the problem with abortion and stem cell research

[ranchodeluxe]

yes the problem with abortion and stem cell research is that if advocates of this will tell you that they are not murdering a human but even though this is not a fully developed human clearly it is a human in its developmental stages. i have some mixed feelings about this and i have not made a decision on whether or not i am for or against abortion and stem cell research but i would be happy to hear your thoughts on the subject.

 

[Squawk]

What's the difference between a sperm, an egg, and and a fertilised egg? All have the potential to become human life given appropriately applied conditions. I would simply suggest that there comes a point during development where it becomes morally "wrong", and I use that term loosely, to end the pregnancy artificially. The question is where does that point lie, and it's a question that I change my mind on on a fairly regular basis. Right now I hover around the 18 week mark, with fluctuations both directions. The problem is that setting such a line is too arbitrary, but I can't think of a fair way of having a sliding scale.

Regarding stem cell research, I have no issue. A bunch of undifferentiated 1 day old cells is not going to trouble my conscience, it's no more human than the dead skin on my arm other than by potential.

 

[ranchodeluxe]

What's the difference between a sperm, an egg, and and a fertilised egg? All have the potential to become human life given appropriately applied conditions. I would simply suggest that there comes a point during development where it becomes morally "wrong", and I use that term loosely, to end the pregnancy artificially. The question is where does that point lie, and it's a question that I change my mind on on a fairly regular basis. Right now I hover around the 18 week mark, with fluctuations both directions. The problem is that setting such a line is too arbitrary, but I can't think of a fair way of having a sliding scale.

Regarding stem cell research, I have no issue. A bunch of undifferentiated 1 day old cells is not going to trouble my conscience, it's no more human than the dead skin on my arm other than by potential.

so where does one draw the line between what is human and what is not? because this line cannot be drawn i can not be for or against abortion or stem cell research.

 

[Squawk]

I'm not here to tell you where to draw the line, that's for you to decide. The question is whether or not you consider a clump of 4 cells to be a human. If you do, why? If not, why? Do you consider it to have rights? Why or why not?

It's a subject I'd much rather you came to your own conclusions about rather than have to be spoon fed, and I sure as hell would encourage ignoring any religious perspective on the issue. If you happen to come down on the zero abortion and stem cell research side of things, fine, but make sure you can justify it

77777

 

[Inferno]

so where does one draw the line between what is human and what is not? because this line cannot be drawn i can not be for or against abortion or stem cell research.

Indeed, where do we? Is a child human? It most assuredly is not "fully" human.
Is an ape human? If not, why? What's the difference?

 

[australopithecus]

Rancho sure loves that fence he's sitting on.

Stem cells are about as significant morally as skin or blood cells. There's no debate to be had. You don't need to 'kill' anything to acquire them, the research is nothing but beneficial. case closed in my opinion.

 

[borrofburi]

I would simply suggest that there comes a point during development where it becomes morally "wrong", and I use that term loosely, to end the pregnancy artificially. The question is where does that point lie

6 years

 

[IBSpify]

I've never understood the complaints about stem cell research, IE we have the stem cells, but instead of doing research and helping people by using them, conservatives would rather we just incinerate them.

It's not like stem cell research is advocating the farming of stem cells (IE getting women pregnant so we can abort the babies and harvest the stem cells). If it were i would be totally against it, but as it is we are obtaining the stem cells regardless, and they want us to just throw them away.

as for abortions the mater is complicated, but in the end sometimes an abortion is necessary, and i would prefer that since it's necessary sometimes that they have access to a clean and safe place to get them performed rather then not.

 

[Hedley]

well..
There are 2 different things:
The scientists usually do not care a shit about human fertilized egg (also called totipotent cells), unless they are used for reproductive purposes (really that's is all about!!!)!

They are more interested in pluripotent cells (are capable to transform in any organ, but not placental tissues).
These cells could be the key to develop organs from scratch...

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_potency

However, religion fosters ignorance and intolerance, so people just oppose to it!

 

[Laystraight]

I would simply suggest that there comes a point during development where it becomes morally "wrong", and I use that term loosely, to end the pregnancy artificially. The question is where does that point lie

6 years

I prefer to keep your options open and I'll go for 18 years. Give you time to see what the little sod wil lturn out like. :lol:

 

[Magorian Aximand]

Read Letter to a Christian Nation. Sam Harris gives this subject some attention, and I believe does a very good job.

 

[RichardMNixon]

Read Letter to a Christian Nation. Sam Harris gives this subject some attention, and I believe does a very good job.

Can you bottom line it for us? I've got quite a bit on my reading list at the moment.

 

[Magorian Aximand]

Gladly. I don't have the time this very minute, but when I do I'll summarize it as best I can.

 

[Squawk]

Back when I was a teacher I advocated 16 years as the cutoff for late term abortion ;-)

18 is pushing it a bit too far though.

 

[Magorian Aximand]

Much of Sam's arguments revolve around the idea that morality should deal with real world issues of human and animal happiness and suffering. For those who are curious about that issue but don't have time to do some reading, take a half-hour and watch TBS' Treatise on Morality on youtube. However, I'll still do my best to outline Sam's points concerning stem cell research and abortion as presented in Letter to a Christian Nation. Let's start with stem cells.

Before we talk about the controversies of stem cell research, we need to understand why such research is important. Quite frankly, stem cell research is the single most promising area of study in medicine. Because these cells can become any tissue in the human body, they present opportunities to treat every disease, or even injury, we can imagine. Imagine a world without cancer, how much unnecessary suffering would no longer exist, and recognize that this research may very well make such a world a reality.

