[Deckard]

Originally Posted by myrrh

It means that in typical circumstance it will grow the be a human, and therefor we should not prevent it's opportunity to do so.

Also in the right circumstances, an egg and sperm will join to eventually create an embryo which will typically grow to be a human. The odds may be stacked against that particular sperm and that particular egg joining, but the logic is the same, we're just going further back in the process. Clearly we culturally discriminate against that, and that's fair enough - but philosophically, what makes that discrimination fair? All I'm hearing is a circular argument that relies on the reason of an embryo being a potential human life, but without explaining why that in itself makes this type of stem cell research unethical. If it's as simple as Life=Sacred therefore it's wrong, well I'd still want more definition of what constitutes "life" to warrant that ethical stance. I understand the emotional difference, but I don't see it backed by anything substantial beyond that. Now that emotional difference may well be reason enough to ban public funding of this research – as I said, if enough people feel genuinely uncomfortable or aggrieved by it, that's fair enough. But for me that still doesn't address the underlying ethical division many of us choose to draw.

Originally Posted by myrrh

Before you can be a human, you need to be an embryo. The embryo is alive and going to grow into a human.

Before you can be an embryo, you need to be a separate sperm and egg. And I'm not "talking about 'potential' like it can grow into a cat or cow"(!) - I'm very definitely referring to human potential, I assure you! And since you're talking about a potential human as well ("in typical circumstance it will grow to be a human, and therefore we should not prevent its opportunity to do so") then my point is how far back do we take this? My sense is that we have a cultural 'feeling' about what feels right and wrong (or "not quite right"), but this feeling is not necessarily as grounded in logic as we think - it's partly to do with the closer proximity to the reconizable foetus and the emotional connection we have to that, and it's partly the sense of the odds against that particular sperm and that particular egg having joined, and us getting in the way of the unique human being that would likely result from that one-in-a-billion(?) chance encounter. Yet those still don't sound like adequate reasons to me personally.

Originally Posted by myrrh

You said: "People who hold this argument need to be reminded that the same future life could well have been lost had contraception been used, or (perhaps more appropriately for them) had abstinence been practised at that crucial moment in time."

This is true, but the fact is that at the point of discussion, that being about embryo's, the above is irrelevant because conception had happen, and now you have a living organism inside the female.

If you'll forgive me for saying, you're asserting rather than explaining here. So now we have a living organism inside the female. Right. But what does that mean, to be living? That it will grow into a human? We're back to square one, and the argument of potential human life. Why is that important? After all, the sperm and egg also represent potential human life.