Obama To Reverse Bush Limits On Stem Cell Work 508
An anonymous reader sends this quote from the Associated Press:
"Reversing an eight-year-old limit on potentially life-saving science, President Barack Obama plans to lift restrictions Monday on taxpayer-funded research using embryonic stem cells. ... Under President George W. Bush, taxpayer money for that research was limited to a small number of stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001, lines that in many cases had some drawbacks that limited their potential usability. But hundreds more of such lines — groups of cells that can continue to propagate in lab dishes — have been created since then, ones that scientists say are healthier, better suited to creating treatments for people rather than doing basic laboratory science. Work didn't stop. Indeed, it advanced enough that this summer, the private Geron Corp. will begin the world's first study of a treatment using human embryonic stem cells, in people who recently suffered a spinal cord injury. Nor does Obama's change fund creation of new lines. But it means that scientists who until now have had to rely on private donations to work with these newer stem cell lines can apply for government money for the research, just like they do for studies of gene therapy or other treatment approaches."
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the deep moral objection a significant part of the community has to the use of embryonic stem cells, and given that it looks like there have been large advances in the use of adult and other stem cells, why lift the funding ban? I mean, all other things being equal, wouldn't it be better to not wander into a moral gray area?
As I understand it, one of the major points of the ban was to discourage the field from becoming reliant on stem cells that required further destruction of embryos. I might be wrong, but from my understanding great leaps have been doing just that - that adult and other non-destructive forms of stem cell research have been fruitful. If that's the case, I don't understand the point of lifting the ban other than for purely political purposes.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of lifting the ban is to allow research on real stem cells, to understand how development works and how early development diseases start. It's to understand deadly and debilitating diseases.
The anti-stem cell research crowd seem to conveniently leave out why real stem cells are desired, there are a set of properties that make embryonic stem cells a "gold standard". There are other ways to get stem cells, but apparently they don't actually behave the exact same way.
I think there is a misconception on both sides that embryos are going to be used to cure people, that's not really true, there might never be enough embryos made to treat everyone with the debilitating and deadly diseases, but the research coming out of it should help understand the diseases and cellular biology for better treatment, and to learn how to improve the other means of making stem cells.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
The point of lifting the ban is to allow federal funding of research on real stem cells.
The research itself was never banned, and apparently thrived on private funding.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. The State of California had their own stem cell research [ca.gov] going on during the federal funding ban.
It would be nice if I had a line item veto on my IRS 1040. That way I could go in and veto items that I found morally objectionable. It would nice if I didn't have to fund elements of a government that go against my beliefs. Oh well... they've got the guns.
JOhn
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly! People can be pro-stem cell research, but anti-Federal government funding the use of these cells for disease research. That is my position on this issue. When you get the government involved, it forces people to fund something they might not believe is moral. And that makes it doubly immoral for them. Private funding gives the freedom for those who believe in the possibility of the research the chance to fund it, those who do not agree with it will not have to waste their money funding such researc
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a great deal to be learned from the study of embryonic stem cells. They are, after all, what the people working with adult cells are trying to emulate.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
"pro-life" is a misnomer (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you even dare to call them "pro-lifers"? They are murderers guilty of effectively killing anyone who could be saved by methods derived from this kind of research. Stopping fertility clinics isn't "pro-life" either, it's about nothing but banning person A from doing things disliked by person B's religion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say it is even worse than that.
Fertility clinics exist already, the embryos exist already, and are already "dead" or going to "die."
It is like forbidding organ donation and transplant because they don't want people killed for their organs.
As in the previous case, there is a reasonable compromise (no killing people for their organs, limits on the organ market) that is pretty much already in effect (no having an abortion to create stem cells, no massive stem cell farms, just reusing waste products).
Th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> If 'pro-lifers' aren't up in arms about fertility clinics it is simply ignorant for them to be up in arms about stem cell research.
But they are up in arms about that. At least, the Catholics are.
If there isn't a massive outcry, it's because a lot of people honestly don't know what happens in fertility clinics.
And didn't you see the fuss over the 'octomom'? You may have noticed that her rationale was that she didn't want to throw any of them away (though her method for avoiding that was dangerously ir
Re: (Score:2)
The adult stem cells are not nearly as powerful or easy to obtain than the embryonic ones.
What I think its wrong is imposing an artificial limitation on a very promising field because of the moral difficulties that a religious minority have with it. This is clearly a case of failing to separate church and state. And this is a particularity of the christian religion. Hinduism springs to my mind as an example of a religion that has no problem with it. I thought that everyone agreed that religion has no say in
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bush made his decision based NOT on science but on naked pandering to his political base. Science is not, and never has been "faith based". Bush understood nothing of the science involved in stem cell research, and NEVER WANTED TO. Stem cells, embryonic or otherwise, are just that, cells. They are not embryos, they are not fetuses, and they are NOT unborn life needing to be protected. Bush approached the issue with the same intellectual incuriosity that marked the rest of his life. It's far past the time where we should be made to suffer for his mistakes, arrogance, and ignorance.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
wouldn't it be better to not wander into a moral gray area?
This is tissue obtained during a legal procedure, and it's going to be destroyed if it's not used. What exactly do you think is "morally gray" about using it to help people?
