. Eventually, no doubt, stem cell research will be given more federal money.
Further, limited or restricted use federal funds does not mean lack of funds, nor does it make this research illegal. It does restrict it somewhat since the way most research institutions are set up they can't seperate their different monetary uses enough such that if any one of them are doing stem cell research outside of the federal funding it puts other research there at jepardy for more federal funding.
It is worthwhile to note that many, if not most, new areas of research do not get any federal funding until they've been proven using other funding or in other institutions/countries. The Gov't is very conservative at the beginning of new technologies, especially those which have such heavy ethical complications.
The fact that the government is only providing very limited funding is very much in line with what they've done in the past, and I hope what they do in the future. I suspect too much money, for instance, was sunk into fusion at the beginning - everyone wanted to 'win' that race.
Exactly. This could have been us...but now we get to play catch-up.
It's often cheaper (and more rewarding the long run) to wait and play catch up. And believe me, if there is a real breakthrough you know that we'll catch up and likely surpass the leaders - and just as likely it won't be due to or held back by federal funds in any way.
-Adam
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:5, Informative)
how Bush was saying the existing stem cell lines would be enough.
Bush never said those lines would be enough. He simply said those lines had already been created through action objectionable to some (embryo destruction) and thus research on them could be funded without funding further objectionable action, and refused to fund research on lines created by embryo destruction in the future.
For the record, there was never any prohibition on private funding of embryonic stem cell research. And there was no federal funding before Bush chose to allow this limited funding.
Private Funding? (Score:3, Interesting)
Research universities are funded by the gov't. Labs are built with government money. Supplies are shipped courtesy of Uncle Sam.
"Private Funding" is BS in academia.
On that note, "there was no federal funding before Bush chose to allow this limited funding" is also crap. The issue became large during his term in office; it's an issue of research and medicine, it should have not
Re:Well it's starting to become reality (Score:3, Informative)
"Of course, as was predicted, the places that do allow that sort of research will move in leaps and bounds ahead of the US in these fields."
I'm sure you realize that stem cell research is fully legal in the united states. It may not be federally subsidized, but it's still perfectly legal.
But will the organs be on time? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But will the organs be on time? (Score:2)
Re:But will the organs be on time? (Score:5, Funny)
Geez, don't people learn from Science Fiction anymore? Why do they even bother if we're not going to listen? WHEN ARE WE GOING TO LEARN ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF PLAYING GOD!
Good work (Score:3, Informative)
Professor Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues also successfully cloned human embryos last year [slashdot.org].
Sorry wrong linke (Score:2, Informative)
And the related science paper from last year. [sciencemag.org]
NPR (Score:2, Informative)
There was coverage [npr.org] of this on NPR this morning as well.
Lot of testing to be done. (Score:2)
Plus let's not forget the religious ramifications of such a discovery. You can bet there will be a lot of pushback on this.
Re:Lot of testing to be done. (Score:2, Funny)
Scientists clone human stem cells from patients (Score:3, Informative)
Fri May 20, 2005 2:54 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korean scientists who cloned the first human embryo to use for research said on Thursday they have used the same technology to create batches of embryonic stem cells from nine patients.
Their study fulfills one of the basic promises of using cloning technology in stem cell research -- that a piece of skin could be taken from a patient and used to grow the stem cells.
Researchers believe the cells could one day be trained to provide tailored tissue and organ transplants to cure juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and even to repair severed spinal cords. Unlike so-called adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the potential from the beginning to form any cell or tissue in the body.
Woo Suk Hwang and colleagues at Seoul National University report their process is much more efficient than they hoped, and yielded 11 stem cell batches, called lines, from six adults and three children with spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and a rare immune disorder.
"This study shows that embryonic stem cells can be derived using nuclear transfer from patients with illness
"I am amazed at how much they have accomplished in just a year and the amount, the quality and the rigorousness of their evidence," Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, a stem cell expert who reviewed the study, said in a telephone interview.
While the patients whose cells were copied do not stand at this time to benefit, the researchers hope to study the cells to understand their conditions better.
They also say their method may be less controversial than other work with embryonic stem cells because, by their definition, a human embryo was never actually created.
The report, published in the journal Science, is certain to add to the growing U.S. political controversy over the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Opponents say all such work is unethical and should be banned because human life begins at conception and should not be destroyed.
NO HUMAN EMBRYO
Hwang said his method differs from that first used to derive human embryonic stem cells in 1998 and he proposes using a new term for the cloned embryos -- a "nuclear transfer construct."
