stem cell research

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by cacophony

for me religion has nothing to do with it. god has nothing to do with it. and it doesn't necessarily rely on the argument that you're throwing away potential life because, as was stated earlier in the thread, stem cells from aborted fetuses would be discarded anyway.

i don't need a god figure to tell me to respect the creation of human life. i'm pro-choice but i'm better described as reluctantly pro-choice. i'm pro-choice because of the necessity to women's healtrh and human rights, not because i feel embryos are just silly little cellular clusters to be discarded without remorse. i see a fertilized egg is as special thing that would, if a billion and a half crucial developmental moments happen correctly, develop into a unique human being.

I see what you're saying, however this is where I think my position splits away from yours. Instinctively, purely in terms of feelings, I share that same difference in how I feel about a fertilized egg as compared to an unfertilized one, between one that's closer to a human life and one that's less close - when the sperm and egg still have some distance between them. But the question is, why should that distance matter? Why even should the difference in complexity matter? There's still probability involved in the creation of the separate cells themselves, even before conception. Even that is remarkable. Why should the moment of conception itself be the defining moment that separates moral from immoral on an issue like embryonic stem cell research, if not for the sense of destroying a potential life by destroying the process that may lead to it?

From what I understand of what you're saying, the factor of 'potential life' does seem to be what this boils down to when you refer to the fertilized egg developing into a unique human being. I can identify with the feeling that, once we're past the stage of conception, we're interfering with a process that has already beaten many odds and is on the way to developing into something we can emotionally relate to - and ultimately ends up with an emotional state of its own. Something that most of us would agree IS sacred - a human being. But of course it's still not an actual human being yet, and in reality the only thing we're respecting is the sheer leaps of probability that have taken place to get as far as fertilization, the wonderfulness(?) of the fact of creation, and the potential of human life at the end of it. Appreciating those things is fine, but what does it mean to apply a moral distinction to them?

Another question might be: should the human life that will result from a currently separate individual egg and sperm cell be deemed less important than the human life that will result from a fertilized egg a second or a week or a month later when they join up? Sure, the fertilized egg is more advanced and closer to the stage of human life, and has undergone that whole chance encounter of egg meeting sperm - but is that a reason to assign it greater protection/sanctity, and use it as a measurement for judging whether an issue like human embryonic stem cell research is morally acceptable?

Here's what I think. As I see it, the line we're inclined to draw is essentially an arbitrary one based on how we instinctively feel ie. that interfering with one stage of complexity/development feels acceptable, while the other just feels wrong, or as you say, feels like cannibalism. And while that feeling might be perfectly natural and understandable given the unique status we afford the moment of conception, when you think about it, drawing a line at one particular moment of complexity, past one particular set of low-probability events, of the sperm and egg having no distance between them rather than having distance – well it seems somewhat irrational to use any of this as a moral yardstick without knowing fully why these things matter – and why going further back in the development process, they don't.

Originally Posted by cacophony

now, i realize there's something contradictory in my view because i also support organ donation, which is essentially the same thing. however, with organ donation the donor had a choice in the matter before death. that's where i draw my moral line,

The difference I'd draw is that most organ donors are human beings with awareness of themselves, their needs and wishes. An embryo, to my mind, is not - it's not that it's unable to communicate its wishes; it has no wishes – about anything. The only way I see the relevance of the 'embryo not having a choice' is if we view it through the prism of being the potential human life not having a hindsight choice – and as I wrote earlier, I don't see the 'potential human life' angle as one that can be consistently kept to. For me at this point in time, it really does only come down to the issue of the amount of suffering experienced, by whoever (and yes, I can see myself sliding back into the topic of abortion here!)

Originally Posted by cacophony

what's curious to me is that people use the in vitro example as though it's somehow a good thing, and therefore the argument for the discarded embryos' use in research is unrefutable. what makes no sense to me is how anyone can be pro-life but not against the in-vitro process of fertilizing and discarding eggs. it is essentially the same moral dilema.

I agree, it is an odd position.

Originally Posted by cacophony

i am uncomfortable with the idea of my tax money going to support this research when private funding is available. i wouldn't expect to impose my view on the general public and try to block the research completely, but i would prefer not to be part of the funding and support.