Given the deep moral objection a significant part of the community has
I have deep moral objections to Christianity, but that doesn't mean I want to make Christianity illegal. If we're going to live together peacefully, we must get over trying to legislate our moral objections over what other people are doing, and limit ourselves to legislating what we need in order to co-exist.
that adult and other non-destructive forms of stem cell research have been fruitful.
Nobody has any idea how well adult stem cells work relative to embryonic stem cells.
I don't understand the point of lifting the ban other than for purely political purposes
Obama is removing an unjustified interference by Republicans in scientific research that was enacted for "purely political purposes". In different words, Obama is restoring some sanity.
Christ Almighty (Score:5, Insightful)
1. According to the Department of Bioethics, anywhere between sixty to eighty percent of fertilized eggs fail to attach to the uterus naturally.
2. Though a precursor to a fully formed human being, these little balls of cells have neither brains nor senses. They have no qualia, no conscious phenomena. They are at most minuscule fragments of tissue - kind of like the smears most of you leave on the sheets at night.
3. If the cells that precede the formation of a human being that will never grow to become even a fetus, much less a fully formed infant, can be used to save lives that exist today, why not? A human that will never be is effectively dead.
4. All of these things can be taken into consideration without devaluing conscious human life, because conscious human life this is not.
We're not giving permission to Anton LaVey to tear the fetuses of misbegotten children from the rancid wombs of unwed women of color while Marilyn Manson and 50 Cent plays over the back alley abortion clinic's P.A. system, you stupid fucking hicks. If you believe that human life begins 'when the sperm hits the germ' then every mother that has attempted to get pregnant and failed repeatedly could very probably be guilty of negligent homicide because of point number one.
And besides, we can get plenty of cells from elsewhere so the debate is now largely moot save for those few situations where adult cells may not suffice.
Re:Christ Almighty (Score:5, Funny)
+1 Well researched
AP failing again (Score:5, Insightful)
But it means that scientists who until now have had to rely on private donations to work with these newer stem cell lines can apply for government money for the research,
Because the State of California is giving out private donations?
I was kind of pissed at Bush for blocking federal funding on new lines until I really thought about it for awhile. There's nothing that precludes researchers from doing research on new lines.
If people wanted this so bad, what prevented them from pulling out their checkbooks? Hello, there, Silicon Valley. There's lots of rich people there. How about a donation? You, too, Hollywood, if this is such a big issue.
As to why Obama's doing it, well, two reasons. First, it satisfies a niche constituency, who like to see abortion-related topics pressed to the forefront at every opportunity. Second, his tax plan does probably kill off the possibility of private funding.
(I'm pro-choice, BTW. But to look past Obama's shallow political motives, and to ignore the reality of the situation while Bush was president is very foolish.)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If people wanted this so bad, what prevented them from pulling out their checkbooks? Hello, there, Silicon Valley. There's lots of rich people there. How about a donation? You, too, Hollywood, if this is such a big issue.
Hell yeah! And if you want a road built or a law enforced how 'bout you pay for that yourself too.
Or you want a war fought or a private bank bailed out...oh no wait, we have got money for that.
Re:AP failing again (Score:5, Interesting)
Basic scientific research is a "public good". You can't get the proper levels of funding by asking the private sector to do it, simply because the bulk of the benefits will be impossible to monetize. Since anyone can use the products of basic research, those who fund it create something that their freeloading competitors can use just as easily as they can. So basic research will always be starved under a private sector regime.
Invoking Hollywood? It's hard for me to believe that you're really pro-choice, since that's nothing but standard Right-wing culture war claptrap. Hollywood is in the business of making movies, not identifying promising avenues for scientific research. This research is going to benefit even the few hardcore pro-lifers who want to see it outlawed, and even the wealthy corporations who would starve the government of funding to shave a few points off their tax burden will be able to use this research to create new lifesaving products. So why shouldn't the burden of funding that research fall on the population as a whole?
My guess is that you're "pro-choice" the way most wackjob libertarians are: you revile abortion as immoral, just not quite as immoral as a government who would dare to ever tell anyone what to do. As soon as you find a way to get the free market to ban abortion, you'll do it.
Finally, if you think that Obama's tiny increases in the marginal rate are going to prevent every American from ever becoming or staying rich (which is what it would take to "kill off the possibility of private funding," you're off your rocker. The rich did very well after Clinton raised taxes. But the poor and the middle class also did very well for themselves, which probably irks you.
One jar of stem cells please (Score:4, Funny)
Bush's ban actually did more good than harm (Score:3, Informative)
because it forced researchers to find other viable sources of stem cells. Several studies have noted that embryonic stem cells have a high incidence of becoming cancerous. Stem cells from other sources have a lower incidence.
Re:Bush's ban actually did more good than harm (Score:4, Insightful)
My first and greatest complaint against the Bush administration is that it made scientific views a matter of state policy and politics rather than an evidence based process. Of necessity this includes decisions made as to what the course of scientific investigations should be.
THIS IS UNTENABLE POLICY. This is the 21st century where in fact the future progress of the human race depends solely on accurate science. To have politics rather than evidence guide this is flat out 100% unacceptable.
The intrusion of policies of this nature controlling the dispersal of government funds for research and development is a breaking of the requirement that decisions of government be made in a way that aides, not hinders the governed. It is no different in principle than any other corruption of the process of government; it is a matter of religious lobbyists and campaign contributors influencing policy in a manner that is detrimental to the nation and world.