"I think this construct is not an embryo," he said. "There is no fertilization in our process. We use nuclear transfer technology. I can say this result is not an embryo but a nuclear transfer construct." The sheep Dolly, the first adult mammal cloned, was made using nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus is removed from an egg cell, replaced with the nucleus of the animal or person to be cloned, and then fused. The egg begins dividing as if it had been fertilized and sometimes becomes an embryo.
Cattle, pigs, sheep, cats and other animals have been cloned using this method.
Schatten said when scientists first got stem cells from human embryos in 1998, they broke open the little days-old ball of cells called a blastocyst.
In the current study, he said, they simply laid down the blastocyst in a lab dish filled with human "feeder cells."
David Magnus and Mildred Cho of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics in California agreed.
"There is no reason ever to believe one of these things could ever become a human being," said Magnus, who with Cho wrote a commentary on the work.
"Even for people that believe that potentiality is the key to personhood, these things, whatever they are, they are not people. Somatic cell nuclear transfer is an ethically better way of producing stem cells than using excess IVF (in vitro fertilization or test-tube baby) embryos."
Schatten said the method could also eventually do away with the need for some animal experiments, which some people also find objectionable and which others say is not always a good way to predict human medical treatments.
Opponents of stem cell research had not had an opportunity to review the paper and could not immediately comment.
Luckily our government protects us from this (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a good example of how really vital research is happening in other parts of the world, and we're off on the sidelines. Our kids will be able to explain how evolution is wrong, and creatiomism explains everything. Their kids will be able to cure spinal cord injuries.
From what I understand, this is really huge because stem cells from other people tend to be rejected by the immune system.
So the bush administration compromise that allowed researchers to work with existing
Re:Luckily our government protects us from this (Score:2, Insightful)
It sounds an awful lot like Blade Runner to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for advancing the health of the living, and I'm all for stem-cell research. But you have to admit, it's kinda freaky to be talking about putting expiration dates on what can conceivably be considered a "human" lifeform.
Another echo from the movie quote database in my head is from Jurassic Park, where Ian says something like, "You were so concerned
Re:Luckily our government protects us from this (Score:5, Informative)
I would like to point out that while you may disagree with the those who believe in creationism and those who oppose stem cell research, you should realize that neither stem cell research nor production of new stem cell lines has been banned in the US. The only restriction is that taxpayer funds cannot be used to support it. If you feel that new stem cell lines are necessary, you are more than welcome to gather support from others who feel the same and provide the necessary funding. But don't ask people who are firmly opposed to such research to help pay for it.
Re:Luckily our government protects us from this (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? People who are firmly opposed to the war in Iraq have to pay for it. Do you think we have the luxury of only using our tax money for things we personally approve? There's quite a long list throughout history that shows that people are usually taxed to support things they may or may not support.
Clarification, only federal taxes (Score:3, Informative)
Just wanted to add the clarification that it's not even all taxes, just federal - California is suppotring research via state taxes.
Re:Luckily our government protects us from this (Score:5, Informative)
No, that is not the only restriction. There are two restrictions:
1. Federal money cannot be used for embryonic stem cell research.
2. Any facility performing embryonic stem cell research will not receive federal funding for any project regardless of subject.
Due to the amount of items that federal money is used for, this is about as close to a ban as you can get without just coming out and saying it.
Luckily we have progressive states like New Jersey and California who are attempting to fight back against the conservative Federal government. As a resident of New Jersey, I fully support the efforts of Governors Codey and McGreevey to setup stem cell research in the State.
Obligatory SW Quote (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Obligatory SW Quote (Score:2)
Ask Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
And I want something purely technical but readable by the layman. Also, I'm looking for something with as little discussion of "ethics" as possible. I'm coming from a POV that would allow abortions until the fifty-seventh trimetster, so the ethics side of it bores me.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:pet peeve (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you realize that embroyoes are destroyed during fertility treatments? When a couple is trying to conceive they fertilize many eggs and destroy all but one.
What you probably meant was that you are against destroying embroyes for scientific research purposes, you are most likely perfecty OK with destroying them as long as somebody is trying to have a baby.
Re:pet peeve (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you see any difference between somebody intentionally destroying an embryo and an event in nature resulting in that destruction?
Do you see any difference between me shooting a person and between a person dying in a hurricane?
I guess you'd say I'm "against hurricanes," but it'd be senseless to pass a law against them. In the same way your question doesn't prove anything to me. We pass laws against people killing people, and accept that we can't save every life.
I believe that an embryo is a human being and I accept all conclusions that follow from that fact.
