Stem Cell Bill Passes in Australia 253
nickd writes "Having recently being passed in the Senate by only 2 votes, an Australian bill to overturn the ban on 'theraputic cloning' has now been passed in the House of Representatives by 82-62. The amendment that was seeking to prevent stem cells being extracted from the eggs of aborted late term female fetuses has also been voted down. The changes will allow scientists to create and use embryos up to 14 days old for research."
Pssshhhaw (Score:4, Funny)
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No.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Visit to Australia (Score:5, Funny)
After that... (Score:5, Funny)
The article failed to mention that after 14 days they will be used to create a Shaky's Pizza for each scientist!
Is there bias showing the article itself? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Is there bias showing the article itself? (Score:4, Funny)
No, they would have called them "possible future Einsteins and Ghandis." Although I always get a laugh out of that one since they avoid the "possible future Idi Amins and Stalins," too. Look, mah, no Godwin!
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Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]
Repurcusions for the U.S.? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not necessarily true. Embryonic stem cell research is allowed in the US, from unwanted, lab fertilized eggs. It is even federally funded, but only
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But as your brother post points out, private embryonic stem cell research is legal.
You cannot get federal funding for stem cell research on new cell lines. Everything else is fine.
It's a ban by any other name. (Score:2)
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I stand corrected. Everything else is legal.
You cannot claim the executive order stopped all research in that direction. California has put tons of money into new stem cell lines, without federal money. This is totally legal. Other countries have done so as well.
You are not being honest by calling this a ban on stem cell research, or even a ban on embryonic stem cell research. This is just a ban on federal funding using new embryonic stem cell lines.
Just because you don't like the result does not mean
Lack of funding effectively a ban (Score:2)
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(In NW Europe, the only country blocking this is Ireland)
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It is allowed in the US. Privately funded embryonic stem cell research is allowed.
Federally funded is allowed, if you use existing stem cell lines.
So technically, W was the first president to fund stem cell research... He actually came up with a compromise on the issue (that satisfies neither side, thus the compromise).
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Don't worry about that; it's pretty much inevitable in every area.
Big business runs the country, and they do everything to maximize short-term profit. Usually this involves "tragedy of the commons" results - like "eating your seed corn".
Babykillers!! ..? (Score:2, Insightful)
I, for one, do see a slight difference between a cell and a full life-size baby, though. And if that makes me a "terrorist, who disregards human life", so be it. I just see it as a baby-could-be, if anything other than a cell. But hey.. I women "kill" a "baby" about once a month too,
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And what happens when we get to the point in science where we could develop a baby start-to-finish completely outside the mother's womb? You would fertalize the egg in a petri dish (yo
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My take is that a baby isn't a "person" until it shows mental capabilities which exceed that of an animal. This doesn't happen for several months. It is legal to kill an animal. (I had two distinctly different types of animal for lunch.)
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In my opinion, yes. Of course, I am stricken with a mental disease called "rationality". There is no known cure.
OTOH, a baby represents one of few chances for a pair of humans to reproduce, so killing one without BOTH parents' permission would be a rather severe crime.
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A fertilized egg and an 7-month-old baby have two things in common: neither of them is a sentient being (in the Star Trek sense of the word) but both have the potential to become one. I don't see how a rational person can defend the killing of a fertilized egg and the eating of an animal but not the killing of a pre-sentient baby or especially a blob of undifferentiated human c
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Please correct me if I'm wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Once again, people are asking the wrong question. (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone wins. The fundamentalists don't have to finance something they don't agree with, yet modern science is allowed to continue promising research.
Re:Once again, people are asking the wrong questio (Score:2)
Nobody jumped on this? (Score:2)
Flaming bush (Score:2, Funny)
Silly discussion (Score:2)
This is 99% of the people don't understand the argument.
Embryonic stem cell treatment needs to be genotype specific. This means that your DNA has to be used to create some stem cells so they can be used to treat you. This implies there is a way to take your DNA and make a new human even if you never let it develop.