People howl about the oil lobby extracting favorable treatment.
This is FAR worse.
When was stem cell research ever "restricted"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really care to wade into the abortion-debate muck, particularly as abortion has nothing to do with the stem cells we're talking about. Those are obtained from fertility clinics, and created by people who are SO "pro-life" that they leave plenty of discarded excess life behind in the freezer.
However, what frustrates me to a greater degree is this myth that stem cell research has been "restricted". 90+ percent of people on the street (and probably even a majority of Slashdot posters here) mistakenly believe that the evil Bush administration "banned" or "outlawed" stem cell research. That's simply not true. The last administration refused to SUBSIDIZE it, and that's all. Researchers have been under no restriction whatsoever to do any of this research, as long as they're not sucking off the taxpayer teat for their funds.
This opens up an entirely separate debate on private sources of medical research funds, and why pharmaceutical companies now pay more in marketing than they do in R&D. I'll leave that debate to others. However, are we REALLY so drunk on "stimulus" spending for everything under the sun these days, that refusing to subsidize a particular item means that item is actively "restricted"?
Re:When was stem cell research ever "restricted"? (Score:5, Informative)
The last administration refused to SUBSIDIZE it, and that's all. Researchers have been under no restriction whatsoever to do any of this research, as long as they're not sucking off the taxpayer teat for their funds.
...
However, are we REALLY so drunk on "stimulus" spending for everything under the sun these days, that refusing to subsidize a particular item means that item is actively "restricted"?
I was reading an article about a research facility that had to run parrallel labs.
One to deal with adult & federally approved embryonic stem cells
And one built entirely from private funds to deal with non-approved embryonic stem cells.
The head of the lab said the rescindment of Bush era policy was a great relief because they no longer had to maintain an expensive and artificial wall between their efforts.
Re:When was stem cell research ever "restricted"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Big Pharma spends money on marketing because it makes them money. They spend almost nothing on basic R & D because basic scientific facts cannot be patented, and therefore anything they discover can be used as easily by their competitors as by themselves. So if we want new basic scientific facts to be discovered, of course we need to "subsidize it", to let researchers "suc[k] off the taxpayer teat for their funding."
My question to you is, what the hell is so wrong with that, that you'd denigrate fundamental scientific inquiry with such rhetoric. Even if you're a proponent of small government, you should be able to understand why science is a public good, and therefore worthy of public dollars.
The fact is that the government is (and I believe ought to be) providing most of the funding for this sort of research. Therefore, the ban on federal funding did have the effect of greatly diminishing the amount of research being done. Thankfully, California took the hit for us all in the interim. And guess where most of the stem cell research is being done now? As bad off as California is right now, they clearly won that bet.
Mormon Senators mean any legeslation will pass (Score:4, Interesting)
If Congress wants to pass Steam Cell Legislation this is sure to pass the Senate. There are 5 Mormon senators (4 Republicans, 1 Democrat) who voted for Embryonic Steam Cell research twice during Bush's presidency.
Orrin Hatch who the RIAA's lap dog, personally appealed to Bush to pass the legislation...I suppose that is about the only thing he is good for...
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Interesting)
Anti-abortionists are going to have a field day with this. If stem cells can be harvested from aborted fetuses, and stem cells actually fulfill their promise as everyone expects they will, then getting an abortion suddenly becomes not so much the destruction of one life but the preservation of many.
Embryonic stem cells do not come from aborted fetuses, at least not from the traditional type of abortion. Embryonic stem cells come from left over fertilized eggs at fertility clinics that are to be thrown away. These are thawed, encouraged to begin development, then harvested for stem cells, which destroys them.
(I find it ironic that the last time stem cells came up, someone accused pro-lifers of trying to say that stem comes come from abortions)
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:4, Insightful)
If life begins at conception, then even the harvesting of zygotic embryos is antithetical for anti-abortionists.
If the fertilized eggs are rejected naturally after implantation, that is one thing. If they are separated and destroyed deliberately, that is no longer natural and can only be considered abortion.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Insightful)
How can a pregnancy be aborted if there is no pregnancy at all?
Re:It's not the pregnancy that's aborted (Score:4, Informative)
"Abortion" in this context doesn't necessarily mean that a pregnancy is aborted but that the life of a conceived but unborn child is aborted.
This assumes that
A) an abortion can happen outside of a pregnancy
B) a conceived "child" made up of less than [arbitrary number of cells] = life.
C) an [arbitrary number of cells] that was never, is not, and won't be implanted in a womb = unborn
Not everyone would agree with those two assumption. And I don't know of any legal or dictionary deifinition that assumes an abortion can take place anywhere other than in utero.
Trying to change the definition of a word in mid-discussion makes the entire enterprise pointless.
Re:It's not the pregnancy that's aborted (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "abortion" already has a meaning, actually, and this is an attempt to confuse what is actually happening with that meaning.
You should pick a different term, though it's quite clear why you choose not to.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, here is one for everyone saying it is abortion.
Lets consider that killing a fertilized embryo that is laying on a dish is abortion. Since those embryos on the clinics are already fertilized, what should be done with them ? You can't keep them frozen forever. Forever is not only an extremely long time (doh!), but the embryo won't survive forever. You can't also implant them all. Both of those scenarios are impossible.