And I do not believe that we can legislate that an embryo is not a human being simply because some people disagree than we can legislate that a black person is not a human being simply because some people believed so in the 1800's.
Re:pet peeve (Score:4, Informative)
What is missing from your descriptin is the numbers. Typically 20-50 eggs are introduced to sperm. From these, normally 10-20 will fertilize. Of those 10-20, 2-5 will usually be implanted, and 1-3 will normally grow to babies and be born. For each step more source material than necessary is used in the process to better insure the eventual outcome of at least one healthy baby. Along the way there are many decisions made by the doctors, which the IVF couple usually never even hears about, that result in the destruction of many potentially viable cells.
Color of Television (Score:4, Funny)
"Now that," Case said to his glass, all his bitterness suddenly rising in him like bile, "that is so much bullshit."
The Japanese had already forgotten more neurosurgery than the Chinese had ever known. The black clinics of Chiba were the cutting edge, whole bodies of technique supplanted monthly, and still they couldn't repair the damage he'd suffered in that Memphis hotel.
In Other News... (Score:4, Funny)
The end of religion? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course this all assumes that people will actually refuse treatment because of their religious/moral beliefs which I highly doubt, even diehard churchgoers don't believe that the sun revolves around the earth anymore.
Re:The end of religion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, natural selection only works if the "darwin award qualified" individual removes itself form the gene pool prior to procreation. The sad fact is, those most likely to procreate at the most prolific rate will be those most likely to believe stem cell research is a tool of satan.
Re:The end of religion? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest you open your eyes and look around. Getting your perspective on religion from Slashdot is like asking the KKK for information on blacks.
Yawn... (Score:2)
Stop Spreaing Misinformation! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop Spreaing Misinformation! (Score:5, Insightful)
Science has become an exceedingly expensive business. Effectively, scientists are *not* free to research whatever they want, because they are limited by funding. Most endeavors in science have become so expensive that there are only two types of entities that can fund them: governments, and large private corporations. The latter are far too risk-averse to actually do anything *big*, so its pretty much left up to governments. By cutting off government funding for a particular avenue of research, you have effectively dictated that scientists in your country are not to persue that research.
Now, that is perfectly within the rights of governments, to decide how their research money should be spent. But there is always the niggling question of "the rest of the world". If our government is unwilling to fund crucial research for certain moralistic reasons, other governments unfettered by such restrictions will do so, and will make advancements.
Americans in general seem rather oblivious to the very real "race" between nations that exists. The high standard of living in the United States is directly related to its position as an economic and military superpower. The military preeminance can exis only as long as the economic one does, for defense too has become an exceedingly expensive business. The ramifications of China or Europe making a crucial breakthrough in medicine due to stem cells would be enormous. As long as we were locked out of that technology, we would be beholden to them for any of the benefits that it would provide. The result would be billions of dollars leaving the United States for China or Europe, to purchase these services unavailable in the US. If the US bans such purchases, a black market will form, one that will be very expensive and time-consuming to combat. Either way, we risk our position as an economic superpower, and once we lose that position, we can say goodbye to the style of life to which we have become accustomed.
Re:Stop Spreaing Misinformation! (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, none of that stuff is really 'big'. Its not fundemental research. We've been to space, its a routine thing now. The X-Prize is just trying to get companies to do stuff we can already do, except faster and cheaper. Which is great, because c
Re:not even (Score:3, Insightful)
They were generally better at "fundamental", groundbreaking research, at trying to solve problems that had never been solved before. They thus got the first satellite into space, the first humann into space, and the first space station
Re:ffs, think for a change (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, most people in drug research will tell you that corporate drug research is not fundemental. Heck, fundemental research isn't even profitable. You think the cure for cancer is going to come out of a corporation? Don't be
Re:Stop Spreaing Misinformation! (Score:3, Interesting)
Bush: Koreans will Burn in Hell! [Wired] (Score:4, Informative)
Bush Blasts Human Clone Research
Associated Press
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,67586,0
08:40 AM May. 20, 2005 PT
The White House on Friday condemned research in South Korea for producing human embryros through cloning and said President Bush would veto any legislation that loosens federal restrictions in the United States on embryonic stem cell research.
White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."
Separately, he said the president would veto legislation to permit spending government money for stem cell research that would destroy human embryos. A measure by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) and Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) would lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.
Bush, in his fifth year in office, has not yet exercised his first veto. The White House also promised a veto this week of a highway bill if it exceeded the administration's spending limits.
Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life."
The remark was a public reaffirmation of his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research.
Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."
Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year's election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.