That's absolutely fair enough, and if enough people feel likewise, I'd say that's a good argument for blocking it, and for supporters like me to just accept that.

Honestly, I'm probably sounding more dispassionate and detached than I actually am when it comes to the wonder of life. Believe me I absolutely share that wonder (and not just human either – you should have seen me when my cat got pregnant!) though I can appreciate that you feel it far more deeply when you experience procreation first hand, so that will give you an insight that I will never have. All the views above are obviously what I feel in the absence of that insight - rightly or wrongly.

[bryantm3]

n-zero no. like i said in the thread previously, it's become a popular cause for politicians to throw around because the majority of america supports it— exactly like offshore drilling. obama had to drop his opposition of offshore drilling because the majority of americans disagreed with him. unfortunately, the majority isn't always right. most people don't know a lot about embryonic stem cell research except the vague promise that "it can save lives!". it is a logical fallacy- a false dillemna.

"Do we save a person suffering from a disability or do we save an unborn child?" is the question posed by the advocates of embryonic stem cell research. in the meantime, advances in the viability of adult (which are limited to reproducing cells of the body organ in which they came from) and placental (which are unlimited, like embryonic) have been largely ignored because the debate of embryonic stem cell research has been picked up by the politicians, and now noone would DARE oppose embryonic stem cell research. do you just HATE disabled people?

this is the same crap that came out of the bush administration calling all democrats unpatriotic. "either you're with us, or you're with the TRRURISTS!"

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Yay, no election!

But... I will just touch on something that I hear quite often - that it's because the future life – human or child - will be lost. The potential life.

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. It seems to me one of those crazy philosophical arguments where it's almost impossible to find consistency. Unless the parents are having sex 24/7, then they're denying a future life - many future lives in fact. Even by having Child X, they're denying life to potential twins Y and Z. The argument that we shouldn't deny a future life it's child/adulthood seems to me to rest on incredibly shaky ground. Even if by some incredible feat, we turned into 24/7 baby-making machines, the resulting overpopulation would end up denying life - and quality of life - to many.

i am pro-life. unlike many christians who take it to extremes, i do not believe that using condoms is wrong, or that we should have as many children as possible to expand the human race with 20 little bible thumpers running around the house. to me, the issue is "do you value a human life?" to me, once a child is concieved, it is a person. before that, it's up to the individual because it's their sperm and eggs.

to deny that an embryo is a person yet is absurd, especially because many of the same people are saying "How stupid are you that you don't believe global warming is happening?" the two things are so obvious that you'd have to be a complete idiot or in denial to not believe them. "but!" some say, "an embryo can't feel anything yet, so it's okay to kill them!". a baby can't speak or stand up or move around on its own yet, either, so i guess it's okay to kill them too! stating that abortion is okay simply because the baby in utero is not fully developed is a flawed argument from the get-go. it's like saying that a baby is not fully developed, therefore dumping them in a garbage can is perfectly OK.

what about "it depends on the mother to survive and cannot survive out of the uterus"? a born baby depends on the mother (ok, a parent) to survive and would die without one. but what about surrogate mothers? those aren't their babies in them, so is it still her body? not really. so the argument that a baby is an innate part of the mother's body is silly.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by Deckard

I see what you're saying, however this is where I think my position splits away from yours. Instinctively, purely in terms of feelings, I share that same difference in how I feel about a fertilized egg as compared to an unfertilized one, between one that's closer to a human life and one that's less close - when the sperm and egg still have some distance between them. But the question is, why should that distance matter? Why even should the difference in complexity matter? There's still probability involved in the creation of the separate cells themselves, even before conception. Even that is remarkable. Why should the moment of conception itself be the defining moment that separates moral from immoral on an issue like embryonic stem cell research, if not for the sense of destroying a potential life by destroying the process that may lead to it?

From what I understand of what you're saying, the factor of 'potential life' does seem to be what this boils down to when you refer to the fertilized egg developing into a unique human being. I can identify with the feeling that, once we're past the stage of conception, we're interfering with a process that has already beaten many odds and is on the way to developing into something we can emotionally relate to - and ultimately ends up with an emotional state of its own. Something that most of us would agree IS sacred - a human being. But of course it's still not an actual human being yet, and in reality the only thing we're respecting is the sheer leaps of probability that have taken place to get as far as fertilization, the wonderfulness(?) of the fact of creation, and the potential of human life at the end of it. Appreciating those things is fine, but what does it mean to apply a moral distinction to them?