So, what would you do ? If you keep them frozen forever, and they die, is that abortion
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, of course *life* begins at conception, thats not the point. We have no problem destroying all kinds of life. Ever swat a mosquito? Ever eat a salad?
Arguing about where life begins is misleading, since its not life that we respect, but that certain something that makes us "human". To some people this is sentience - once the fetus developes an active brain, it should be given the same rights as humans. For others, it is a "soul", or some other etherial, hard-to-pin-down item that makes us different from other, "lower", life forms.
Based on the assumptions that the a "soul" is what makes us special, and that a "soul" is given at conception, the logical conclusion is that abortions are wrong because it is the killing of what essentially amounts to a human being. I submit, however, that the assumptions that this conclusion is based upon are absurd. Not because they *could not* be so, but because there is no evidence (or even a compelling reason to believe) that it *is so*.
I further submit that the only logical way to determine the point at which a fertilized egg becomes worthy of the protections afforded to humans is by noting when it developes those characteristics of humans that we believe sets us appart. We cannot observe a soul, nor can we demonstrate its existance. We can, though, determine when the brain develops, determine when the fetus becomes sentient in some small way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Life does not begin at conception, it merely gets passed on. Life began long long long ago and is still being passed on today.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
no.. PARASITE begins at conception... it's not a discrete life until it can survive outside of its host (mother) without teh aid of modern medical technology.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:4, Interesting)
Hate to break it to you, but GP (LordKazan) did say the following:
(emphasis mine)
His statement only refers to the possibility of survival outside of its host without the aid of (modern) technology. A healthy child carried full term -can- survive once born. Sure, if you then leave them in a trash bin, they're likely to die, but if taken proper care for, it should grow up quite nicely.. whether that be in the care of the biological mother or another person. A child brought into the world after only the first trimester, however, simply stands no chance whatsoever.. not even -with- current technology, I reckon. Ergo, that would not be discrete life.
He also mentions 'until'. So to some of the below replies - no, his statement has no bearing on those who have -already- been quite capable of surviving.
I agree with you that the term 'parasite' can be taken quite broadly (as per another replyer below, one might argue that embryonic stem cell researchers taking government funds are 'parasites' of society), and thus disagree with the use of this term by LordKazan. His main point, however, stands... he believes that life only begins IF and when the child would reasonably be capable of survival and brought into the world, under natural circumstances. It's not what I, personally, believe (I do think that technological advances stretch where the definition of 'life' begins, although I wouldn't go so far as believing that any fertilized egg fits the definition of life if scientists develop an artificial womb at some point; where I would draw the line? No idea.), but I respect what he believes and don't think his opinion deserves being twisted around to fit situations he clearly did not intend for his opinion to be applied to.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Insightful)
So since infants are unable to process logic and reason, use their opposite thumbs, walk errect, communicate with a complex speech system then they aren't worthy of the protection afforeded to humans? All of these are characteristics of humans that set us apart from the rest of the beasts, but dont actually develop until several years after birth.
At the moment of birth, there is very little physiological change to the baby. What little there is is strictly related to the respiratory/circulatory system and the umbillical cord. It is a very poor landmark to use when determining "viability" or "humanity". A baby in the womb about to pop out is no more nor less human than one born 5 minutes ago.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So since infants are unable to process logic and reason, use their opposite thumbs, walk errect, communicate with a complex speech system then they aren't worthy of the protection afforeded to humans? All of these are characteristics of humans that set us apart from the rest of the beasts, but dont actually develop until several years after birth.
Indeed, this has been my argument that infants have no rights as people. Thank you for stating it so clearly.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, but that's irrelevant, as virtually no pro-choicers are going around claiming that it should be OK to abort a baby right up to a few minutes before it pops out ... that's just a strawman.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We cannot observe a soul, nor can we demonstrate its existance.
That's because it does not exist.
What was once thought to be "soul", is our brain's mental activity. Without it we may have something that is both human and alive (like, a bag of human blood) yet not a person. And not even any brain activity qualifies because certainly we do not recognize animals as persons, as their brain is too primitive to do anything that we can recognize as human. The "problem" is, human brain not only develops the capacity for such activity very late in development, the actual activit
Re: (Score:2)
But if life starts with spermatozoids (after all why not, these are about as sentient and lively as a fertilised egg), then even wet dreams are a crime against humanity!
And if she swallows it, I guess that's a cannibalistic genocide?
Re: (Score:2)
Some religious people would concur with your statement that wet dreams are a crime against humanity (and so is masturbation).
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the eggs, the fertility treatment doesn't work by picking out one egg, fertilizing it, putting it into a female and then seeing if it falls out again or gets stuck. It's more like picking a basket of eggs, fertilizing them all, screening them for defects, picking out the best one(s) and putting them back into the mother. This leaves us with a basket of motherless embryos(or zygotes in the early stages, but still motherless)(which in reality looks something like a basket full of seemingly empty petri dishes, not a pile of screaming dying babies as some would prefer us to belive). Calling them aborted is retarded simply because they aren't.