End of story
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2, Flamebait)
Would anyone ever let one finish gestation, grow up, get a job and have kids of it's own?
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:3, Insightful)
So what if a woman needs stem cells to repair her spine. She uses her own DNA and her own eggs to produce stem cells.
How can a woman "concieve" all alone?
If it is still life, then why can't gay women get married under the church?
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
Oscast need never worry about being stabbed to death, as he possesses an almost supernatural ability to miss the point.
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
If you read the article! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please read the article before comenting next time.
Re:If you read the article! (Score:5, Interesting)
This method is taking Unfertilized Embryo cells and replacing its nucleus with the chromosomes of the Adult Host. If the Embryo grows to maturity, it would be considered a Clone of the Adult (but it couldn't, because it isn't implanted into a womb). The Scientists culture the cells in the lab, take the developing Clone, chop it into its component Embryonic Stem Cells, and now the Embryonic Stem Cells can be used in other Adult Hosts to treat ailments...
Now, some may argue that destroying the blastocyst of the Clone (same genetic material as adult) is the same as destroying the blastocyst of a fetus (unique genetic material from adults). Personally, I'd rather use the method above, than have to resort to nastier methods (such as developing a [sub-]human species specifically for harvesting.... )
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
Seriously, there's an ethical debate to be had here which is too important to reduce to religion v science flamewars. We need some intelligent argument as to what makes cloning right because it seems to me as a vaguely agnostic liberal, it's difficult if not impossible to draw the line beyond which we deserve to have our lives protected by the law. Is there anything beyond the purely utilitarian view that this research will save x
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
We need some intelligent argument as to what makes cloning right...
What makes eating beans right? Maybe we should have a discussion about what reasons people might consider cloning to be unethical or immoral. Someone somewhere will probably consider any given act you can think of to be "wrong" for some reason. The question really boils down to two things:
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
Sperm and egg are alive (Score:3, Funny)
Kill one of each and you've committed murder. Allow one of each to die and it's manslaughter.
And if you sincerely believe that, and you've ever allowed your eggs or sperm to die instead of having them frozen, please turn yourself into to the nearest police station to face charges.
Life != Personhood (Score:4, Insightful)
We destroy 'life' all the time. Everything we eat was alive at one point, regardless of whether you are a vegitarian or not. The fact that something has DNA similar to ours does not make it 'sacred'.
To anticipate the obvious troll response, someone who is asleep or in a coma, might not be self-aware, but they have the capacity for it. And no, Terri Schiavo was not in a coma. Huge peices of her brain had been liquified. She no longer had the capacity for self-awareness.
Yes, by the way. If we ever create a computer that has these qualities, then I would consider it a person.
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
Evolve.
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:2)
So the cell divides and multiples, what makes that diffrent from any other animal cell or fo
Re:Life starts at conception (Score:4, Insightful)
WHY NOT dump embryo research and head towards alternatives?
Because it is a promising and helpful line of research. I mean if you want to stop other people from researching something, I think the onus is on you to provide a scientific and proven reason why they should do it. Otherwise it is just your unscientific opinion against theirs and there is no reason to give your opinion about what someone else is doing more weight than their own.
Re:I'm surprised (Score:2)
Re:traffic of organs (Score:2)
Re:traffic of organs (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you mean the organs of a child who has died in an accident? Nothing wrong there - you'd expect most parents to be proud that their kid's brief life might at least have continued to flourish in some indirect way.
Or do you mean, killing kids to get their organs? I'll be looking forward to your pointing that one out in the news when the time comes.
But killing an embryo? OK, so you've got a handful of cells dividing, at least for a little while, anyway, in a petri dish. No mom, no pregnancy, and no way they would ever amount to anything - let alone a person - without continual intervention from science, which is still beyond us anyway. So, that group of cells, completely unviable as they sit there, and without any means by which to be differentiated from a similarly complex group of paramecium (which is to say, there is no there there yet, no framework on which to hang the concept of person-hood - merely the eventual potential, which could also be said of the reproductive organs of a man and a women eyeing each other over a beer), what's wrong with using them to save lives? To shoot for getting the paralyzed to walk again? For that kid nearly does die in an accident to breath again off a respirator?
just to improve the quality of an old one - that possibly won't last much longer?
So, the son of a friend just had his spine severed in a road accident. He's done from the waist down, now. He's 22. Might as well write him off, huh? After all, he's so old, he's pretty much close to dead. Those dozen cells in the petri dish, though - set them next to his hospital bed, and they'll thrive! Why, they'll be a smiling, bubbly little baby in just a matter of months! No? No.