Another question might be: should the human life that will result from a currently separate individual egg and sperm cell be deemed less important than the human life that will result from a fertilized egg a second or a week or a month later when they join up? Sure, the fertilized egg is more advanced and closer to the stage of human life, and has undergone that whole chance encounter of egg meeting sperm - but is that a reason to assign it greater protection/sanctity, and use it as a measurement for judging whether an issue like human embryonic stem cell research is morally acceptable?

Here's what I think. As I see it, the line we're inclined to draw is essentially an arbitrary one based on how we instinctively feel ie. that interfering with one stage of complexity/development feels acceptable, while the other just feels wrong, or as you say, feels like cannibalism. And while that feeling might be perfectly natural and understandable given the unique status we afford the moment of conception, when you think about it, drawing a line at one particular moment of complexity, past one particular set of low-probability events, of the sperm and egg having no distance between them rather than having distance – well it seems somewhat irrational to use any of this as a moral yardstick without knowing fully why these things matter – and why going further back in the development process, they don't.

if you leave your jizz on the bathroom floor it doesn't turn into a baby. even if you stick it in an incubator for 9 months it won't do anything except make a sticky mess. ditto with unfertilized eggs.

fertilized eggs develop on their own.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

the issue is "do you value a human life?" to me, once a child is concieved, it is a person. before that, it's up to the individual because it's their sperm and eggs.

Person is just an emotive label that indicates you think these cells should be sacred - what we're actually talking about is the potential of a person in the sense that we normally envisage a person - or if you really want to broaden your definition of the word person in that way, then let's at least acknowledge how these various stages of 'person'hood differ instead of trying to gloss over them - in other words, what it means for a 'person' at these different stages of development to suffer, what it means for this 'person' to otherwise have a sense of 'themselves' continuing into the future, etc. Because anyone can band around emotive words like baby and kill and gain the emotional upperhand. Anyone can refer to children and people, and appear to have an irrefutable argument. Actually, all you're doing is equating the conceived eggs with what they have the potential to become, and asserting that they should be treated the same without providing a convincing reason why that should be the case.

Calling any post-conception eggs a person actually means nothing other than awarding it some sort of sanctity based on what it has the potential to become, or based on how marvellous the process of creation is and it feels wrong to interfere with it, or on what I detailed in my previous post regarding the potential person argument. That's not to deny that we don't marvel at the prospect of a fertilized egg in a way that most of us don't about "our jizz". That's fine. But that's not sufficient reason in my eyes to award a fertilized egg that special sanctity over an unfertilized one.

Originally Posted by bryantm3

if you leave your jizz on the bathroom floor it doesn't turn into a baby.

Then you're being distance-ist or discriminating on geography, temperature, etc - factors beyond its control, because it still has the potential to be a human life before you do what you do for it to end up there. That there are two elements (sperm and unfertilized egg) rather than one doesn't show that this twosome is not also a potential person, it just shows that you've managed to carelessly eject some of it onto the bathroom floor! I would suggest if you were being truly consistent, you would see and treat all 'life' as equally sacred, not just a certain stage of development. Of course that position leads to an absurdity, which is why I don't see how there's any sense in subscribing to it.

fertilized eggs develop on their own.

Not if you take them out and chuck 'em on the bathroom floor. You see my point? Unfertilized eggs are still very much part of an ongoing process called life - and while in the body, have that potential of ultimately leading to a unique human life.

[myrrh]

Well, I am against it. But, I am not against the actual stem cell research itself, what I am against is the process of getting those stem cell's to research on.

Let's face it, the whole 'potential to...' argument is weak because according to the definition of life- an embryo is alive. Therefor, you have to kill it to get the stem cells, and this is what I am against.

Now, I am also against abortion, unless the mother looks like she is going to die from the pregnancy (and with modern medicine the actual event of a mother dieing while giving birth etc, is becoming rare), so how can these cells be collected?

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by myrrh

...because according to the definition of life- an embryo is alive. Therefore....

But what does that actually mean, being alive? I mean, to the extent that you feel it should dictate the ethics underlying this?

[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.

Let me clarify this- Before you can be a human, you need to be an embryo. The embryo is alive and going to grow into a human. You speak about 'potential' like the embryo can grow into a cat or cow, and we need to wait and see to make sure that it is a human. The embryo inside a human is a human embryo!

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.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

From what I understand of what you're saying, the factor of 'potential life' does seem to be what this boils down to when you refer to the fertilized egg developing into a unique human being.

This is what I find interesting about cacophony's position as I understand it. I don't think she needs to agree that it boils down to potential life. I've always thought that it is the materialist/reductionists (those who don't believe in a soul for example) who have the most justification to criticize abortion and I guess stem cell research as well.

If you believe in a soul as what separates life from matter, then its your obligation to pinpoint the time and place where the soul enters into the mix. Which obviously can't be done empirically, and that means you just shake your bible, praise god, and play pin the soul on the uterus.

But if you believe that humanity is simply genetic code, brought through several stages of life where the embryonic stage is really no different than puberty as they are all transformations on the same set of DNA, you must say that something "human", therefore sacred, begins when the unique genetic code, unique and never to naturally reoccur, is created - the zygotic stage.

I mean its actually an argument that can be made, where as arguments based on the soul or even some mystical essence of humanity are generally arbitrary and outside observation.

Here's what I think. As I see it, the line we're inclined to draw is essentially an arbitrary one based on how we instinctively feel ie. that interfering with one stage of complexity/development feels acceptable, while the other just feels wrong, or as you say, feels like cannibalism.

this is where you and I agree. there is something cultural, personal going on here. Even more so, I think you and I want to just maximize the happiness (utilitarianism) because these embryos are on their way out to the land fill anyway, other people's suffering could be alleviated, and its not like using them will promote creating more abortions/embryos to satiate the scientists' needs. But at the same time there is an irrefutable line to be drawn (categorical ethics) when it comes to human life found anywhere from the constitution to the 10 commandments.

We're not going to solve which system of ethics is better equipped to guide our lives.

So at this point I think cacophony's right. Lets keep it out of public funding. Even I have to admit that Bush's ban on embryonic stem cell research has probably done noting more than encourage scientific breakthroughs in the field in the attempt at getting around the sticky issue of embryos. which means a lot of this whole conversation is moot, and the democratic push to overturn this ban could very will just be some kind of smug needling.

[Strangelet]

I didn't have time to give this justice, Decks, what with jOHN's devastating retorts and all.

wowwwweeeee jOHN you are awesome. you're quite the darktrain gadfly. or horsefly. or horse's ass. let me know when I'm getting warm here.

Originally Posted by Deckard

The difficulty as I see it though, is that if religion IS the bottom line for those opponents, if we've debunked their argument and pointed out various contradictions and absurdities, and they're left with no option but to resort to the ultimate dogma "because the Good Lord tells us so", then how on earth do we successfully argue against that?

like i said, simply ask "who the fuck are you to know what God wants?"

Can you give any examples of how, by assuming the language of religion, such people could be convinced, without us coming across as, well, insincere and false? Because that's the whole problem of religion isn't it? That every convincing argument to the contrary is viewed as a test of faith, rather than on its own merit - and embryonic stem cell research is a classic example of that. Religion actually represents THE obstacle to accepting any alternative position at odds with what they think they're allowed to think. I appreciate what we don't do: ridicule and sneer and denigrate. But I genuinely have no idea what we DO do other than continue to calmly make the case FOR this kind of research - in ethical and philosophical terms (perhaps that's what you meant) - while, in the background, the enormously gradual process of encouraging people to relinquish the shackles of religion and have the confidence to think for themselves continues slowly and surely with education and scientific progress.

well said point. I guess I just wanted to point out the difference between someone like chris hedges and richard dawkins, the latter well described by dubman a while back as one who "has no lulz in his heart" Its really easy to not come across as insincere. you genuinely assume the posibility there is a God, even a judeo christian God, then go from there. It helps me not punch some of my family members in the face when they tell me gays shouldn't be allowed to marry. And I suppose it keeps me from getting punched in the face when I resist calling them brainless fools.