Oh, and they're only called fetuses after 8 weeks. they're embryos until then. And as they'll be put to the torch either way, why not try to derive something useful from them? If a few human cells lacking a nervous system is of so great importance then the prospect of saving several billions of human cells with a nervous system by providing reconstruction of failed organs and systems should be a national top priority.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the life begins at conception idea is just a left over from ancient attempts at science. It uses the same ideas behind "Spontaneous generation", that life comes from inanimate matter.
Under the "Spontaneous generation" theory, life comes from non-living matter under the right conditions. Rain water mixed with mud will generate frogs. Meat left to rot will generate flies. Presence of pre-existing life is not a requirement.
For all the benefit that Aristotle bestowed on mankind, his dabblings in the realm of Science put it back for hundreds of years. He was good at forming logical arguments that were quite reasonable. For science you also have to deeply scrutinize the actual world, something that wasn't as easily available to him at the time. His fame (he is Aristotle) then drove his ideas into the world as "facts"; an error that Aristotle would never have permitted if he were alive at the time.
Louis Pasteur finally proved that Aristotle was completely wrong. The Church pre-exists Pasteur, and most of it's doctrine was written pre-Pasteur. So it's easy to see why strongly religious people believe that life is created at birth. They're completely wrong too, but they're going to be far too busy bickering about when birth occurs to think about Pasteur. The message that they should learn is that life is not created, but preserved through offspring.
In a traditional religious culture, the idea that life is preserved through offspring runs counter to idea of spontaneous generation is a fact. Spontaneous generation is deeply rooted in the Bible, as it would be in any book of it's age. Adam and Eve were never represented as having to develop. Moses's staff turned into a snake. Abraham's son Issac was spared from being sacrificed by a sheep that suddenly appeared entangled in a bush. The entire universe was made, and made quickly. After being raised to accept such examples, it's almost forgivable to think that life is created, but it is still completely wrong; life is a continuum that you pass on to your children.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess that could be true. More likely, however, it's a logical and convenient line that defines the start of human life. You can wait a long time, but a sperm will always be a sperm. However, after fertilization, under ordinary conditions, that bitty blob will become a human life. Any line you draw past that point is pretty arbitrary and subject to a lot of hand-waving.
(Cue "fertilization vs. implantation" arguments.)
You've got miracles confused with the teaching of spontaneous generation.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Insightful)
Your grandma is dead because her brain is dead. The brain is necessary (but not sufficient) for a human being to exist, and it defines what a human being is.
Zygotes and embryos don't have human brains either, which is why they are not human beings either. Until they get a developed human brain, they are no different from a kidney or liver.
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:4, Insightful)
"Until they get a developed human brain"
But then you just move the whole issue of "where does life begin" to "when is a human brain 'developed'"?
E.g. the brains of children born under Fetal Alcohol Syndrome are generally regarded as 'underdeveloped'. Are they then not alive?
I'm not a pro-lifer trying to split hairs, but I do think that any definition of "Life begins at..." needs to set -very- exact parameters and "developed brain" is not very exact.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, life begins at four billion years ago. Mitosis begins after fertilization.
And the people who whine about a thing being "natural" and another thing being "artificial", with the implication that "natural" is always better, should have been aborted. That's a stupidity we need to be proactive in weeding out of our genome.
Re: (Score:2)
By artificially fertilising eggs we are in no way creating a life, because unless you
Life begins BEFORE conception. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sperm cells and egg cells are demonstrably alive and demonstrably human -- they contain human DNA (although they're short half their chromosomes).
A woman kills a potential future baby with every period. A man kills millions of them with every wet dream, to say nothing of, uh, other activities. In fact, a man kills millions of them even when he DOES make a baby with one of them.
These protesters really are pathetic. How much energy do they put into stopping the mass murder of actual, real, not potential, huma
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Insightful)
Life begins much earlier than conception. You cannot take a dead egg and a dead sperm and make anything living out of it. Stop co-mingling the idea of life with the idea of sexual reproduction, and you'll realize that there's a lot of life out there, and only some of it is sexual. Even in sexual organisms, living sperm and eggs are not where life begins; they are literally byproducts of the life they are made from.
Life is a continuum. Of course, now that I've stated the only consistent obvious rationalization, you'll definitely agree.
The millennia of pre-scientific religious training is the barrier that's prompting people to pipe up and say, "Well when I said Life I didn't mean it that way. I meant we as-in super-special HUMAN animal life." Which again doesn't make sense from the human angle, because you can't take a dead human sperm and a dead human egg and make a living anything either.
So what it boils down to is the "super-special" part. We become super-special at inception, and to prove it to ourselves, we'll state that we have an exclusive something that no other animal in the universe has. So we don't get called out on it, let's make it undetectable. Call it a soul, if you will.
Now all the arguments boil down to, "The soul is first present at inception." Which is actually a decent argument, even if it can never be proven or dis-proven. But somehow it feels like a hollow argument, like you're not really arguing for your betterment. It's almost like you're arguing for the preservation of the Church, and you really couldn't give a damn if it means that Alzheimer's disease is cured as long as nobody shatters the super-special soul idea the Church has created which makes you better than everything else that's alive, with the exception of Jesus, who despite being alive hasn't been seen for 2000 years.
The arguments concerning "independent self sustaining" to equate to life don't make sense; infants are far from independent or self-sustainable for years. The arguments for possibly self-sustainable outside the womb equates to life don't make sense either. Possibly doesn't indicate the percentage of chance, so it could range from 100% to 0%. Assuming you dictate that it has to be more than 0%, I can pick a percentage so small that it's practially zero.