Whether you eat plants or meat or both, you kill billions of cells every day to improve the quality of your life. You eat them to survive, remember? There's as much of a human being in a dozen cells as there is in a stalk of asparagus. But if I could produce eggs (that would otherwise go to waste) that could be used to help restore my friend's son's mobility to him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And, any dozen cells that divide along the way won't have it in them, under the circumstances (lacking, as they do, any sort of nervous system as a platform to have anything), to really weigh in on it. That's not an "all-new human life," it's a dozen cells. But a 22-year-old able to walk again: that would be an all-new human life. When we've made it that far, bio-tech-wise, and your child is lying there with a broken back, pretty much guaranteed never to have children as a result, would you begrudge her the same? Or, does God prefer a dozen unviable cells in a dish over paralyzed people or new mothers with degenerative neural diseases that will rob their children of a normal life? Getting that mom healthy is for her young children, though you're not set up to see that larger picture, it seems.
Re:traffic of organs (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a little lesson for you guys:
1. You claim God is all-powerful. Then he doesn't need your help, does he?
2. You claim God is unknowable. If you then claim that you know what God would want, or that something is God's will, you are a fucking moron.
Re:traffic of organs (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the scientist is creating a small group of cells, using material from the person that he intends to help, and with no intention or expectation that those small cells will or could form a viable embryo. You can call it an embryo if you want, but it only has life in the sense that any small group of cells has life. There is no nervous system, there is no means by which those cells can respirate, and certainly no means by which they can be invested with any of the qualities we assign to a more fully formed organism (let alone a person). The scientist isn't suddenly confronted with a "life", he's just looking at the cells he put together specifically to accomplish the theraputic task that is his goal. You make it sound like he's looking at a fetus, which, of course, we're not talking about. When he uses those cells to theraputic effect in his patient, he is, of course, sending some of them off to live and reproduce as part of the therapy. Those that he doesn't need aren't preserved any more than you preserve all of the cells that make up your arm when you scratch an itch (the act of which "kills" hundreds or thousands of your cells).
Okay so life as you understand it is defined by the number of cells that make up any being.
You won't be any more credible or pursuasive by putting words in someone else's mouth. I didn't say that, and you know it. This issue is about whether or not a dozen or two cells provide an adequate source of stem cells. One thing we don't have to worry about is whether or not those same dozen or two cells are a person, because they simply are not. If all goes well in a scenario supportive of gestation, those cells can wind up, millions of divisions later, being the start of a fetus. Until then, you've got undifferentiated cells (which is why they have so much theraputic promise) and no structure that could conceivably be referred to as a fetus, let alone a "baby" or "unborn person."
So according to your logic gorrilas are more alive than humans are
No, that's according to your twisted rhetorical version of what I'm saying. Just because it would serve your point of view to somehow "catch" me saying that, I didn't say that, nor can you infer that (with any intellectual honesty) from what I said. Gorilla embryos, at the dozen-or-two-cells level, are virtually indistinguishable from ours. But in any way that matters, so are chickens and toads. The meaningful differences between us and gorillas (which are slim indeed, as an expressed percentage of their DNA) don't really manifest themselves until farther along in development. That species evolved along a different path, and found (until pretty recently) a succesful niche that didn't require quite the IQ or communications skills that man did. They stayed in the jungle, while we spread out into the steppes and savannah, where better upright mobility and keener group predation made for better survival. Either way, both the gorilla and the human are fantastically complex by the time gestation is complete - but then, so is a mouse, just not as much so, on the neurological front.
Your understanding of the ethical implications of embryonic research is hinged on number of cells and viability. So according to your theory, my friend who was born very prematurely was technically not alive while being cared for in an incubator.
Again, you're pretending, because you think it helps your case, that I've said something that I did not. Because you find it important to see a "person" in a dozen cells, you can't imagine (even if it's shown to you, which surely it has been, if you've managed to get through junior high school) any middle ground between the first few divisions of the cells of an embryo, and the extremely complex structures of a several month old fetus. It's not like the
Re:traffic of organs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Soylent Green is people (Score:5, Insightful)
First: At what point does a jumble of cells become life?
At this point, the defiinition in the U.S. legal system is at 27 weeks. When all the major organs have formed, and life and growth are possible outside the womb.
Second: Does stopping a potential life mean the same thing as killing?
You have to watch that one, because contreceptives are suddenly a no-no. As is taking a vow of celebacy.
Third: How is growing a cloned fetus of yourself any different than growing a culture of any other cells?
If there was an easy answer, we would have found it.