Therefore, the foundation of this is human cloning on a fairly reliable scale. Not one or two "experiemnts" a year but every
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No. You can use adult stem cells to apply the treatment that you discovered using experiments with embryonic stem cells.
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Re:We Do It Because We Can (Score:4, Insightful)
This can take something that is rather upleasant in the first place, that would not be avoided, and turn it into something that can save millions of lives.
That being said, I hope the bill has a rider in it that says a person cannot recieve compensation for donating the genetic material.
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I'm glad things worked out for your family.
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And some people believe that *not* killing infidels is more unethical/immoral than letting them live. Does that make them right?
That being said, I hope the bill has a rider in it that says a person cannot recieve compensation for donating the genetic material.
Excellent point. Granted, these are aborted babies that will be tossed anyway, but I'd hate to see a market for this "material" spring up.
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No, but the OP said something suggesting that this was basically a voteout against morals or something like that, which I will argue it wasn't, because there are certain camps of morality that believe there is nothing wrong with this.
I think there is nothing wrong with stem cells b
Ethics? (Score:2)
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Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
WOW! I smoke, drink, do drugs and download porn. I had no idea I was a fundamentalist!
What happens when they pass a law that allows for experimentation on people your age?
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Too abd this isn't about people, it's about a ball of about 128 cells.
Or do yo cry for all the 'people' that your body sheds every day?
No, I like where this is going. (Score:2)
So, are identical twins one person? Which one gets the soul? Does it alternate? Do they each get half a soul? What about chimeras [wikipedia.org]--do they have two souls? Do they get to vote twice?
Now, you might be thinking, that's ridiculous! But if you're going to start accepting criteria like sapience or a fully-formed nervous system, then you're back onto the slippe
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I find your argument specious but your rhetoric beguiling. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter and learn more of your wonderful organisation and its baby smoothies.
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And the imagery I had in mind was the trailer-trash Jerry Springer fan who will do anything for a quick buck, and even save on her birth control pills at the same time. Not the downtrodden women renting out their uteri. Still, I think you would have done better by asking "why aren't they doing it now?"
Your *persona
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Those limited stem cell lines are contaminated with mouse genes.
Why the push to create endless stem cell lines when a stem cell will reproduce to more and more stem cells forever?
No cell can reproduce forever. Telomeres inside each cell dictate how many times it can reproduce.
Why are we wasting money, time and energy creating more stem cell lines when those resources could be spent on the actual research?
You can't properly carry out the research if you
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See what benefits? There are thousands of blastocysts destroyed every year as "leftovers" from fertility clinics. Why would it benefit researchers to pay someone to have an abortion when there are plenty of viable alternatives sitting in freezers waiting to
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I imagine the parent poster was using the Star Trek definition of the term "sentient". Was your daughter solving differential equations at two months old? Did she do anything "fascinating" that would distinguish her mental functioning from that of an animal?
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If that's your test for sentience [wikipedia.org], most of the population of the planet would fail.
Well that's a matter of opinion, isn't it. For that matter, who's to say all animals (other than humans) are non-sentient?
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WOW! I smoke, drink, do drugs and download porn. I had no idea I was a fundamentalist!
You're obviously not taking the right drugs. I'd recommend a quiet environment and some strong acid, should fix those religious beliefs right up.
What happens when they pass a law that allows for experimentation on people your age?
Yes, that's a reasonable comparison to make. Apart from the fact these 'unborn children' (as you asked us to refer to them) aren't sentient, self-aware or capable of experiencing pain. I
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There are many Alzheimer's patients around the world that have the mental capacity as two-week-old pre-embryonic blastocyst and would probably do about as well against you in a game of chess. Do these people (I can't think of a term as cold a
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There are many Alzheimer's patients around the world that have the mental capacity as two-week-old pre-embryonic blastocyst and would probably do about as well against you in a game of chess.
Your first comparison was genetic material versus an adult, now you're comparing them to alzheimer's patients?
With logic like that you should be defending creationism.