But the "possibly could be self-sustaining" is a tilted argument in other ways too. A severely premature child in a hospital is in no way self-sustaining. It's a wonder that we have such a good success rate at keeping them alive. And sooner or later the technology will be developed to have a in-vitrio child. Then the outside-the-womb self-sustaining argument won't even make sense, as the technique will remove the womb from the picture.
Perhaps we'll never develop out-of-the-womb pregnancies. But if we do not, I'll wager that it has more to do with researchers leaving certain aspects of our development untouched due to respect or fear of nearly two millennia of reasoning not based on observation, but based on patting ourselves on the back due to our super-special-nees. We have souls, hooray for us!
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Many stem cells can be obtained from IVF clinics -- in fact, they have many embryos, and often do tests [using a single cell] to see if there is anything wrong with the embryos. Many embryos are left frozen or discarded.
There is a vast potential for stem cell based research. If we develop science and technology to selectively differentiate the cells, it would be good for all.
Morality is relative. At one time, sex not intended for procreation was considered "immoral". With science developing, all that is nee
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At one time, sex not intended for procreation was considered "immoral".
As was spilling one's seed on the ground. Or wherever those spending their time watching internet porn and committing the trifecta of lust, envy and covetousness choose to spill it. Sperm-killers all of them!
The term "killing a baby" is a strong term.
A polite understatement. Admirable on your part, but I wonder whether that's appropriate for those trying to re-frame a debate using terms that are deliberately deceptive, ambiguous, and
Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly don't understand how the "destruction of embryos" for medical research is worse than the "destruction of embryos" for IVF. The only difference I can see is that IVF is a procedure that conservatives have done all the time, while medical research is done by the evil liberal scientists.
All this hand-waving over stem cells strikes me as dishonest. The people who call killing embryos for research a tragedy have no problem letting them die en masse in other circumstances. For example, why aren't they pushing for medical technology to save every last fertilized ovum? I guess life isn't as important as scoring political points.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Its also ironic that people are still dying of starvation and easily treatable diseases all over the world but this does not come in for the righteous anger of these religious zealots. I am appalled by their double standards.
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Real Christians (I am not one) don't rationalize like this. They help the poor and the ill, and are for the most part very nice people.
Unfortunately, there are very few of them, particularly in politics.
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"I guess life isn't as important as scoring political points."
The Christian Taliban don't regard other life as sacred, and gleefully fund wars that kill actual children.
If you want some fun remind them that abortion disposes of far more NON-White potential citizens than it does of the potential tow-headed youngsters they mourn while envisioning an "abortuary".
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of pro-lifers don't actually give a damn about life; see how little they care about what happens after the children are born, for example, or arabs killed in other countries, or even back the death penalty.
Many pro-lifers see having children as punishment for having sex outside marriage; abortion is a way out of that punishment. Stem-cell research is 'creating freaks of nature in a lab', and such science, like gays, are disgusting and counter to God's plan.
IVF, on the other hand, is good for Godly married couples who are too old or otherwise infertile to have the children they want; since God loves children, IVF is just helping God along a bit.
Next time you see a pro-life argument, substitute anti-sex, and you'll see it explains a lot of the inconsistencies.
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strawman much ?
Re:Gives moral justification to abortionists (Score:5, Funny)
A conservative is a liberal with a teenage daughter :)
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:5, Informative)
"Reversing an eight-year-old limit on potentially life-saving science..." Currently unproven to save even one life, but proven to destroy human embryos.
To back up my post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell#Embryonic [wikipedia.org]
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:4, Insightful)
Chicken and egg problem, we know so little about stem cells that I do not know whether it is possible to make stem cells available by another route. If we discover that it is possible to remove this method of acquiring cells for research then the method can be stopped at a later date removing the religious objection.
On another front it is clear that religious intervention in science has severely limited the progress of some societies on Earth. Religion does change its interpretation of what the fundamental rules of living should be as societies change and science provides more accurate knowledge about the world but it often takes many lifetimes for this adjustment to occur.
All societies are facing severe threats from the overpopulation of the world, resource shortages, climate change and poverty. Scientific progress is the only source of solutions to these problems unless we are prepared to allow the problems to multiply to the point where a dramatic population crash occurs. We are at a crossroads, the choice is in our hands, use our creativity and intelligence to take charge of our own destiny or allow our environment to expell us. 2000 year old books prefer the second solution, by default they select the lemmings fate of allowing the environment to kill us off.
Pick you side, I know which one I find more human.
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I may be wrong, but once a line is grown doesn't it self-propogate? It's like cutting a part of a plant and putting it into the ground where it grows into a new plant.
If that's the case, and one of these stem cell lines cures diabetes or helps people with spinal injuries walk again - I think that the one potential life the embryo could have been (if the embryo was even viable) is a relatively cheap price for curing some of the greatest physical ills of our modern society.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently unproven to save even one life, but proven to destroy human embryos.
Fortunately, they're a renewable resource.
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"Reversing an eight-year-old limit on potentially life-saving science..."