Now, the reason stem cell research is opposed is that it involves the destruction of three day old human embryos. The problem is, nobody seems to be able to present a valid reason why this is an issue. There are generally three things brought up, suffering, human potential, and the presence of a soul. There is no reason to think that a three day old embryo can suffer it's destruction in any way. At that point in time, the embryo is a blastocyst. It is a collection of 150 cells, without a brain, without even neurons. It cannot think. It cannot feel. By comparison, there are more than 100,000 in the brain of a fly. Sam is quick to note that for all intents and purposes, if we are worried about suffering in the universe, "killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst." He also points out that when we consider a person brain dead, we find it perfectly acceptable to harvest their organs.

If human potential is your concern you should know that because of the developments we've made in genetic engineering, every cell in your body is a potential human being. You take no issue with scratching your nose or clipping your fingernails. Imagine if the trillions of cells you shed from your body could save millions of lives. Would you deny the world access to them because, when put in the right conditions, they could potentially become another human being?

Then there is the issue of souls. Here, Sam simply presents a number of situations that expose this "arithmetic of souls" as ridiculous. At this stage, embryos often split in two and produce twins. Is that one soul splitting in two? Just as often, two embryos merge into one. What happens to the extra soul?

I'll quote two small excerpts here:

"The naive idea of souls in a Petri dish is intellectually indefensible. It is also morally indefensible, given that it now stands in the way of some of the most promising research in the history of medicine. Your beliefs about the human soul are, at this very moment, prolonging the scarcely endurable misery of tens of millions of human beings."

And finally:

"The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics. The link between religion and "morality",so regularly proclaimed and so seldom demonstrated,is fully belied here, as it is wherever religious dogma supersedes moral reasoning and genuine compassion."

The above arguments may also apply to abortion, in most contexts. The question becomes, then, when do we think that a baby in the womb is capable of suffering its destruction? We can safely say that the vast majority of aborted fetuses do not. Sam does recognize that abortion is an ugly reality, and supports breakthroughs in contraception that can reduce the need for it. He then expounds on the horrible state of affairs in El Salvador concerning abortion, which I do not think I need to go in to here. I will however, leave you with a closing thought from Sam.

"Of course, the Church's position on abortion takes no more notice of the details of biology than it does of the reality of human suffering. It has been estimated that 50 percent of all human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion, usually without a woman even realizing that she was pregnant. In fact, 20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all."

 

[Giliell]

You know the old joke when a priest, a doctor and a family-father are discussing the issue of "when life begins"?
The priest argues that it begins at conception. The doctor argues that this doesn't really hold water, giving that it's only a few cells and such a lot can go wrong...
The family-father tells them that they're both wrong. Life begins when the kids are in college and the dog is dead.

Jokes aside, the question isn't whether it is human (most people don't deny that a human embryo is human), but whether it's a person and therefore entitled to rights. And no, an embryo clearly isn't. It doesn't have feelings, cannot feel pain or show anything we vaguely relate to "humaness". Any cow that becomes a burger is more sentinent. As the fetus develops, things change. There isn't a magical moment in which it suddenly becomes a person. It's a continuum, just like evolution is a continuum. To admit that, and to admit that whatever line we draw is therefore somewhat arbitrary is only honest.

So, the most obvious line is birth. After birth, what used to be a parasite totally depending on the organs of the woman, who IS a sentinent person with needs and feelings, becomes a baby who, although still horribly dependent, can be cared for by whoever is willing to do so.

Another line is viability outside of the womb. People love to point out the arbitraryness of the "birth" line, since birth can occur at very different times of gestation. The calculated due date is a rough meassure used to determine certain dates, like maternity leave. If birth happens at 38 weeks, it's a baby and a person a week later, but if the fetus takes the full term plus extension, it might be a fetus for 4 more weeks.
So, viability outside of the womb is another line, less clear and always pushed back even more by modern science.
It opens another can of worms we shall discuss another time

As for stem-cells: Make sure the donors don't get chaeted and then go for it.

 

[Nashy19]

Do they still get stem cells like that? I thought that was a limited thing, can't they get stem cells from fats and other sources now?

Anyway, getting stem cells from aborted foetuses is as questionable as the way we get organs, which is a problem the research can solve.

 

[Giliell]

Anyway, getting stem cells from aborted foetuses is as questionable as the way we get organs, which is a problem the research can solve.

Why?
I mean, if abortion is OK, what's the problem with using the embryo to do some good?
It's not like they're aborted in order to get the stem-cells, would be a pretty shitty way to farm them

 

[Nashy19]

Anyway, getting stem cells from aborted foetuses is as questionable as the way we get organs, which is a problem the research can solve.

Why?
I mean, if abortion is OK, what's the problem with using the embryo to do some good?
It's not like they're aborted in order to get the stem-cells, would be a pretty shitty way to farm them

If the person has died, what's the problem with taking their organs to do some good?
It's not like they were killed in order to retrieve their organs, that would be a terrible way to mass-supply organs.

I think those two are equally questionable. I mean questionable as in how much concern they generally raise among people, so if these two issues were taken radically differently I'd think it was hypocrisy. Importantly something can be questionable without being bad.

I haven't given my opinion on getting stem cells from abortions yet, I'm not sure what the sources for stem cells are right now so I don't know if it's even an issue.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

i frankly dont give a crap about what they do with aborted organisms/dead bodies/things alike as long as these things are not obtained specifically for this purpose of research. nor do i care about proper punctuation capital letters gramar or sintax so thats what i think if any of that happens im against the abortion and stem cell research