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No, they aren't the only ones but almost all fundamentalists Christians are made at least a bit uncomfortable, and they are the group against the use of both stem cells and cloning technology that carries the most political clout, at least in the U.S., where the Conservative movement and, in particular, the Republican Party have set back important and potentially lif
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As opposed to dying of Parkinson's or various other diseases that cloning research may cure?
I would suppose putting dead viruses into my body is a bit creepy too, but I'd rather do that than die from a disease that could have been prevented with a vaccination.
Rather than looking at just the creepiness factor, you should consider how much human suffering you can cause or alleviate by the choice.
If the choice will sav
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What's wrong with the stem cell lines we already have?
Why the push to create endless stem cell lines when a stem cell will reproduce to more and more stem
Mistaken premises (Score:3, Informative)
On the contrary, I think the arguments against stem cell r
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Do you have any idea how many human embryos get flushed down the toilet at a fertility clinic EVERY DAY? Enough to make abortions statistically insignificant.
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I was not aware of that when I asked the question. However, after a bit of research, it seems that new stem cells will suffer the same fate. Also, I think you are confusing research with application.
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Well there are the Luddites, but we don't bother insulting them because they don't use the internets and would never know that we are making fun of them.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
By the time an abortion has happened, it's WAY TOO LATE to use for genetic research.
What is used are frozen results from fertility clinics. When a couple has trouble reproducing, they'll sample some eggs and sperm from the couple, and put them together. They usually end up with a number of results, perhaps a dozen or more. They then try them, one by one.
When the woman gets pregnant, they're done - and there's usually a few left over.
So, once again: Genetic researchers do not use aborted fetuses.
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When the woman gets pregnant, they're done - and there's usually a few left over.
What's most amazing is that, as understand it, when these leftover fertilized eggs are not used for scientific research, then they are simply destroyed. I'm n
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Actually, as far as I can tell, Fundamentalist Christians have objections to the concept of Women's Lib.
Observe.
Originally, the argument was that Women should be subservient
Problem at the very core. (Score:2)
I think the common theme all drives back to the ridiculous assertion that one should intentionally pass over opportunities for happin
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So only fundamentalist Christians are made a bit uncomfortable with some of these new concepts of cloning, use of aborted embryos for research.
Of course not. But who do you think the US government is pandering to with the bans? The "fundamentalist" (if we're defining anti-stem cell as fundamentalist) christians who make up quite a large portion of the population? Or the small minority of atheists who are somewhat concerned about stem cell research (with atheists of any stripe making up a minority in America)?
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Be careful what you ask for. A lot of Republicans played football and a lot of Democrats were in the marching band. ;-)
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And George Bush was a cheerleader! Cheney is armed, however.
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I thought the labor unions were big democratic supporters?
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Yeah, that's pretty much what they do - it's called parliament.
Oh, don't act all shocked! It works most of the time.
Ethical Science. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the line between Ethical Science and Unethical Science. This is the issue which needs to be debated not every single thing that falls in the gray area.
We know there are some things that are defenatly beyond the range of ethical science. Like Killing healthy and productive people to examin how a perfectly working body and mind works, or taking identical twins away from their parents at birth and giving one a loving family and putting an other one in a box with no human interaction to see where the limit of Nature vs. Nuture lays. Even though these things if widly experemented could help out greater humanity but it beyond the range of Ethical Science, and should be avoided.
Now things like Stem Cell resheach is falling in a Gray areas. Where people feel both ways about it. For Sciencetist there is no real line for this gray area so it is up to them to realize how far to go. This could be good or bad. But that is where the problem lays.
For those people who are against this type of science, it is not because they are religios extreamest or sciencetificly enept. It is just that when they look into the gray area it seems to dark for them to say yes this is right. As well the people who are for it are not always Unreligious, imoral, who only listen to science as the only source of wisdom. They look at the spot in the gray area and they see it is more light then dark.
We can't allow Scienctist to do whatever they want just because they want to see the results, just as much we can't prevent sciencetist from learning more just because interpration of books written over a thousand years ago say it is not right.
So Stem Cell research is actually a very difficult topic and not something that is compleatly sensible at all. It is a difficult decision.