Currently unproven to save even one life, but proven to destroy human embryos
You are correct that is what 'potentially' means.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except your both idiots because stem cells came from nonviable sources that would have been destroyed no matter what to begin with like fertility treatment leftovers and umbilical cords.
Inconvenient how those facts get in the way of righteous anger isn't it?
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice attempt but aside from the non-embryo sources of embryonic cells you're also arguing for respecting one establishment of religion's views over the rest, arguing that both fertility treatments and deriving benefit from what would otherwise be wasted is evil, AND inconsistently with your OWN logic arguing that it's also evil to try to derive some good from something you consider evil and thus work against the evilness of it.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish you would apply your moral panic to causes that could actually help people.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole controversy over the "life beings at conception" is completely religious, and affects only the Abrahamic faiths. In Asia and other parts of the world it is a non-issue.
It's funny that you would mention Asia. Traditionally in East Asian cultures a child was considered to be one year old at birth because they counted the gestation period as the first year of life. Granted this tradition is slowly changing, but is still the norm in some countries. So no, this does not only affect "Abrahamic faiths".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Proven to kill... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish you would apply your moral panic to causes that could actually help people.
This. I don't get the outrage of stem cells for this reason. I can understand how religious people can feel harvesting embryos or whatever is wrong. But if it's wrong, it's a wrong done with at least good intentions, that harms no one (abortions are not going to stop, stem cell research or not). There's so much going on thats wrong in this world, even in this country. Ethnic cleansing, human rights abuses, etc. In our country alone, the government steals from the poor and gives to the rich, imprisons millions for drugs and puts them in a prison system that is completely overrun with racism, violence, drugs, sexual abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases. For a religon based on teachings of tolerance, love for your enemy, forgiveness, and redemption, you would think the state of our for-profit-prisons would have the "religious right" outraged! Somehow I think Christ would be more concerned about helping those on the very bottom of our society, then condemning Doctors bending their ethics to potentially help make the lame walk again (in fact I hear he was a big fan of healing cripples).
It seems to me you could easily spend your entire life fighting whats wrong in this world, and never even get around to stem cells. It's a small, pathetic issue to crusade against. But I suppose because it is small, it is easy to divert your attention to, easy to cope with. After all, the big issues would require you to look with open eyes, and maybe admit you were wrong. That would take humility, and I'm pretty sure Jesus was strongly against that, if the leaders of the religious right are any example.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it's scientific and not religious, and intelligent design is too.
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Actually, according to biology, no new life is created at conception, all current life has began exactly once about 3.5 billion years ago, and we are all part of an uninterrupted lineage.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is between taking part in evil (destroyed embryos due to fertility treatments) versus having no part in it. There are some things that the government should have nothing to do with.
This is the government having nothing to do with it. Now decisions on what research is needed and is ethical will be taken by ethics committees and funding bodies and not by politicians who don't understand either the ethics or the science and are trying to grab votes. Its really impossible to argue for or against embryonic stem cell research as a whole - each piece of research should be judged on its own merits by the right people. Blanket bans are wrong.
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Blanket bans are wrong.
Is that a blanket ban on blanket bans?
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Actually the true definition of government having n
Mod Parent Up! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Foregoing Powers such as:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Maybe you should learn to read before you go on the attack. Laws to uphold cop
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Huh, got me and most of the MSM on the umbilical blood but that some people have found a use for ""nonviable"" embyos does not automatically mean that ALL of them will ALWAYS be saved and it's still better to put them by default to some use and then pull them out of that for embryo adoption than by default to throwing them away and pulling them out of THAT for embry adoption.
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no you made a politely worded argument that, while politely worded, is nonetheless patronising and demeaning.
Ad hominem doesn't necessarily mean blunt.
Re:Proven to kill... (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, and now that a reliable method of making stem cells WITHOUT KILLING has been invented.
Yes, precisely! There are proven stem cell treatments accomplished without killing human embryos:
Re:Didn't Bush restricted ALL stem-cell science? (Score:5, Informative)
You were 'told' wrong. The article is correct. There was no blanket ban on stem cell research. Just no govt funding of new embryonic stem cell research. Fed funding for other stem cell research was ok, as was private funding for any stem cell research.
Re:Didn't Bush restricted ALL stem-cell science? (Score:5, Informative)
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Seconding parent's point that there was no blanket ban on stem cell research. At least two major states, CA and NJ have funded embryonic stem cell research. It is a different point altogether that both states are in a bad financial situation -- NJ has cut funds drastically, and I presume CA has done the same.
I think the constraints from Bush administration were strict though. No federal funds for labs pursuing embryonic stem cell research.
S
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did not ban embryonic stem cell research
did not ban federal funding of embryonic stem cell research
did not REDUCE federal funding of embryonic stem cell research
Contrary to these first three ideas, George W. Bush actually provided the first federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Re:Didn't Bush restricted ALL stem-cell science? (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to imply that George W. Bush actually championed the cause of embryonic stem cell research. He *vetoed* the bill that allowed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research [with new cell lines beyond the already available lines -- fewer than 20?].
This reminds me of an assertion that George W Bush made in one of the debates with Al Gore, that he [Bush] got the legislation passed on Patients Bill of Rights as governor of TX. However, the truth is that he vetoed that bill, the legislation then overrode his veto, and then he claimed credit for signing it.