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Yes, but the question is, what is the basis for caring about doing things ethically? If it's just aesthetic, i.e. unethical = that which makes us feel bad, and there's nothing deeper about it than that, then you may as well do an aesthetic cost/benefit analysis for even those actions that at first strike you as unethical. Besides, what one generation finds unethical, the next generation might be more willing to acce
Re:Societal Degeneration From The Non-Christian Le (Score:3, Insightful)
s/Christian/Muslim, and that's still just as accurate. How do you know that your god is real and theirs is not? I don't see you wearing a turban though (or a burqua, though I somehow doubt you're a woman).
Since you can't join every religion (many of them won't allow it), and since you cannot know for a certainty in advance which of them is right (out of several thousand), plus you cannot rule
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Apply logic and reasoning (Score:2)
I'm Catholic for two reasons: 1), I was brought up Catholic and 2), I didn't find any apparent inconsistancies that could be resolved through effort on my part (e.g. bible study, church history, etc.).
One can argue that this still leaves a number of equally valid religions. That is where personal experience steps in, a
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I'm Catholic for two reasons: 1), I was brought up Catholic and 2), I didn't find any apparent inconsistancies that could be resolved through effort on my part (e.g. bible study, church history, etc.).
I appreciate your desire to combine faith and reason, but I don't think internal consistency is any sort of useful guide
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In other words once your crude attempt at logic fails you need to resort to veiled insults? Now that's some good old Christian love, eh?
Also, it's amusing that someone who claim "I'm right because I say so, do what I say" to society calls other people self-centered.
All I can say is tha
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It is interesting that your faith is not absolute, that you accept the possibility that there is no God. I would argue that this makes you a Theistic Agnostic rather than a Christian. Personally, I am an Atheistic Agnosti
Re:Societal Degeneration From The Non-Christian Le (Score:2)
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Re:U.S. the new "down under"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not have a significant qualm regarding stem cell research. I have limited issues with cloning ONLY for the purpose of producing more research material. I also do not consider an embryo to be on the same moral level as a fetus, or a fetus to be the same thing as a viable baby. But I do think every major advance in science presents us with a new slippery slope, and that concepts of morality change drastically over time, based primarily on the decisions made by previous generations.
You can rest assured that whatever you consider slightly dubious but warranted or necessary today with either be absolutely shunned by your children's children, or embraced in ways that would horrify you.
Without a clear line being drawn, I guarantee you that some parts of the world will do whatever is possible. Once you loosen the boundries in one area (creating biologically human lives, even if of highly dubious status), the rest can quickly fall like dominoes. Then you end up with debate over how far a test subject should be allowed to gestate before it's consumed, or debate over the legal status of a human created by humans specifically for study. Genetic manipulation only makes the lines blur further.
Progress is the core of modern society. But err on the side of caution, because the last century has shown what happens when you let morality take a back seat to that progress.
It's the new "FOR THE CHILDREN!' catch phrase! (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I'm as pro-stem cell research as you can be. I think it's great, and I think someone is going to do it no matter what so we might as be the ones who do it.
But I'm tired of the arguement that says, "We must do X, because it could possibly do Y".
It might NOT do Y, also. We do scientific research to gain knowlege. Sometimes there's even a goal in mind behind the search for that knowlege. But this constant shrieking that "We must do stem cell research because it could cure disease (fill in the blank) smacks to much of the the old saw "We must do it FOR THE CHILLLLLLDREEEENNNNN!".
Steve
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You, who speaks so highly of ethics, have just told a boldfaced lie. You know as well as I do that the US gov
Ewwwww (Score:4, Funny)
Somatic research legal and gov. funded (Score:2)
Yes. Somatic (adult) stem cell research is even endorsed by many religious groups (e.g. mainstream protestant and Catholicsm both support adult stem cell research). The main conflict is over the use of embryonic stem cells due to unresolved conflict about when human life begins.
However, the mainstream media distorts the issue and tries to make the conflict appear to be either for or against stem cell research in general. It almost always reports on how s
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