S
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You were told incorrectly. Bush was the first President to allow Federal funding of fetal stem cell research ever. So the rancor is not about whether he "allowed" it, but that he didn't walk into a brand new, unproven field of research with a blank check and no strings attached.
Re:Didn't Bush restricted ALL stem-cell science? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bush's PR department was awesome. You just need to catch up with the times.
The trick is to cry that everyone's out to get you, and that they only report things in a one-sided manner, but then to make sure that your side is the only one reported. Remember when the Democrats were blocking things in Congress under his administration? How was that possible with a Republican majority?
Bush effectively killed an entire branch of developmental science in the US. Labs shut down and people lost their jobs. Labs brave enough to continue on had to do so out of their own pocket. If it wasn't an aberration that fertility clinics make a ton of money from people willing to pay anything to have a child, no research on stem cells would have ever occurred in the United States.
So now we're almost ten years behind the rest of the world in discovering treatments with what amounts to a silver bullet that can actually replace dying tissues. That means that in the future, you'll have to import the treatments from other countries or fly there for treatment. Due to religion, America loses yet another manufacturing opportunity.
Did he plan it this way? I don't think so, I think he's just a good church-going guy who is willing to watch Science go to Hell because he believes the arguments that Scientists don't like Jesus.
Bush's PR only took a dive when the facts got so out-of-hand that he couldn't cover them up with more Fox News.
Re:Give us a date for the cure then. (Score:5, Insightful)
The day pissants without a clue stop bitching about funding science.
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Give me a date when Windows will be stable and usable. Give me a date when Linux will be ready for the desktop. Give me a date when MySQL will have a storage engine that is both fast AND reliable.
You can't, because you don't know. All of these things are theoretically possible, and being worked on, but no one knows if it's September 17, 2024 or March 7, 2009.
Re:Give us a date for the cure then. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me give you an historical analogy:
But I'll ask you this. If you think I'm wrong, then please tell me how. Tell the date when the Maxwell's equations will give any useful results. Tell me when the Maxwell equations will give us public lighting, electric cars, computers. What's the date that's going to happen by? Just give me a date that you can guarantee success by.
See how stupid that sounded? Nevertheless, it was indeed quite a long time before the unification of electromagnetism by Maxwell gave any practical results. So, just because you don't have any use for them in the near future, don't mean that they are worthless.
This is basic science. People trying to understand the processes of life. Cell differentiation, growth, ageing. It can have implications in almost any field of biology. So don't try to tell what is useful science and what isn't until you have some scientific training.
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Yes! Why research anything, ever, if you can't see an immediate benefit to doing so? Let's stop funding NASA; after all, I don't see an immediate benefit to flying around in space.
Re:If stem cells are so great? (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet that there are NO cures for cancer, NO blind man seeing, and NO crippled people walking due to stem cell research, in our lifetimes. All of this talk about the immediate need to fund stem cell research is just so much hype.
[...]
The reason that stem cell research needs federal funding is because THERE ARE NO CURES IN SIGHT FOR ANYTHING FROM THEM.
Actually there are MANY current studies using stem cells, and in particular embryonic stem cells, in promising treatments for a large range of diseases. Some of them are already approved for human trials and therefore will probably see the light in mainstream medicine in very few years.
One example of such applications: restoring locomotion after spinal chord injury, [jneurosci.org] a study that was cleared by the FDA for human trials [cnn.com] a little over a month ago.
Dude, if you have no idea what you are talking about, it's better to moderate your own opinions.
Re:In related news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Define "failure". In fact, define "Obama's plan". He's got a dozen of them going right now.
The economic stimulus plan? He's taking criticism from both sides. For every expert you can dredge up to say that it will make things worse, I can find you a critic whose primary problem is that the plan is too small to cover the gap between the economy's current output and its potential output.
The bank bailout plan? Obama has a lot to be criticized for here, but A) it's a really thorny and complex problem, and B) most of the "experts" agree that doing nothing would have been ruinous, and C) a lot of the criticism is demanding emergency nationalization, not half-measures. The government should jump in, declare many of the biggest banks insolvent, wipe out the shareholders, and run the banks until they can find private investors.
By "the majority of indicators," you actually mean "the stock market." The stock market is a lousy proxy for the economic confidence of the country for a variety of reasons [fivethirtyeight.com]. Its view is too narrow, because half the stocks in this country are owned by the wealthiest 1% of Americans, because a rising DJIA only tells you how a relative handful of entrenched companies are doing, and because things that are good for the economy as a whole can be really bad for individual stocks.
For example, the only reason the stocks of some of the banks are still trading above zero: investors believe that Obama will probably keep the government bailout money trickling in, rather than swooping in and wiping out the current investors. I believe that the latter plan would be far better for the economy as a whole, but it would be bad for at least that sector of the stock market.
Also, as a commenter on the previous link pointed out, the stock market dropped 24% after Reagan took office, not because investors were made nervous by Reagan's free market talk, but because there were real problems that needed to be sorted out before growth would resume. Pretending that the stock market is a proxy for America's actual confidence in Obama's policies (forget the 62% approval rating) is a bald-faced lie that you Right-wingers will drop like a plague-ridden dead cat as soon as the market starts recovering.
Re:So, if work didn't stop, but advanced dramatica (Score:3, Funny)
Literally.
Short answer: