Time and time again we see opponents of these sorts of medical techniques changing their tune when they come face to face with the reality of what these treatments can do.

Senator Conroy a staunch Pro-Life Senator from Victoria has just fathered a surrogate baby in NSW because the techniques used were illegal in Victoria. Whilst I note his hypocrisy I wish him and his family every happiness.

I've a few issues with this article.

Firstly - the debate was about embryos. Not fertilised embryos.
It takes a sperm and an egg to create a person, which is a crucial difference.

The slippery slope argument applies to many things, but ultimately we have to rely on common sense to prevail.
You can point at just about any decision and say it is the first on the road to danger.

As far as "transformation of our ethical sensibility" goes, there is the issue of who decides what is ethical and what isn't.

In a democracy, that is left up to the majority. That is what has happened.

As far as the 'valid research' goes, on an issue that divides the community so closely, figures can be found either way. Here's some that show polls in favour.

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2006/4036/

3. Stem Cell Research
Respondents were then told: “A very important new avenue for research using human embryos involves taking cells called stem cells from the inside of a five day old embryo. The embryo is no longer capable of further development. Scientists are working on techniques to turn stem cells extracted from an embryo into any type of cells in the body such as nerve cells and muscle cells to treat diseases such as heart disease, Alzheimers, cancer, spinal injuries and many more. Put simply, stem cells can be extracted from human embryos to be used in the treatment of many diseases and injuries.”

They were then asked: “Do you approve or disapprove?”

Those aged 14-17 and 25-34 (both 86%) are the most likely to approve of the extraction of stem cells from human embryos to treat injuries and disease."

Here's another.

http://researchaustralia.republicast.com/PublicOpinionPoll2003/pop2003.pdf

The reason people are against human cloning is that when it is shown to be successful it will tear to shreds all the BS about babies being gifts from God and where the place of homo sapiens fits into the scheme of things.

Let me state from the onset, I have no problem what so ever with somatic nuclear transfer [SNCT] or therapeutic cloning. Clearly by dint of the appropriate treatment any somatic cell can be induced in theory at least to be metamorphosed into a blastocyst. It is from this amorphous ball of cells that stem cells are to be harvested.

It would therefore follow from Dr. van Gend argument that blood sampling and surgical biopsy should be prohibited, since any live somatic cell is a potential human.

Dr, van Gend argument is a collection of emotional statements and fears that are neither explicit nor implicit in the proposed legislation:
• Cloning babies and grown cloned foetuses for their organs – [an argument reiterated 2 or 3 times].
• The slippery slope. The slippery slope from therapeutic to human cloning. SCNT cloning produces knowledge that can achieve human cloning.
• Senator Paterson changes her mind over 4 years. Did not Maynard Keynes remark, when new facts become available I change my mind, don’t you?
• Creating in order to destroy

I can understand that Dr. van Gend is offended by SCNT as it possible violates a personal religious principal or a “yak factor.”

However, SCNT has no moral problem for me. It is further confirmation that life obeys the laws of chemical combination, the laws of physics and neo-Darwinism. SCNT does not cause my moral compass and respect for fellow humans to deviate from “true north.”

"Firstly - the debate was about embryos. Not fertilised embryos.
It takes a sperm and an egg to create a person, which is a crucial difference."

The embryos are created articially, they are still an embryo. There is no such thing as a "fertilised" or "unfertilised" embryo. The embryo has already been created. In the world of mad scientists, it no longer takes a sperm and an egg. The result is still a human embryo. An embryo is an embryo, even if it is created artificially. Do you get that you were once an embryo?

"Those aged 14-17 and 25-34 (both 86%) are the most likely to approve of the extraction of stem cells from human embryos to treat injuries and disease.""

You mentioned all the information they were told, were respondents also told that so far there has been no success only tumours?? Were they told that adult stem cells have had many success’s and are already treating diseases that the pro-cloning lobby can only dream about? Probably not.

"The reason people are against human cloning is that when it is shown to be successful it will tear to shreds all the BS about babies being gifts from God and where the place of homo sapiens fits into the scheme of things."

And it has removed your own humanity as well. We might as well declare it every many for himself, since there is no absolute moral standard.

The Morgan public opnion poll cited by TurnRightThenLeft as supporting human cloning is not valid, as the information given to respondents was false and misleading.

In the questionnaire, no mention was made of either the word cloning or the fact that human embryos would be created specifically for destructive research. Instead of saying the embryo would be killed by extracting its stem cells, the Morgan poll inferred that stem cells would be taken from embryos "no longer capable of further development." Also, no scientist has yet made an embryonic stem cell from a cloned embryo as the poll wording wrongly claimed, nor can embryonic stem cells currently be "used in the treatment of many diseases and injuries" because they cause tumors in animals. That is why no human trials using embryonic stem cells have ever been conducted, whereas there are now more than 1200 human trials being conducted worldwide using ethically innocent and scientifically superior adult stem cells.

As for the biotech industry-commissioned poll in 2003, that is entirely irrelevant as it dealt only with the question of whether scientists should be permitted to experiment on left-over IVF embryos that were going to die anyway.

The most recent in-depth research into public attitudes to human cloning was carried out by Sexton Marketing Group in January 2006 through a national telephone poll of 1200 people.

It found that only 29% of respondents support the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells while 51% opposed the cloning of human embryos for stem cells. This increased to 55% when it was clarified with respondents that these embryos are destroyed in the process of obtaining stem cells from them. (43% of respondents were not previously aware of this fact.)

In order to determine whether the majority of Australians are opposed to human cloning, you have to examine how objectively worded the questions and preamble of the poll are.

A dispassionate appraisal of the polls on the issue shows that a clear majority of Australians are uncomfortable with cloning for research, contrary to the claims of the cloning lobby.

The bill has passed the senate (the hard part) and will pass in the Reps soon.

Maybe Dr David can now go back to curing homosexuals of their disease as he often expouses.

Note to editors of OLO Dr David is much more than a Toowoomba Family Doctor maybe this could be amended.

Big Al -

I couldn't agree more, that the wording of these polls is crucial. I've yet to be convinced in my daily travels that most people are genuinely opposed to SCNT research.

The fact that the results of the poll also changed when certain questions were clarified indicates that additional information was conveyed during the course of the poll.

I don't argue that this is bad, rather, I wonder whether information could have been selectively conveyed. Presenting a reasonable argument is notoriously difficult.

The Morgan poll may well have been flawed, but my point was simply that there are a wide variety of polls out there purporting to represent the majority, but how can you accurately gauge public opinion when so many are misinformed?

Elka - "Were they told that adult stem cells have had many success’s and are already treating diseases that the pro-cloning lobby can only dream about? Probably not."

Dunno. My point is there is many a poll out there. Perhaps the SCNT folk will have more success in the wake of this senate decision. The fact that another branch of stem cell research has had more success is hardly a compelling argument for stifling another.

TurnRightthenLeft - yes, there are many polls. Accurate community opinion means that the wording has to be clear not full of euphemisms. The average person would not understand "SCNT" but they would probably be able to understand the implications of "Cloning."

Either way, human rights should never be removed with an opinion poll.

What's wrong this picture?

Through my website (www.casehealth.com.au) collection of health success stories I've become aware of a treatment that is helping slow disease progression for sufferers of Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, Cancer, HIV, RA, Crohn's and other autoimmune related conditions - and in a high percentage of cases sufferer's have tried all mainstream medical treatments first.

The treatment is based on a old, safe, well-known drug that's approved by the TGA for use at more than 10 times the dose being used successfully in the treatment of a broad spectrum of autoimmune related disorders - however, the drug has not been clinically trialled for these conditions which means doctors are highly reluctant to prescribe the drug for this 'off label' use.

I've disseminated information directly to the Multiple Sclerosis Society (National & Qld), national and state government departments, media, national and state politicians, universities, etc, etc, etc - zero interest, zero response. Who's in charge of this engine room?

Here's a cheap, effective treatment - available right now - working for sufferers right now - could be saving Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and patients big $ right now - but no-one is interested because the evidence is contained in patient anecdotes - and patient anecdotes are not afforded any value - are not officially recognized as evidence - regardless of the number of corroborating anecdotes.

Not surprisingly, it's very difficult for me to believe embryonic stem cell research proponents are genuine in their desire to help Australians suffering with chronic, life threatening, life changing diseases.

Where's the genuine compassion for these sufferers?

If proponents are genuine in their desire to help sufferers of chronic disease, shouldn't they at the very least be curious about the potential for this treatment?

Shouldn't they be researching its possibilities, and perhaps even lobbying for the National Health & Medical Research Council to fund clinical trials?

Instead, proponents are investing an incredible amount of money, time and energy into something that MIGHT provide solutions in 10 years, and zero time and energy into investigating something that's helping sufferers right now.

What's wrong this picture?

At the heart of these issues lies the fundamental question;

At which point in the reproductive process do we become a human?

eg:
1) Before conception (every sperm is sacred)
2) At conception (au naturale or in the lab)
3) The fertilized egg clinging to the womb (until we get artificial wombs).
4) The foetus can feel or think (how do we measure this?)
5) At birth
6) At birth and the baby has prospects of some quality of life (Groningen Protocol)
7) A point in time such as x weeks into the pregnancy.
8) At a religious event, eg when the soul is inserted into the body.

Reaching consensus on this question is unlikely but as laws need to be black and white these topics will remain controversial.

No one really knows where science will take us. For those interested Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" explores what may happen is we have a bio-boom like the dot com boom. It is a satire so don't take it too seriously.

When I was a child I went "fishing" for tadpoles in the water trough for the cows. With a small net,not much bigger then a tea strainer, I scooped out the tadpoles.

I learnt about the beginnings of life.

I would study the small creatures then toss food scraps in the trough and let them swim free.

Those small delicate creatures had a right to life, just as much then, as they would soon after when they grew to be the most beautiful, nearly emerald green, terrestrials frogs that would make music and song in the drain pipes around our house.

Cris Kerr, please enlighten us as to the details of this miracle drug, otherwise we will all regard your post as another lot of BS from a crackpot.

"And it has removed your own humanity as well. We might as well declare it every many for himself, since there is no absolute moral standard."

Well clearly the ones who claimed the absolute moral standard,
ie the Catholic Church, got it wrong!

Eggs, sperms, embryos, zygotes, you name it, are all flushed
down lifes toilet on a regular basis, quite naturally. As
Darwin pointed out, far more potential individuals will be
created, then can ever survive. Ignore natures laws at your peril.

Personally I think its far more human to focus on suffering,
rather then get carried away by organisms. But then thats
just my morality, versus that of the Catholic Church, which
seems to have the weird notion that suffering is ok, but we
should panic about holy sperms etc.

Perhaps the Church's claim to absolute morality is in fact
a flawed one.

Hi VK3AUU,

Here's an article on the subject written by a Brisbane crackpot:

'Anecdotal evidence points to relief for MS sufferers'
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3905

It will be interesting to see how these decisions are viewed in several decades time.

Lets take a look back through history - like the first few curious researchers who conducted autopsies.

No doubt they were conducting research that was viewed as immoral - evil. I dare say much of the rhetoric we are hearing today would have been directed at them, in even more harsh tones.
I'm not familiar with all the history, but I'd be very surprised if this research was conducted in the open. It was probably a sordid frankenstein-esque affair, conducted secretly in back rooms away from prying eyes.

Is there anyone here who would argue that conducting research into the human body and conducting autopsies was wrong?

Moral standards do change over time, this can't be denied. Perhaps one day we will exist in a world where brain-dead clones are created for organs. I'll agree it's a nasty scary thought.

But then again... those who opposed the first anatomy research probably wouldn't want to believe that one day they would be common. It was probably a 'nasty thought' too.

The question is... were those who were opposed to surgery morally superior? Will we be morally inferior if we undertake cloning research? Will the people of tomorrow look back on this decision as simply a brave one, on the road to better health for mankind?

Dunno yet. If I can find a time machine, I'll let you know.

Thanks for your link, Cris. I hope you won't mind me quoting from it:

"Clinical trials cost money and are typically initiated or sponsored by those who expect to recoup the cost outlaid for the trial by commercialising its successful results. That’s business and how it should be. If an organisation is prepared to fund the very high cost of research, development and clinical trials, then they are entitled to view the costs as an investment that will turn a profit.

However, Naltrexone has long passed its patent protection period. Drugs outside patent protection are classed as “generic” or “orphan” drugs, because they no longer have a sponsor. A clinical trial, therefore, does not present an attractive commercial proposition for those sponsoring organisations that have traditionally initiated clinical trials - because they wouldn’t gain exclusive rights (and subsequent profits) from a successful outcome. So regardless of the promise Naltrexone holds, nothing happens."

Australian cardiologistist Dr Ross Walker highlights this concept in an article on anti-oxidants. Obviously, no-one is going to spend a fortune conducting clinical trials on assorted fruits, vegetables and supplement ingredients and get nothing back. But Dr Walker says that he has noticed with his patients that those who take anti-oxidants tend to have better health than those who don't.

In regard to autopsies etc, TRTL, Boris Karloff was suitably sinister in the 1945 film, The Body Snatcher. For medical research, doctors were obliged to do illegal business with anyone who could provide them with bodies.

"The Body Snatchers was Karloff's moment. It was an Oscar-worthy performance as John Gray, the character who gives the movie its name. Gray supplies corpses for Henry Daniell's medical school. Of course, Gray does not just snatch corpses from graves; he will go out and find people and turn them into corpses. (BTW, this was a real issue in 18th and 19th century medical schools: the book The Italian Boy gives an account of the time, when medical schools kept wicker hampers outside their gates for the convenience of body snatchers.) Karloff dominates every scene he's in, smiling and gently sinister."

http://www.sff.net/people/rothman/GBF/bodysnatcher.htm

The results of a successful open-label pilot study at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine were reported to an international gastroenterology conference in Los Angeles in May 2006. The trial demonstrated the safety and efficacy of LDN in a group of patients with Crohn’s disease, a classic autoimmune disorder. The researchers concluded that "LDN therapy offers an alternative safe, effective, and economic means of treating subjects with active Crohn's disease.” They have since received a substantial NIH grant and will be proceeding with a definitive Phase II placebo-controlled clinical trial.

In addition, there is some in vitro data that indirectly suggest the potential benefits of LDN therapy. Many anecdotal accounts and case reports have also been cited in favor of LDN therapy. Some of the many conditions for which LDN has been reported as beneficial include multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, HIV/AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis, fibromyalgia, autism in children and cancer. Several clinical trials have been planned.

On antioxidants, a patient initiated clinical trial of EGCG an anti-oxidant found in green tea is being conducted by the Mayo clinic its findings will be announed next month.

All we did to get this trial happening was raise $120,000.

So my response is get of your bum and find a creditable researcher then pay them to do it.

Off patent or orphan drugs is irrelevant and you are wasting energy complaining.

Just DO IT.

Hi Steve,

Are you suggesting I personally raise $120,000 for a clinical trial?

Great idea, but I'm not sufficiently resourced to undertake such a major project in the public interest.

I'm unemployed. My biggest concern at present is whether I'll be able to pay my looming website hosting bill.

If you have the answers, I'm a willing and open listener.

cris

email me bimini2@bigpond.net.au I will let this thread get back to the circular arguement on stem cell stuff.

The idea that low dose Naltrexone therapy for a wide range of conditions is not investigated because of patent expiry is total nonsense. As an example, consider the drug Thalidomide: It's patent for the treatment of morning sickness is long expired, yet its patent for the treatment of multiple myeloma is still active. Conducting clinical trials for a drug approved to treat other conditions would be far cheaper than developing and testing a new drug.

A drug patent is granted for a proven efficacy of a substance in the treatment of a specific medical condition. The fact that a substance may have an expired patent for another therapeutic use is not relevant.

Hi Fester,

You're correct.

The issue isn't about patents, it's about regulatory approvals.

Naltrexone is a TGA and FDA 'approved treatment' for dependence at doses around 50mg.

Naltrexone is not an 'approved treatment' for auto-immune disorders - even though it's only being applied in small doses up to 4.5mg.

Safety and efficacy HAVE been successfully achieved in the doctor's surgery - in clinical practices in the USA, in England, in Ireland, in Germany, etc, and even Australia - but the success being achieved in a broad range of autoimmune disorders is not recognized because it is not supported by university studies or clinical trials (with the exception of some early results on specific disorders such as Crohn's - as stated earlier).

The issue is that the treatment involving Low Doses of Naltrexone (LDN) will never be offered as an option to patients, even if all other avenues have been investigated and have failed.

If a patient wishes to try LDN as a treatment option, they must first be aware of the treatment, and they must then physically ask their doctor to prescribe the treatment.

This is inequitable and unjust to those who are unaware of LDN as a treatment option for their condition.

The bigger picture is that there may be many more stories similar to the LDN story.

the nazi german goverment dehumanized jews and used them in science experiments.

we are simply dehumanizing embryos and using them in science experiments.

im sure if an amazing cure was found by the nazi scientists they would have been vidicated for using 'a means to an end' type approach.

i am not an advocate for suffering and do not stand on high, religious moral ground - i stand for basic human rights.

we have all passed through many stages in life.. and ALL of us have at one stage been an embryo. we have the right to start life. we dont have the right to take it away.

Fester

Celgene owns the patent for Thalidomide, now called Thalomid for ALL uses. Use of thalidomide in cancer therapy has allowed Celgene to raise the price of Thalomid from $6.00 to $29 per 50-mg capsule between 1998 and 2004. A 100mg capsule used to sell in Brazil for 7 cents.

Celgene made US$370 million from Thalomid sales last year. This sucks.

Its analog Revlimid costs $10,000 per course of treatment and is in clinical trials for 34 different diseases. 22 people died in the phase II trial of Revlimid in Multiple Myeloma.

Cris I haven't forgotten I'll get back to you real soon.

Steve Madden

I agree that it sucks. And if your claim that the patent was granted for all uses, known and unknown is true, then it really sucks. The only upside is that if any other applications are found, the patent will not last any longer. My father died a few years ago from multiple myeloma, so I am acutely aware of the cost versus life calculations of expensive treatments.

rowanc

A former Nazi helped the world to land a man on the moon, but that doesn't make rockets evil. I think you need to realise that your definition of what is a human is not an absolute, and a wide variety of opinions are held by the billions of other human beings that share this planet with you.

Perhaps when blindness, cancer and paraplegia are treatable afflictions, people will view embryonic research opponents as adherents to a very curious morality. A few centuries ago animals were tried and punished for their "crimes". And Christian morality considered suicide a crime, with forfeiture of property and mutilation of the corpse common "punishments".

"we have all passed through many stages in life.. and ALL of us have at one stage been an embryo. we have the right to start life. we dont have the right to take it away."

Rowanc, you miss the point entirely. Human rights are about people,
an organsim is not a person.

Fact is that nature creates sperms, eggs, zygotes, embryos in
massive overabundance, only a tiny % will ever survive. The
largest cause for abortion in nature is nature herself. Fact is
that for you to be here, millions upon millions of sperms were
flushed down the toilet, thats the reality.

For an embryo to go further, it needs loving parents to nurture it
for many years. No parents, it gets flushed down the toilet, thats
the reality.

If you believe in the human rights of embryos rather then people,
what do you want to do with the many embryos in IVF clinics?
Quite simple, with no willing parents, they are flushed down lifes
toilet. We are not above the laws of nature, get used to it.

In reality, there is no slippery slope of moral decay arising from scientific research.

If it becomes possible in the future to clone a human from a strand of hair or a piece of flesh, how will our present morality and regulations cope with this? In short it will not, and morality and regulation will need to be developed further, as it has done in the past for alcohol and other WMD's. David van Gend would be better placed to write a lamentation on the need to discard religious dogmas in light of scientific discoveries. By accusing embryonic stem cell research of being a threat to morality, David van Gend resurrects what should be an archaic Christian tradition. Scientific discovery frees humanity from its ignorance, not its humanity.

When did we decide to limit our respect for life to numbers - how many cells, how many days, how many weeks, how aware, how much does it look like a human? You are a unique individual. There is no-one else on this planet exactly like you - from the moment you were conceived your appearance was predetermined.

If we could isolate the genes that determine our future appearance and extrapolate that data, we could create a complete image of the adult that is destined to be. Confronted with this image, would we still consider this life unworthy of reaching its full potential?

Regardless of whether an egg is fertilized naturally or artificially, the process creates a new human life. Is being small, undeveloped, unaware, and unable to defend yourself adequate justification to destroy life? What of others who are small, undeveloped, unaware, or unable to defend themselves?

Human suffering in all its forms is tragic. We do need to be compassionate. We do need answers. We do need new treatments. We do need to pull out all stops to find causes and cures, but we need to do so within the boundaries of humanity.

What right do we have to judge which stage of life has value and which does not, or which stage of life can be sacrificed for another?

In the future what other stages of life could be added to this list of the unworthy?

Do we really want to legalize the capacity to define the conditions under which life can legally be destroyed? ... "Your honour, I did punch my pregnant wife in the abdomen, and this did cause a miscarriage, however; it is legal in this country to create and destroy early life."

How can we argue life has value under one defined set of conditions but no value under another defined set of conditions?

We either value life - in all its forms - or we don't. This is humanity.

We can't CHOOSE the conditions under which we will CHOOSE to value life.

Yabby,

"Rowanc, you miss the point entirely. Human rights are about people,
an organsim is not a person."

Definition of an organism - any living thing. That does include people.

"Fact is that for you to be here, millions upon millions of sperms were flushed down the toilet, thats the reality."

We are not talking about sperm - we are talking about an embryo.

We are talking about Equality...

"Definition of an organism - any living thing. That does include people."

Sure it includes people, but it also includes many other
living things besides people. The world is full of organisms.

"We are not talking about sperm - we are talking about an embryo.
We are talking about Equality... "

Umm so what about embryos? They are an organism, a cell
basically. They are not people, they don't have a functioning
human brain, they don't suffer. Embryos are a dime a dozen,
nothing rare about them. Eggs or fertilied eggs, they are
flushed down lifes toilet every day, no suffering occurs.
So what is the problem with that? Why not focus on the
many thinking, breathing people and other species who actually
suffer?

Are you trying to ignore the laws of nature?

**Embryos are a dime a dozen, nothing rare about them.**

Every embryo is unique and is therefore by definition, rare.

**Are you trying to ignore the laws of nature?**

There is a cavernous difference between ignoring nature ... and interfering with nature.

“If we could isolate the genes that determine our future appearance and extrapolate that data, we could create a complete image of the adult that is destined to be. Confronted with this image, would we still consider this life unworthy of reaching its full potential?”

From this would a computer file containing someone's DNA sequence be a human if it were possible to create a human from it? Should we make atoms illegal if they can be used to make illegal drugs? Is cutting your hair or blowing your nose akin to murder because of all the potential human beings it destroys? Clearly humanity comes from the interaction with other humans and the world around us. Concepts like humanity and value arise from this interaction, but have no meaning for a cluster of cells, a strand of hair or a computer file.

"Your honour, I did punch my pregnant wife in the abdomen, and this did cause a miscarriage, however; it is legal in this country to create and destroy early life."

The decision to bring a human being into the world is the decision of at least one human. To suggest that legalising stem cell research would result in legalising the killing of an unborn foetus against the mother's will is false.

“We can't CHOOSE the conditions under which we will CHOOSE to value life.”

But people do Chris. You seem to forget that the choice to have or not have a child is a decision of the mother. I would be interested to know why you think one source for a potential human being to be of more value than another?

"Every embryo is unique and is therefore by definition, rare."

Unique embryos are a dime a dozen, so nothing rare about that.

"There is a cavernous difference between ignoring nature ... and interfering with nature."

So are you going to stop producing vaccines etc, which interfere
with nature?

This debate is going to follow the lines of the abortion argument, as pointed out earlier, it all comes down to what you consider a human life.

This subject is so contentious, that the end result isn't considered - indeed, the argument that the end justifies the means is dismissed entirely because the 'means' is perceived by some to be tantamount to murder.

I for one, don't consider an embryo to be a human being - for starters, they're not going to allow them to be implanted into a human being, thus the argument that if left alone they would become people is only valid if there is further assistance along the way.

Unfortunately, similar arguments can be put forth for babies - if left alone without care, they would die.

But as I see it, a baby is a separate entity - it doesn't need a womb, it only needs someone - anyone with the right knowledge - to care for it.

Note here I'm talking about basic survival.

This isn't the case for an embryo.

An embryo can't breath on it's own, it can't hear, see, it hasn't a brain to form thoughts. Even a baby will cry for it's own survival, but an embryo is incapable of doing that.

No doubt a flurry of emotive arguments can be hurled at these statements.
The correct rejoinder to those arguments are those emotive ones involving people suffering from debilitating conditions for whom research gives hope - take Multiple Sclerosis - we don't know what causes it and we have no cure. We really know next to nothing about it at all.

So, to those who wish to disagree, I say very well - but please put forth arguments based on reason.

"I for one, don't consider an embryo to be a human being"

TLTR, I have to agree to disagree here. An embryo is a being,
ie an organism, which can be of human origin. The thing is
that does not make it a person.

So how do we define what is a person? Well the reality
is that we can function with a pigs heart, somebody else's
face, any manner of organ transplants, apart from the brain.

So a person is somebody with a functioning human brain,
which kicks in and functions at around week 25 of pregnancy.

All quite simple, no functioning human brain means no person.

Doctors and medical researchers used to have to obtain dead bodies by illegal means to carry out essential life-saving research.

Jehovah's Witnesses disapprove of blood transfusions.

The orthodox Muslim view seems to be that organ transplants are against the will of Allah:

"Is organ donation permissible?
Answered by Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam, Darul Iftaa (Leicester, UK)"

http://www.themodernreligion.com/misc/hh/organ-transplant.html

Lots of opinions, depending upon one's religious/philosophical/spiritual/humanist and whatever else views.

I realise this is a bit different, but I was a blood donor for many years and I am a [total] organ donor. If I was unfortunate enough to die in a plane crash in an inhospitable, isolated area, then the survivors would be welcome to eat my body in order to stay alive. After all, just like my organs, my human body is of no further use to me after I'm dead, is it?

I've never been a sperm donor, but had an apparent need arisen, then I would have been happy to oblige. Free of charge, of course, like my other sundry contributions, real or possibly in the future, to people who have a need.

I see embryonic stem cell research as similar in concept. Just because the possible ensuing benefits to the health of incurably sick people have not yet been adequately proven [as far as I am aware], that doesn't mean that these benefits cannot be forthcoming. I believe that there's a very good chance that human suffering will be relieved by this research, so let's go for it.

As others have said, we need to address the pain and suffering of those who are actually experiencing it now, rather than become philosophical about some early stage of pre-life which is never going to be able to progress to the next stage anyway

Yabby,

The "functioning brain = person" equation isn't quite enough: one has to argue the case that all human beings without functioning brains don't have an inherent right to life. In other words that human beings don’t have a right to life – only human persons.

Certainly if someone has their brain completely & irretrievably destroyed then we view them as no longer as having a right to life. But is this because they are no longer a person, or that they are no longer, in essence, a human being?

Unlike this de-brained entity, a normal fertilized human egg is a human being with nothing essential missing for that stage of its development. At this stage it has the capacity to develop – and is in the process of developing - its own brain. Why should this human being in the process of constructing its own brain be considered as having no right to life?

To put the question in another way: compare the case of 30-year old Jack who’s in a very deep coma but who will come out from it in half an hour, with Fred, a 24.9-day old embryo who is half an hour away from getting his brain up and running for the first time. Both have the capacity to flourish as “persons” in the future. Do you think that Jack has a right to life? If so, why not Fred?

I submit they both do, since both are human beings. Human beings exercise, or have the capacity to exercise (in the future), personhood. The de-brained being is on this ground no longer a human being. Fred and Jack are human beings. Having the capacity to exercise personhood, they have the same right to life as humans actually functioning as persons.

HH, the moral question as to what has a right to life is a subjective one, as
we have no evidence of any objective morality. All we have is the
laws of nature to guide us. So where you draw a line in the sand and
what your reasoning is for that, is open to debate.

What we do know is that most women shed around 400 eggs in their lives,
all with the potential to become cute babies. Reality prevails, resources
are limited, we cannot keep them all. As Darwin noted, far more potential
individuals of any species will be created, then can ever survive.

An embryo of 24.9 days does not have a brain, it’s a bundle of dividing
cells, no more. Given the right circumstances, an egg can go on to become
a person. What is so sacred about an egg and a sperm? Given the right
circumstances, yes they can become people too. My point is that the
limiting factor in nature is neither eggs nor embryos, but resources to
take them further in their development, ie parents who will provide the
resources to feed them and nurture them until the point of their independence.

Given limited resources, I prefer to see those resources focused on thinking,
suffering people or other species, rather then potential people. In my moral
world, reducing suffering is more important then the rights of non suffering,
unaware organisms, who have no parents to provide them with resources,
as nature had intended, if they were to survive.

So give me a good reason why the rights of an unaware bunch of dividing
cells, should matter more then starving babies or suffering people, or
suffering individuals of other species for that matter. What is so moral
about your opinion? On what reasoning do you base that morality?

Yabby,

1. If there is no objective morality, then why are you putting up an argument, for sacrificing embryos? Why are you talking about your “moral” world and asking me to give a “good reason” for my position? What, moreover, counts as a “good reason”? Ultimately isn’t it based (according to you, anyway) on purely arbitrary personal preference? What if I said “Actually I’d prefer to see more suffering in the world” – you may not share that preference, but how could you, reasonably <i> argue <\i> against it if morality is a purely subjective business?
2. Eggs and sperm of themselves aren’t little humans – no argument there. But fertilized egg is. It is a self-organising entity with a genetic makeup independent of (though derived from) its parents – just like you and me. Of course a 24.9-day old embryo is a bunch of dividing cells. (PS in my earlier post I meant the example to be a 24.9 week old embryo – ie one with an almost developed brain.) You and me are bunches of dividing cells. So what? The fact is the embryo from day one is dividing – unlike, say, a tumour – in an ordered way according to information written into the organism itself by mysterious process we are only just beginning to understand. At a certain point the division process manifests differentiation. This is not an accident – it is written into the process from the moment of conception. It doesn’t happen to other bunch of cells.

"It doesn’t happen to other bunch of cells."

But it did happen this way for Dolly the sheep, and it seems likely that advances in technology will make it possible to create living, functioning organisms, including humans, from a single cell. Will this devalue human life? I would say it has no relevance, but with the almost limitless number of potential humans created hopefully the debate will change to a discussion of the rights of a woman in choosing or not choosing to have a child: Surely they amount to more than being a morally obligated incubator.

Now we're getting some interesting conversation...

I see your point HH, though I'd have to say I agree with Yabby's consensus - ultimately, you do have to draw a line in the sand. Problem is, nobody can agree where this line should be drawn.

I'd call the senate decision a compromise between morality and practicality, though the thing is, the practicality side of the equation is reasonably unquestioned. Here's my line of reasoning:

You can argue that adult stem cell research is yielding results where embryonic research is unproven. Fair enough, though it's difficult to argue that the potential for cures does not exist.
By the same logic that argues no research has happened, no definitive statements can be made regarding whether or not the research can yield results.

Now, as for my earlier statement: morals v practicality - it isn't that simple of course - matters like this never are.
Some view the notion that people are so vehemently protecting a bunch of cells as a fundamentalist kind of morality - on the fringe.
I'll admit I feel that way at times, but I can at least appreciate their concern is there for the right reasons, especially those concerned secularists.

Hmm... overall? I think the claims that this research is immoral are unfounded... I guess the practical possibility of cures to me, is the most concrete moral compass I can see.
Ironically, this practicality leading to morality reflects another one of life's little ironies:
The most extreme arguments for and against this research are also based on potential. Those concerned people are worried that it will lead to a 'slippery slope' of sorts - but again this is merely potential, much like the research.

Food for thought anyhow.

HH, questions of where to draw moral boundaries, come up in society
on a constant basis. Why is 16 the legal age for sexual intercourse,
why not 18 or 14? Society as a whole has drawn its line in the sand
and as with other moral questions, its based on many subjective opinions
to form an ultimate judgment, by which we live.

If you believed that more suffering was perhaps a good thing, as some
of the religious have tried to do, in our society you are free to do so.
However you will need to justify your reasoning to many others, to
gain their support for your belief. Convincing others of that belief,
might not be so easy :)

So lets take the point further. Lets say you had the power to help
one of two beings. One was a thinking, feeling person, writhing
in agony with ongoing pain, which you could eliminate if you
chose. Your other choice would be helping a week old, non
thinking, non feeling embryo, take another step in life towards
its potential future. Which would you choose and why?

Why do you draw the line as conception being your moral
boundary, after which some kind of sanctity should apply?

In nature conception is pretty common, abortion of the fetus
is also pretty common. Death off offspring for whom parents
don’t have the resources to provide them with, is also pretty
common.

As I believe that less suffering is a good thing, my moral
argument is that if we do things that reduce suffering,
that is morally a good thing. Why do you think it’s a bad thing?

Too little space here to list every ADULT stem cell treatment currently in use or holding sufficient promise to be under investigation.

If you seek hope for the suffering, adult stem-cell treatments offer real hope, right now, without sacrificing the lives of the unborn.

Here are just two news examples published within the last twenty-four hours:

Adult Stem Cells Offer Hope for Diabetes Treatment

By Gudrun Schultz

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, November 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Adult stem cells may soon be used to treat human diabetes, after a study by U.S. researchers showed the cells increased insulin production in mice with Type 2 diabetes, and may also have aided in kidney repair.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06111302.html

' ... But what if they could be coaxed to multiply? They can. Scientists, including Marban, have extracted cardiac stem cells from patients undergoing cardiac biopsies, and watched them multiply and generate beating cardiospheres that “began to look like little hearts in a dish.” Tested in mice and pigs, the cardiac stem cells appear to regenerate cardiac tissue and restore pumping capacity. The new cells appear to be able to conduct electricity and contract, just as they would have to do in the human heart. “We can grow millions of cells in a relatively short period of time,” says Marban, who’s now working out the methods for a first human trial of this therapy with large-animal preclinical studies. He expects to start phase I trials within 12 to 18 months.

If successful, the cardiac stem cell approach could pole vault over some of the potential limitations of stem cell therapy. Because they are derived from the patient’s own heart, there is no question of rejection, and they may be less likely to spur the growth of benign or malignant tumors, always a worry with stem cell therapy. “Since cardiac stem cells are already partially differentiated into heart muscle, we can grow them with limited processing. So far we’ve done karyotypes after several passages and the cells are all chromosomally normal,” Marban says. ... '

http://www.dddmag.com/ShowPR~PUBCODE~016~ACCT~1600000100~ISSUE~0611~RELTYPE~CVS~ProdCode~00000000~PRODLETT~X.html

That is really good to know Chris, and I hope that adult stem cell research makes great advances. I am also glad that you agree that it is morally acceptable to use adult cells for such purposes as organ repair or replacement.

1. Fester, what happened to Dolly the sheep was that a nucleus from a mammary gland cell was artificially implanted in an ovum from which the nucleus had been removed. It is simply therefore not true to say that the mammary gland “bunch of cells” was, prior to artificial manipulation, a self organising entity which possessed the innate capacity to mature into a sheep. My contention is that an embryo “bunch of cells” by contrast – whether it arises by natural conception, natural twinning, or by artificial manipulation, is, unlike any other cell (even a sperm or ova) or bunches of cells, a self-organising entity, the identity of which is that of the adult human it naturally tends to mature into.

2.Fester, women are more than morally obligated incubators. But when pregnant they are at least that. Also, parents are morally obligated feeders and cleaners, educators, etc. And if I walk past a stream and see a person drowning that only I can easily rescue, then I am at that point a morally obligated swimmer. And so on. Is this odd?

3. TRTL & Yabby, the only “line in the sand” that won’t blow away with the shifting winds of opinion and taste is one that coincides with a major faultline in the rock beneath. Conception, Yabby, is that faultline. Beyond conception, I am a human being. Before that, I don’t exist. I’m also an innocent human being, and like all other innocents, no-one may take my life intentionally or recklessley, even if the goal is to help relieve the suffering of others. Socrates said it is better to suffer (and tolerate suffering) than to do wrong. Its always wrong to kill, maim or torture innocent human beings even in the quest to relieve the sufferings of others. Or do you disagree?

HH

I assume from your posts that you are also opposed to IVF where the vast majority of embryos are disposed of as medical waste.

Cris adult stem cells have been studied for over 40 years and in my form of leukeamia there is still a 50% treatment related mortality. When we have studied ESC for 40 years a comparison may be relevant.

HH, conception just happens to be where you have drawn your
particular line in the sand. I have drawn mine at the point of
persons, who have a functioning human brain. Without
a functioning human brain, it’s a corpse, or still an organism,
not yet a person.

Innocence to me is not an issue. Lambs, chickens, calves
are all innocent, yet you eat them.

The definition of a being, is any living person or creature.
The definition of a creature, is any living thing which can
move about. Sperms are living and move about. Should
I mourn their death by the billions, or the death of human
ova by the billions? I feel as guilty about killing
zygotes or embryos, as I do about killing sperms or
ova. They are unthinking, unfeeling, unaware organisms,
hoping to compete in the lottery of life and as Darwin
pointed out, they cannot all survive. That’s the reality
of natural law, we ignore it at our peril

When it comes to Socrates’ quote, the question arises
as to what is right and what is wrong, another question
of subjective morality.

If we look at the origins of morality, we find it in our
primate cousins, where things like empathy, a sense
of justice, altruism, food sharing etc can be shown
to have evolved, as part of living as a social species.

To me it is immoral to let people suffer, if we can
show that this suffering could be avoided and the solution
does not involve the killing of other people. Organisms
are not people in the final analysis.

Thanks, Yabby.

1. I’ve raised questions earlier re. your personhood line and am yet to receive a response. Eg: can you kill Jack who is in a deep coma and so whose brain is certainly not functioning well at all, even though he might come out of it in a few moments, but who is currently, in your terminology a “corpse”(!) and certainly not manifesting personhood. My line rules this out. Yours would seem to permit it. Are you happy with this?

2. Animals are neither innocent nor guilty. They have no moral responsibility – even higher primates (that’s why we don’t arrest them for murder). It’s innocent humans that are sacrosanct. Wicked criminals, though, can be executed if necessary for the common good. It’s crucial that they are wicked, and not just insane.

3. You keep repeating this line about sperm and ova as being somehow equivalent to zygotes and embryos. Could you respond to my point that a zygote is, biologically speaking, a young version organising its environment in order to mature into the adult human being, whereas a sperm is a cell that has no innate capacity to grow into a mature human being? Is a tadpole the same creature as the frog it grows into, or is it a different individual? Is there an identity between myself now and myself 10 years ago, given that none of the matter is the same? I say yes, and this identity extends back to the moment of my conception. What do you say?
4. I am in broad sympathy with your statement about suffering, except for the statement re. organisms ( I take it you are referring here to embryos – or do you also mean “corpses” like my poor, temporarily comatose Jack as well?) The latter assertion begs our question: whether it is humans exercising personhood fully, or human beings as such, that are bearers of moral rights.

HH, if Jack is in a deep coma, its a bit like Jack being asleep. He
has a human brain which is not functioning fully right now. His
human brain exists and it has not stopped functioning altogether, or
he would be a corpse.

We can show that primates can reason and that guilt is not an unknown
concept to them, species such as bonobos are not dissimilar to 3 year
old humans. Yet you try to ascribe innocence to embryos, even though
they clearly don't have the ability to reason, therefore be morally
responsible. Therefore applying the term innocent to them, sounds
more like emotional rhetoric to me, then reasoned argument.

Yes a zygote has the capacity to become a person, given the right circumstance.
So does an ovum and sperm. Umm so what?

Moral rights is something that you have decided should apply to
organisms from the moment of conception, that is your line in
the sand. Mine is from personhood, ie when a human brain is present
sufficiently developed to call it that, ie with a neocortex that
has the capacity to function. Sorry, but suffering people and
other species are more important to me then near unlimited amounts
of organisms who might have potential one day, given the right
cirucumstances.

Yabby,
1. In an earlier post you referred to “unaware” bunches of cells as if this lack of awareness stamped them as non-persons.

Is your assessment of Jack this: that Jack has, even in this deep comatose state, some level of awareness which characterises him a person? If so, could you explain what is this attribute of awareness he has in this vegetative state that separates him from, e.g., a crab, and marks him out as a person?

Or are you saying that, Jack is a person (or at least, should be treated as one) now, because he has a brain that at some future point will facilitate awareness? If so, your argument is that brain-possession is the line in the sand because you’ve just gotta have a brain to be aware - either now or - in Jack’s case - at some future point in time.

But this is not strictly true. You don’t actually have to have your brain now in order to be aware at some future point. You could just have to have the ability to grow your brain. How, then can we distinguish morally between an being that is unaware temporarily because its brain is recovering from injury, and another that is unaware temporarily because it has yet to exercise to completion its natural capacity to construct its own brain? In other words, between the zygote and Jack?

2. A sperm or ovum, as opposed to a zygote/embryo is not an individual that develops into an adult human. A zygote is not an older, grown up version of the sperm or ovum it was formed by but a new individual entity. But an embryo is the same individual as the zygote it was a few weeks back, and so on. We can envisage a futuristic but not impossible artificial uterus being developed by scientists which would, by supplying nutrition and warmth, etc, bring a zygote to term. We can’t envisage such a device bringing a sperm or ovum on its own “to term”

HH

I understand that you consider any human embryo capable of growing into a human being with the aid of the mother to have a unique quality. So if in future scientists are able to create a human being from a mature diploid cell without need for an ovum, would you agree that the embryo thus created should be accorded the same rights as any other embryo? And would you also agree that a scientist creating a human embryo by whatever means would have the moral obligation to then assist that embryo grow into a human being, as you believe a woman who falls pregnant is morally obligated to do?

Fester – thanks for the question.

The short answer is yes.

Longer answer: the embryo, I submit, is a human being from the moment of its creation – whether artificial or natural. It should be accorded the respect we give to any other human being.

So, if I happened across a human embryo in a petri dish unattended, my thoughts should be exactly the same as if I found a baby abandoned at my doorstep. IE, do what I can, subject to all my other obligations, to keep it alive and flourishing.

If I’m a creator of that embryo, or baby, then my obligations are even higher. Someone who deliberately or recklessly puts someone else in a precarious situation has higher obligations than someone who just comes across that situation.

Complicating factors: there is also a relation between the owner of the cell from which the scientist created the embryo – he/she is a parent of the embryo. So he or she too has obligations which arise from that relationship.

If a conception-to-term (futuristic) artificial uterus is available, the scientist should move the embryo into one.

Today there are no such devices. So an embryo of a few hours, days or weeks old is not viable. In these current circumstances, it is morally acceptable, I think, to let nature take its course and to respectfully allow the embryo to die. If as time goes on and viability for younger concepti becomes possible, then maybe freezing for a short bridging period would acceptable. Right now, that is a long way off, and so all frozen embryos should be unfrozen and allowed to expire.

The fact that embryos will die this way doesn’t give us the right to kill them for experimental purposes, any more than the fact that you & I will die someday gives anyone the right to kill us for science.

I don’t agree with other pro-lifers who think it’s moral to transfer the embryo to a woman’s uterus. But that’s another argument.

HH, a person is somebody with a human brain, a cell has no
human brain. When you are asleep, you are unaware, yet
your brain still functions at low level, you are still a person.

At the end of the day, its your brain that makes you a person.
We could transplant that brain into another body, different
heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, hands, feet, etc. etc. You
would still be you. Your mind is what your brain does,
cells don't have minds.

So cells are not people, no human brain = no person.

At the end of the day, a zygote is a cell that contains
a dna code. Umm so what? Nature can create those in
massive overabundance, the limitations will always
be on resources, not on limited numbers of cells.

Personally my morality is more concerned with suffering,
then with fussing about cells.

What are you going to do if a sperm meets an ovum down
a sewer, where they get flushed by the billions.
Cry out that murder was committed?

Yabby I’m trying to understand your perspective on the value of life which I understand to be:

1. No human brain = not considered a person.
2. Not considered a person = no value = no right to life.

I’m a little deficient in the brain department myself (and I suspect I’m not the only one) so it’s encumbent upon me to request clarification.

If our Australian politicians were to formulate legislation that defined the right to live - based on your human brain criteria - how would they define a human brain that has the right to live, and a human brain that does not?

Thank you for that HH. I would also be interested to know what you think of this hypothetical: What if technology were developed to modify the DNA of a cell, such that if the nucleus was transferred into an unfertilised ovum, the ovum would then have the capacity to develop into an anencephalic human being. As this human being would have no consciousness, would it then be morally acceptable to harvest stem cells from this embryo?

Cris, thats fine, as you correctly note, for many people the brain
is a total enigma. If you are ever interested, the following is
a pretty good little website to explain some fundamentals to you.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html

To understand a bit about the brain, you need to look at its so
called 3 evolving sections and how they evolved. In the centre
is the brain stem, it governs beathing etc. Next the so called
limbic system, our emotional centres. Lastly the thinking bits
or the neo cortex. Where we humans differ to other species is
in the neo cortex. Mammals have one, but ours is the one that
lets us think and reason to the extent that we can, compared
to other species.

The neo cortex finally develops far enough to be able to function,
in week 25. Before that its still taking shape. Once its functioning,
you have what can be called a person, with a human brain.

Many hate my analogy of a car, but I think its a good one :)

A piece of steel is not a car. Its a potential car. A chassis
is still a chassis. A car becomes a car, when you put the engine
in it. Without an engine, its not yet a car.

Yabby,

The standard definition of person is: a rational being. (Boethius: “An individual substance of a rational nature”) The universe for all we know, could teem with them – most not having human brains. The human brain seems to be necessary for us to exercise our rationality, since it appears a consequence of our having human brains that we can do so. But ‘having a human brain’ is not the definition of ‘person’.

If you insist on your non-standard definition, I’m not going to let it get in the way of our discussion. But your earlier remark re. “unaware” cells is clearly misleading: According to you now, “unawareness” is nothing to do with why these cells are to be treated as disposable, except perhaps that it might be evidence they don’t have a human brain.

Could you give your argument, then as to why having a human brain has such life or death significance? Your answer, note, cannot be something like “because that makes someone a person” – that would be circular reasoning. Why is being a person - in your restricted definition - so important? What is crucial about having this particular human organ, as opposed to, say a human heart or lungs or liver?

Here is the direction of my argument. The brain is important precisely because of its relation to awareness/‘mind’/rationality. Although Jack is severely incapacitated by his damaged brain and as far as we can tell, completely unaware beyond a vegetative level, he remains a human being. That is, he still has a rational nature which cannot be exercised fully just now. Jack is a bit like a violin maestro with a stringless violin in his hand – he retains his identity as a maestro nevertheless.

Likewise, the zygote/embryo is a rational being incapable of exercising its rationality until it constructs its brain. It’s like a maestro who builds a violin for himself.

A zygote is a cell that contains a very special DNA code: one that enables it to mature into a human being with a brain. No sperm, ova or other cell has that.

Thank you for your response Yabby, and for directing me to resources to aid my understanding of the human brain.

My question was … Q. If our Australian politicians were to formulate legislation that defined the right to live - based on your human brain criteria - how would they define a human brain that has the right to live, and a human brain that does not?

In response to my question you wrote; ‘ … The neo cortex finally develops far enough to be able to function, in week 25. … Once it is functioning, you have what can be called a person, with a human brain. … ‘

If a functioning neo cortex is representative of a fully developed human brain, the criteria changes to the following:

1. No functioning neo cortex = no human brain.
2. No human brain = not considered a person.
3. Not considered a person = no value = no right to life.

With reference to the neo cortex, how would you further define the word ‘functioning’?

Fester, good question.

I assume we’re talking here about the severest form of anencephalia.

As you’re aware, the presence of consciousness is not, for me, a consideration. (Zygotes, which I argue have a right to life, have no “consciousness” in a higher sense, though they are busy developing the apparatus which will enable it.) So the issue for me is, given the nature of their irreversible and severe incapacity, can anencephalics be classed as human beings?

My understanding is that anencephalics at least have rudimentary brain stem activity, which regulates, while they’re alive, certain body functions and response mechanisms. So though they are permanently and severely incapacitated, they are still self-organising entities, and not just masses of disorganised human tissue. From this it follows that they are, as you say, human beings, though of a type that will never have the physical apparatus wherewith they might exercise their innate rationality (while on earth, at least). If this is true, then on my principle that no innocent ( ie non-dangerously wicked) human being can be intentionally or recklessly killed, they too, should be spared.

I should add that it would be an evil act to manipulate a cell so as to set up this (or any other) deformity in someone.

HH - a few points I'd like to make about the coma argument:

Firstly - even in cases such as comas, the brain is operating on a very basic level - I'm not aware of any people awakening from a brain that has ceased functioning entirely (I could be wrong) but I'd always been under the impression that there was very minor activity in these cases.

Even if this is not the case: Jack's brain has functioned - he has experienced thought - it may be on hiatus, but a hiatus is different to something that has yet to be.

Measuring brain activity is something that is indeed very difficult - a person may be incapable of responding to stimuli, but still have brain activity.
The thing is, basic electrical impulses are still firing - as we are still largely ignorant of the human brain, we still can't define precisely what is going on.

In some cases however, the brain is completely silent - incapable of subconscious activity such as regulating breathing and heartbeat, and incapable of conscious thought.
Is this brain truly alive? Is this person alive? this is when they 'flick the switch' as it were. You can argue the morality of these cases, though in practical terms the enormous resources sustaining these people can help others who have a far greater chance of benefit from medical care...

HH, the Catholic dictionary tells us that Boethius’s definition of person
“can hardly be considered a satisfactory one”. Once again, please
explain to me how a person can exist, without a human brain.

On the one hand you tell us that animals are neither innocent nor guilty,
as they have no moral responsibility, on the other hand you tell us
that Jack is innocent, even if he only has his brainstem functioning,
so clearly cannot claim moral responsibility of any kind!

If “a rational being” is your definition, then in fact many primates
would qualify as persons. Experiments with various primates can
clearly show that they are very good at solving problems, where
deduction and rational thought is required to solve them. Not only
humans have a neo cortex, ours is just a bit larger then theirs.

HH, as to your question, your heart can be replaced by a pigs heart,
or an artificial heart, it pumps blood, you will still be you.
Meantime if we replace your brain with a pigs brain, you won’t
be you anymore, you will be a pig with a human body.

A zygote is no more a person, then are the blueprints to build
a house, an actual house. Given the right environment and
ingredients, they have the potential to become a person or
a house, they both have potential, no more.

Cris, there are people far more qualified then I am, to pass
judgement about the brain and its parts. My point is that
if you are basically brain dead apart from your reptilian
brain which keeps you breathing, you are being kept alive
artificially etc, with no hope of your rational centres ever
recovering, what about you, apart from he fact that
you have human dna, actually makes you a person?

Thanks for the clarification HH. I had thought that your concern for the zygote related to its ability to develop a consciousness, hence my question. So if you had the choice to bring either an anencephalic or normally developed child into the world from their respective embryos (but not both), would you flip a coin?

Yabby,
I – along with many others, follow the Thomistic interpretation of Boethius’ classic definition, which actually is the most natural reading anyway. I respectfully disagree with the Encyclopaedia’s verdict – B. has given us a very good thumbnail definition. The great Australian theologian Frank Sheed thought so too.

If a separate entity (individual substance) can reason and choose (rational nature) then it’s a person. Angels, Martians with reason and will, and so on, are persons. In that He has Knowledge and Will, God Himself is a personal Being. When someone says “Do you believe in a personal God?” they don’t mean, “Do you believe in a Supreme Spirit with a human neocortex?”.

Animals don’t have abstract reasoning. They don’t think in concepts or work with universals and particulars which is the hallmark of rationality. Neither do they have free will. If someone were to find an animal that did have these attributes, then we would have another kind of person.

Jack, we’ll assume, is not a wicked criminal on death row for some past crime. And we agree he can’t exercise his rational nature right now (ie learn things or choose them). So in the sense that he is a rational creature who isn’t now deserving of execution, he’s innocent. The zygote is a human being that hasn’t yet developed the means of exercising choice or thinking conceptually. Again, it’s a rational creature not deserving execution. So it’s innocent too and will be until sometime after birth (at least). Animals, I contend, don’t have rational capacities by nature, so it’s meaningless to speak of them as innocent, except in an analogous fashion.

I entirely agree with your statements re hearts and brains but not because of your definition. If you simply DEFINE a person as “someone with a human brain” it’s easy. But I could define “person” as “any three-storied building”. Why is that wrong?

Blueprints aren’t self-existent entities that grow into a house. Your car/engine analogy, also fails. What if cars had the ability, engine removed, to grow back their engines? Compare an embryo assembling its own brain.

Dear Sir, I object to the very name of this thread “The slippery slope to reproductive cloning”. There is no “slippery slope”. Reproductive cloning, once it has been demonstrated to be safe and efficient, offers the possibility that people suffering from various forms of infertility can conceive a biologically related child. This would be their reproductive choice and no third party should be able to stop them conceiving a genetically related child.

Regards,
Roger Moorgate, PhD
Administrator, The Reproductive Cloning Network
http://www.reproductivecloning.net

HH

As well as looking forward to an answer to my last question, I would also be grateful for your indulgence in further clarifying your definition of a person. You state that non-human beings capable of abstract and rational thought would also be persons. If so, would it be true that all examples of that species, including anencephalic and undeveloped (but capable of development) examples, should be accorded that same rights as persons?

RTRL

First, I agree that we are ignorant of much to do with the brain, especially at the extremes of life. Respect for human life entails that in cases of doubt, we give the patient the benefit. Death is only certain when all vital functions have ceased and decomposition begins. Until that time, the patient should be given all normal support – warmth, comfort, and (where possible) food and water. Extraordinary means to keep the patient alive are not necessary. What is important is that any treatment withdrawn or denied is not done so with the intention of killing.

Until Jack is dead, he's a living human being, even if there's no evidence of brain activity. I don’t think it matters that he once was conscious: if someone were in a coma all their life, would that justify us refusing to treat them as I suggest we treat Jack? [To sharpen the point: imagine that they were certainly about to become fully conscious for the first time. Would their coma up to this point justify us killing them?]

Once Jack’s brain is removed or completely destroyed, he dies, or ceases to be a living human being. But the ends of life are not symmetrical as some believe. An adult human deprived of their brain is not directly analogous to an embryo which is brainless but in the process of growing its own brain. Suppose that adult humans, deprived of brains, were naturally able to grow them back. Would we permit ourselves to lethally harvest their organs while they were temporarily brainless? Would we regard them as corpses? Would we regard them as not human beings until their brain grew back? This situation is a much closer analogy to that of the embryo.

Not having a brain (but building one) is a normal, healthy situation for the human being at the embryonic stage. That tiny human individual deserves our respect just as do all others.

Steve – yes I’m opposed to IVF. Several reasons.
Fester – Give me a while – it’s not an easy question to answer quickly.

HH- you are free to speculate about angels, martians and gods if you wish,
but if we look at a simple dictionary definition of person, it comes
down to “ a man, woman or child” That’s also how the word is used
by most people most of the time.

By your definition, various primates would indeed be classified as
people, for we can show that they can reason and choose. How much
or how deeply they reason is open to debate. That was not part of
your definition.

A zygote is by your definition not a person either, it cannot reason
nor choose. Just as a seed is not a tree, but has the potential to
grow into a tree, it simply contains the blueprint to grow into
a tree, much as the zygote has the potential to become a person,
given the right circumstances.

Perhaps I should just redefine my point to call it a “human person”,
if that keeps you happy.

What saddens me about this debate is that some religions have
drawn their lines in the sand, based simply on volume of life,
not quality of life, nor on suffering of living, breathing, thinking
people. To me that is highly immoral.

Yabby,

18 to 25 days following fertilization the 'zygote' you refer to has a heartbeat.

Analogies involving car parts, architectural plans, and the like therefore have no relevance.

Respect for life and compassion for the suffering go hand-in-hand - but no-one has the right to judge one life more worthy than another.

The line in the sand you refer to is one of humanity, not religion.

Humanity is the quality of being human (note - not the quality of being 'person').

Yabby,
I wouldn’t lean too heavily on dictionary definitions of ‘person’: on their score a “child” can also include a fetus, which need only be eight weeks post-conception (& brainless).

Nevertheless: you’re aware that my argument has never been that the zygote/embryo is a person, but that it’s a human being - which includes not only those humans presently manifesting personhood, but those too whose biological apparatus is currently too immature or defective for them to exercise their rationality.

My argument against the protective line you draw (functioning human brain) is this. On the one hand it’s arbitrarily narrow. Why is it that the only beings, with vegetative level brain functioning, that can’t be killed are humans? Isn’t this speciesism? Why not other beings with brains operating at equal or higher levels? Crabs, for instance? My own position is that no matter how aware they are, if these other beings are not BY NATURE capable of exercising personhood (reasoning/choice) – ie regardless of the immaturity or defectiveness of their bodies – then their rights are not the same as rational beings.

On the other hand, the line is not wide enough. There are examples beyond the severe coma case: We can posit cases of total temporary brain cessation. If adults could be successfully frozen/unfrozen (like embryos), with no metabolic function operating while frozen, on my criteria, it would be wrong to destroy them while frozen because, regardless of their current total absence of brain function, until they die, they remain human beings with an innate capacity for rationality. On your criteria, no brain function means they are not “persons”, and so can be killed. Are you happy with this?

A seed is the tree it matures into in some respects and not that tree in others. It is the same individual, but as that individual grows it develops more complex functions and “higher” powers. Likewise I am the same individual as the zygote I was years ago.

When non-human higher primates start blogging, I’ll defend their right to life from conception.

Cris, I remind you that the heart is a pump, no more. It can be
a pigs heart, an engineered pump, the function is much the
same. Big deal. So what?

Its all very sweet of you to feel compassion for the suffering,
but that does not help stop their suffering one little bit. Many
life choices involve choosing between the rights of a cell
and the suffering of a person. Are you telling me that given
that choice, your morality is such, that you would simply
accept suffering of people as a given, in order to defend
your ideology about the rights of a cell? What is humanitarian
about that choice?

HH, I have yet to see a definition of a child as being someone
who is not born yet.

A zygote might well be a human being, but by definition so
is a sperm. So what?

Well of course we are speciest! It’s my very argument that
morality evolved as part of social species living in cooperation
to survive. Many species fight over territory, but if a species
killed its own for food for instance, it would soon be extinct.

If we applied your criteria of reasoning/ choice, then bonobos
such as Kanzi would have far more rights then a great many
humans!

You have lost me on your seed/tree argument. Whats the big
difference? As you grow from zygote to person, you develop
“higher” powers, as per your dna. The tree does much the
same. Now what?

I’ll remind you that humans never blogged for 3.5 billion
years, they do since about yesterday. Are you saying that
if humans can’t blog, they should have no protection from
our line in the sand of the sanctity of human life? So why
discriminate against bonobos? You must be specist :)

Yabby,

** ... the heart is a pump, no more. It can be a pigs heart, an engineered pump ... Big deal. So what? ... A zygote might well be a human being, but by definition so is a sperm. So what?**

More irrelevant analogy, again with no basis in logic.

Yabby, postulating repetitive 'Hmm so what?' questions and variations thereof (with reference to the experimentation and destruction of early human life, at its most vulnerable) is flippant, dismissive, and offensive.

I have been very clear on this point: I have a great deal of compassion for the suffering. Any human who is suffering or vulnerable is deserving of EQUAL support.

Where we differ is that I do not believe 'support' should extend to sanctioning the sacrifice of one life with the intent of benefiting another. Tipping the scales for the benefit of one life over another is clearly inequitable.

Yabby, two wrongs will never make one right.

Cris, one of the interesting things about reality, is that it does
not go away, when we close our eyes and wish it would! A recent
scientific study showed that when people feel altruistic, it in
fact is because it makes them feel good.

You may well feel good about your slogans of equality. That does
not help the people who are suffering, one little bit, nothing
changes for them.

The world needs solutions, not people feeling good about their
ideology, which helps nobody but themselves.

The reality is that there are limited resources, most women can
produce 400 potentially cute babies, not all can survive. Ignore
the laws of nature at your peril.

If a woman can only provide resources to feed a couple of kids and
society forces her to have 7-8 of them, clearly hard choices have
to be made. Equality becomes insignificant in comparison to suffering
that is experienced.

Idealogical slogans don't reduce suffering Cris, solutions do.

You might be in love with your ideology, personally I'd prefer to
see less suffering and more realistic solutions, which are there if
we bother to provide them.

Yabby,

Ever heard the expression “with child”? Also 4th definition at dictionary.com : “a human fetus”. (PS this is a side issue for me – I’m not arguing “fetus = person”)

It’s you that’s lost me re. morality. Are you saying that our morality is centred on the survival of our species? If so, then, were it necessary for the survival of our species that we kill one or more brain-possessing humans (the ones that count in your book), wouldn’t that be moral? & if so – what's happened to that line in the sand you drew?

I’m not speciesist: if for the human species’ survival it were necessary to kill an innocent human, I’d say this was still morally impermissible. What’s gone wrong - does this mean I’m not a human?

Bonobos etc don’t have the kind conceptual reasoning/self consciousness I’m talking about & which humans either have or can in principle develop.

A sperm is a human cell, but not a human being. A zygote is a cell which is also an individual human being – the earliest form. Your expression “As YOU grow from zygote to person” (emphasis added) captures this nicely.

Your argument was that the seed is not a tree. I argued that it is in the sense that it is the same individual. This distinguishes it from the gamete cells from which it came. The issue is identity over time. I am the same individual I was when 3 months old even though there is no matter that remains from that individual and I’m much more developed (though alas less innocent). Ditto when I was 24.9 weeks in the womb, and ultimately, when I was a zygote. But before my conception there was no me. I did not exist. The sperm and the ovum, that admittedly produced me, weren’t me. This is why conception is the line.

Any thoughts on the frozen adult case?

You imply that neanderthals didn’t blog! I find that highly unlikely: how otherwise did they fill in the day ?!?

HH

Your comments raise some questions. You consider Bonobos not to qualify as persons on the basis of their lack of abstract rationalism. Yet they are more mentally capable than anencephalic babies: So, are the superior rights you would accord to anencephalic babies over bonobos in deference to humans with abstract rationality, or because the anencephalic baby has a more intrinsic quality shared by all humans(and others defined and undefined) apart from abstract rationality?

Fester,

Anencephalic babies and zygotes and pre-brain embryos are in essentially the same category. They're human beings who, either because of immaturity or biological dysfunction aren't able to manifest their innate rationality.(cf the violinist sans functioning violin.) Bonobos and even lower species show a much higher level of actual mental functioning than these humans' actual functioning. But Bonobos, etc simply aren't, I think, beings that in principle are able to rise to the level of self-consciousness that these humans by nature are capable of. There's a big & fascinating debate about what the complex mental behaviour of non-human primates actually signifies (though note: the debate is among humans, not these primates - a telling point, I think.)

As I say, if a bonobo or whatever can demonstrate the highest mental capacities (both in reasoning and will) - eg by blogging! (ps:perhaps Yabby is a bonobo?) then I'm prepared to regard them on the same level as humans and accord them similar rights from the moment of conception.

It's humans' capacities which entail the dignity and rights we accord them. Not - note - whether they're exercising those capacities here and now. So, their dignity doesn't diminish whilst fast asleep, or in a coma, or whilst an embryo - even though at all these times they're less mentally active than a healthy, alert, awake adult bonobo - or even a crab, perhaps. As my example of a frozen adult human shows, even no mental activity whatsoever (& that's surely less than even the most severely deprived anencephalic) doesn't gainsay the dignity of a human being, as long as they're not dead.

Yabby,

There are people in this world who develop realistic solutions and act to address inequity - they do what they can with the resources they have at their disposal - they try to level the scales.

Your point was not clear. Are you suggesting they should all stop because contributing something back to society makes them feel good? Societies the world over would collapse in chaos within a week.

Circumstances do change for people when others reach out. Circumstances do change for people when they're treated equitably - and as a side benefit somewhere, someone's suffering is eased - but to gain a deeper understanding of this ripple effect and its incremental benefits, you need to step outside of self.

Suggesting altruism has less or no value to society because it might make someone feel good is a narrow perspective. The value of altruism goes beyond self and beyond insular to the bigger picture. One example of this is portrayed in the movie 'Pay it Forward'.

I agree we should not ignore nature - but I go further and suggest we should not detrimentally interfere with nature - no peril involved in maintaining the balance.

To be human is to understand we must protect every stage of human life, most especially when it is at its most vulnerable. If we don't we are no more than opportunistic wild beasts, akin to the less-evolved that prey on the vulnerable simply because they can.

Yabby, both you and I, and every other person on this planet share a similar history. We experienced the early stages of human life as unique, rare, one-offs from the moment we were conceived (fertilized). We were very fortunate. We were given an opportunity to grow, to experience life and make our own choices.

No-one arbitrarily usurped our right to grow and experience a full and rewarding life or our capacity to contribute something worthwhile back to our communities.

How can we not recognize our equitable obligation to provide the same opportunity we were afforded?
How can we, in good conscience, not 'pay the same opportunity forward'?

HH-what I am saying is that the basics of morality evolved in various
social species, as its been beneficial to their survival in evolutionary
terms. Solutions to incest, altruism, empathy, food sharing, not killing
your own, etc, are all quite common in the animal world. For a number
of years I’ve had an interest in primatology. Frans De Waal’s books
like “Good Natured” or “Chimpanzee Politics” are real eye openers
and anyone who bothers to inform themselves soon realises that its
humans who are the ignorant ones :)

I’ve often had do smile at humans who keep shifting the boundaries
as to why humans are different. I’ve heard a whole list of claims,
only humans use tools, only humans are sentient beings, only
humans feel empathy, etc. As each of these claims is proven wrong,
humans feel they need to move the goal posts. Like only
humans can blog!

Fact is that the smartest non human primates are smarter then
the dumbest humans. Your reason for declaring sanctity for those
humans thus has to be speciesist!

But lets look at the reality of claims about the sanctity of human
life. Many claim it so, but lets judge them by their actions,
rather then their words. The reality is that most people act out
of self interest, but are great at telling others what they should do
with their lives and their resources. The reality is that there
is lots of rhetoric about it, but people don’t live by what they
preach.

The Catholic Church, who preach it the loudest and who try
to force women into having children that they do not want,
do not live by it. They could easily sell their pomp and splendor
in Rome and feed some starving babies in Africa. But they don’t,
so clearly their pomp and splendor matter more then babies.

Similarly, you could sell your computer and send the money
to Africa, to feed another couple of starving babies. But your
own self interest comes first, you’d rather argue with me on
OLO, then save starving babies. That’s the reality

HH

How can an anencephalic baby have an inate rationality without a cerebral cortex, and when what exists of its central nervous system is a disorganised mess at the cellular level? And if it is the case that an anencephalic baby has the same rights and capacity for abstract rationalism as all other humans, then how is it an evil act for a scientist to alter a mature cell and transfer the nucleus into an ovum such that the resultant embryo would grow into an anencephalic baby? Do you believe that the resultant baby would be any less a human or less deserving of a life?

Thanks Yabby.
You make a fair comment – we can always be more constructive with our lives. Nevertheless it’s important for people who differ sincerely as we do on vital issues to have the discussion we are having. I don’t see this as an indulgence.

Now, could you answer the specific questions I’ve raised ? Your speech assumes key points that, it seems to me, you’ve yet to demonstrate.

Fester, it’s clear from your questions that I need to restate my position. The innate capacity of an anencephalic to reason and choose – something which will never (barring a miracle) be expressed - stems from their identity as rational beings. It’s analogous to the innate capacity of a man born without eyes to see. His lack of eyes is a defect, which means he will never exercise that capacity which he, innately, has. We can gain a clue to this is indeed a defect by noting the sockets where his eyes would have been, or perhaps monitoring the lack of characteristic activity in that part of the brain geared for sight. Perhaps if eye transplants or regeneration became possible (stem cell research – here’s where we came in!), he may one day yet be able to see. That would mean that his innate capacity would be activated.

The eyeless man also lacks wings. But this is not a defect (which it would be in a sparrow born without wings), as he does not, innately, have the capacity to fly. So this is what I mean when I speak of innate capacities. I do hope it’s a little clearer.

For all their defective bodies, anencephalics, like blind people, handicapped people, and so on, rank with luckier humans as innately rational, seeing, walking beings. When a scientist creates anencephalia - or blindness - in a human, he has not reduced their inherent dignity - radically inseparable from their being what in essence they are: his evil is simply that he deprives them of the means whereby they can flourish as human beings – in other words, to fully exercise their capacities.

HH, I see the world in such a different way then you do, that frankly
I can't make head or tail of your questions.

To me, us humans are just another of many species. All species
need a niche to make a living, our evolutionary niche has been
a slightly larger brain. Meantime other species run faster, are
stronger, etc. etc, areas where they make us look silly. If
I dropped you into the African jungle, frankly you would starve
where bonobos and chimps would thrive. Us humans have done well,
because as we became bipedal, an accident of that was the change
in our vocal chords, to allow consonants etc to be expressed, ie.
not just vowel sounds, like other primates. The net result was
language, which let us interlink our brains and knowledge. So
HH benefits from the brainpower of billions of other humans.
Taken individually however, we are only slightly smarter then
other primates. Big deal !

My concerns are frankly about the big picture, given the laws
of nature. If we humans do not live sustainably, then in the end,
this planet will be spinning with nothing but cockroaches, ants
etc, we will have ruined the place for other mammals and ourselves.

At our present rate, it kind of looks like that is where we are
heading. Why should I bother about the rights of organisms, based
on that big picture? As I say, ignore the laws of nature at
humanity's peril.

Planet earth was happily spinning for billions of years without
us mammals. It might well return to that, given that we are intelligent
enough to wreck the place, not intelligent
enough to
live sustainably. Fact is, without biodiversity, there won't be
a humanity. Now where does your morality come into all of this?

Yabby,

I appreciate that in the back and forth we can lose sight of the original questions.

This is how I see the discussion so far.

You drew a line in the sand as to which humans can be killed for research.
That line was: embryos without a functioning brain vs those with one (25 weeks).
[I had thought “awareness” was a significant factor based on one of your comments. I gather now that that isn’t an issue for you.]

I’m highly sceptical, so I'm interested to see why you think this line is a good one. I asked (inter alia):
well, why is it that only those
with human brains should not be killed and not other brained animals?
The answer was that we are speciesist – which, I take it, means we
do[should ?] care about the survival of our own species and not worry
about whether other animals have brains or not.

My next question was: well, if survival of our species is the great
goal, wouldn’t there be circumstances in which killing humans with
brains might advance that goal? If so, what happens to the line in the sand?

Of course, I have many other questions along the way,
but I don’t think you need to accept my particular world view,
in order to understand this line of inquiry.

[Is anyone else watching this thread? Are you mystified by my interrogation of this position?]

I agree wholeheartedly with the value of living sustainably, and with
respect for the world in all its amazing diversity. But I can’t see
how it can be used to justify this particular line in the sand.

HH-the line that I draw in the sand, is in fact pretty well now becoming
the accepted one in the Western world and for good reasons, it’s the best
outcome for humanity as a whole, for a number of reasons. Much the
same arguments apply in the abortion debate, for again the same
reasons.

Most people would like to see us live sustainably, with less hunger, less
suffering, more rights for people to determine how they lead their lives.
Most people would also agree that going around killing other people is
not a good idea, it makes for dangerous and unpleasant living for all
of us. So called morality is often based on self interest and the interest
of those close to us.

Most people accept that new life can be created quite easily, in mass
abundance. Most women have around 400 chances in their lives, yet
they are aware that they can realistically only feed and clothe 1-3.
So creating new life is easy, common and cheap.

They are aware that zygotes, embryos etc are simply clumps of dividing
cells, they do not suffer, they are not aware, they are not yet people.

If you had to make a decision, between flushing a 2 week old embryo
down the toilet and taking a knife and skinning a dog alive, what would
you choose and why? I would naturally flush the embryo, so would most
people I suspect, for pain and suffering is something that we can relate
to and do not like to cause, be that to people or other creatures.

So people base their morality on quite practical reasons of self interest of
themselves and their communities. If pain and suffering can be cured
by using embryos, again its practical reasons that drive people, not
deep philosophical navel gazing.

Sheesh, this stuff is not easy to explain in 350 words :)

Yabby,

HH has waited patiently for your responses to his questions - which were rational and formulated with a great deal of consideration and forethought. You've not answered his questions, neither have you made your case.

Here are just two of numerous examples why ...

**They do not suffer**
If someone were given an overdose of pain killers while they slept they would not suffer before they died - neither would they be conscious of what was happening to them. You cannot use this statement (or multiple variations thereof) to justify your argument for destroying human life.

**by using embryos**
For me, these three distasteful words sum up your position - your 'line in the sand' - your entire argument - your motivation.

HH

Can I now understand your argument to be that while humans might have defects, perhaps even bad enough to prevent them from seeing or having brain function, the fact that they are human leaves open the possibility that they may be repaired and/or upgraded (if their DNA is defective), and so function as persons? But wouldn't this then leave open the possibility that other species could also have their DNA upgraded and also function as persons? Would this possibility then give all species of upgradeable animals the status of persons?

Cris and HH

I must admit my thoughts on this issue a very personal. I am dieing because of one hematopoietic stem cell going wrong. Is anyone investigating why? Not to my knowledge.

It is a very difficult issue I admit, but surely research into how the very beginning of our building blocks occur is valuable.

Semantics about a bunch of cells smaller than a . is irrelevant to me. I see a good friend on my leukaemia support site die every month.

Yes its personal, its neccesary, its legal in the UK, its legal in the majority of the states of the USA, but because of "rights for a bunch of cells, half of which would be mine" limited funding is available and scientists are shying away.

If you have moral issues, fair enough. But why should my friends die?

Steve,

You should not be ill. You should not have to suffer. Your friends should not die. No-one should die.

I wish I could give you the answers I know you want to hear.

You too were once a bunch of cells. You were given an opportunity to grow, to live, to thrive.

If your early human life had been threatened, I hope someone would have stood up for your right to exist.

What has happened to you since is tragic, but tragedy for one does not justify tragedy for another.

I suppose we're generally split on religious lines over this. Maybe the real crux of the matter in many peoples' minds is do people really have a soul and, if so, exactly when does it enter the body? Like just about everything else to do with religious belief, no-one has any proof, one way or the other, so we rely on unsubstantiated conjecture, whichever side we're on.

Does God exist and did God both set the ball rolling and continue to look after our interests? No-one knows!
Are we part of a Biblical style creation? [I have to say that, to me, science has disproved this].
How about evolution? [That's my belief].
How about intelligent design? [Well, being as we don't know, I suppose it's a possibility!].

Consider intelligent design, the belief of many religious people. So, somewhere in our past, God decided that humans were going to be produced by slightly less advanced non-humans. But what could possibly be the real difference between mum and dad and junior? Could it be that junior has a soul? And that God put it there at the moment of conception?

I suspect that this latter assumption is at the very core of "Pro-Life". And the disagreements about embryonic stem cell research ensue from this.

So junior has eternal life, but poor old mum and dad aren't going to make it and neither will dear old grannie, croaking out her last few breaths on a mangy bearskin in the corner of the family cave, after doing her utmost to ensure the survival of her family. And neither will the faithful family dogs follow junior into the great unknown, when their time on earth is over, despite their obvious love and concern for their almost human [and now one little human] friends.

As for the bonobos in the surrounding forest, well they've got no chance of eternal life, despite the fact that they're probably well up with plenty of junior's ancesters and maybe even with plenty of his immediate descendants too. Because they haven't got souls, have they?

Doesn't seem quite fair to me.

Cris, I certainly am answering HH's questions, just in a differnt way
then you might like or expect. As we clearly have 180 deg differences
of opinion on the subject, there are many points to
mention, to have a better understanding of each others positions
and thoughts.

Your problem is a different one. You are bogged down in your
right and wrong philosophy, completely ignoring reality. Its all
very well for you to sing the praises of embryos, but fact is that
if an embryo does not have a uterus for a home, its a lonely little
embryo whose future is much like that of eggs and sperms, ie flushed
down the toilet of lifes destiny. You don't want it, churches don't
want it. What do you propose to do with all those frozen embryos
from IVF ?

Using those embryos to find cures for diseases, to reduce suffering,
makes perfect sense to me. Anything else is a total waste and irrational.

Perhaps the real problem is your defintion of right and wrong and
the resulting suffering in the world, due to people who are bogged
down in philosophical dreaming, whilst ignoring the suffering
of those people around them.

Just a little bit of pragmatism would go a long way, it really would.

Rex,

No-one has progressed an argument based solely on religion though the subject has been raised by VK3AUU, Yabby, and yourself - and all of you argue FOR experimentation on embryos.

Rex, your genetic makeup, including your appearance were destined from conception (fertilization).
You were allowed to grow. You were allowed to live. You were allowed to experience life.
But now you argue the same rights afforded to you should not apply to others.
How can you justify that position?

Yabby,

Your statements are conflicting:
**ignore natures laws at your peril**
**if an embryo does not have a uterus for a home**
**Using those embryos**

In the 'natural' order, an embryo cannot be conceived outside of the uterus.
In the 'natural' order, the embryo does have a uterus for a home.
'Using embryos' is most definitely interfering with the 'natural' order.

“your genetic makeup, including your appearance were destined from conception (fertilization).”

Cris, I think you need to look at this statement a little more carefully. Rex's genetic makeup, including his appearance were held by the sperm and ovum before they combined. His genetic material was identical, other than by being in two cells instead of one. (In fact, if Rex had been cloned, the genetic material would have come from one cell.) So in reality, Rex's genetic makeup was determined with the production of an ovum and a sperm that by chance fused. Now what of the billions of sperm and hundreds of ova that did not fuse? Are they not as equally deserving of a life as Rex? Are not some of them at least capable of fusing and growing into a person? Why treat them differently? Is it really you who is swamped by numbers by ignoring the hundreds of billions of could have been humans, giving special status only to chance fusions?

Fester,

It’s not the fact that they could be repaired that gives impaired humans their dignity. It’s that they are humans even now, in their impaired condition. That is, they as humans will always have the innate capacity for rationality, even when this capacity will never be exercised. The genuis violinist remains one, even if he’s marooned on a desert island for the rest his life so that his capacity to play is permanently impeded.

And so, your second question can be answered. Let’s generalise and suppose that scientists have come up with a way of making a human being out of a non-human. So there’s a non-human – say, a pebble – at time t, and a human at t + 1. At time t, does the pebble have the innate capacity for rationality? I’d say no. It’s a perfectly well-functioning pebble. There’s nothing impeding any of its capacities. It’s not damaged in any way. It’s doing what the very best Mr Universe pebble does just as well.

In order for “it” to function as a person, “it” has to cease being a pebble – something with no capacity for human rationality. Another way to say this is that there is no identity-over-time between the object at t and the new human being at t + 1. [ The situation is very close to the lack of identity between the sperm and ovum and the human which is created out of their union.]

Until t + 1, then, we don’t have a human before us: ie a thing innately rational. We have a small rock. We treat the object at time t as a rock. And, should there be a human at t+1, we accord that new human the same dignity as all other humans.

Yabby,
I still have no idea about where you have drawn a line in the sand. If you’re saying that killing brained humans can sometimes be “practical” & so OK, then there is no line where you’ve previously asserted there is one.

HH

You argue that all humans have an innate capacity to be abstract rational beings(persons), and that it is this quality that makes humans special. But for a human with a genetic defect that prevents him from becoming a person, such a capacity cannot be innate: To claim as much would imply that such a human could self-correct his problems and become a person. A virtuoso marooned on an island might imagine playing or even fashion an instrument, but an anencephalic baby will not grow a brain by himself. Perhaps substantial genetic alteration and repair using technology far advanced from that available today might achieve this, but it would not happen innately. Yet perhaps with far less genetic modification and repair a bonobo might be created that would become a person.

In both cases the absence of intervention would result in beings innately incapable of being persons, so why would you give the human a higher status than the bonobo prior to the modification?

Re. the discussion with Cris. This is now a very similar discussion to the one we’re having, Fester. And the particular point I’d like to pick up on is the statement referring to a sperm as “fusing and growing into a person”. I suggest that this is not quite correct. A sperm goes out of existence qua sperm at fusion.(Ditto the ovum.) Some of its material is absorbed into the new entity. But this is not an entity “growing”. There is no longer a sperm upon conception, just as there is no longer any female gamete cell. You won’t find scientists referring to the zygote as a “mature sperm”, etc. There is a new being with a genetic makeup and capacities distinct from, but obviously dependent on, the genetic makeup of the gamete cells taken separately.

So yes, the genetic makeup of the being that is Rex was determined by the particular sperm and ovum involved in his conception. But I don’t believe there is any warrant in common sense parlance or in scientific discourse to say that Rex existed as the separate sperm or ovum that came together at his conception prior to that moment.

The alternative is to suggest that if an entity W is formed by the combination of other entities X, Y, and Z, then X, Y, and Z, uncombined, are W simply by virtue of the fact that their future combination results in W. Eg, 2 hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom at 8 o’clock, before the lightning bolt (or whatever) that brings them together into chemical bonding at 9 o’clock, are properly referred to as “water” at 8 o’clock. Not that this is a definitive guide, but I’ve never heard any scientist talking in this fashion. I’ve never read a science textbook which says, “Water exists in one state as any particular hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are destined to combine. When they do combine, the water takes on new qualities.” Have you? Try putting that in the next chemistry or philosophy exam, and see what marks you get.

Cris no conflict at all, you should read the context in which they were
written. One was about the future of the planet, the other about a
few organisms. Given your interest in drugs and having never expressed
a view against vaccines etc, you clearly have nothing against interfering
with nature.

HH, where I think that you and Chris have it all wrong, you are totally
focussed on dna and overlooking the effect of environment on what is
to become a person and make them whom they are.

Look at identical twins, they have the same dna, but they are not the
same people, even if similar. Dna simply expresses potential, not
whom we turn out to be.

Lets look at a developing fetus, we know that small amounts of
testosterone can affect the masculanisation of the brain at about
6 weeks. Using that knowledge we can create homosexual rats in the
lab. There is much talk that the same work was done with humans
in East Germany, but it was never published for obvious reasons.
But the evidence does suggest that peoples sexual inclination is
influenced by these outside factors, making people quite different
to the genetic potential their dna might have expressed.

Lets look at Osama bin Laden. Would he be the same person,
if he had grown up as a Catholic schoolboy in Sydney? Methinks
not.

If HH had grown up in the hills of Afghanistan, fighting jihad,
his experiences might have led him to be a quite different person
then he is today.

So dna carrying human organisms are simply that, organisms with human
potential, but not a lot more. They just happen to be able to
have the potential to think a little bit more then bonobo organisms.
Big deal. Dignity applies to people, not to cells.

Yabby,

**Cris no conflict at all, you should read the context in which they were written. **
Yabby, you're correct. I did take the first of those three quotes out of context and I apologise for the oversight.
My position on the second two remains unchanged.

**you clearly have nothing against interfering with nature.**
My earlier statement **I go further and suggest we should not detrimentally interfere with nature** has not changed. The key words in the statement are 'detrimentally interfere'. So to clarify, if the interference is beneficial, not detrimental, to all stages of human life - I'm okay with that.

**Dna simply expresses potential, not whom we turn out to be.**
Trying to justify experimentation on and destruction of embryos by implying someone MIGHT later become a threat to society is clutching at straws and ignores the basic right of every human life to grow, to live, to make choices, to make of life what they will.

That you are here today is evidence you benefited from those rights. You might have become a terrorist but you didn't ... you think independently, you express your opinions, you demonstrate compassion for others. Why your don't believe others should enjoy the same benefits as you, or why your compassion doesn't extend to all stages of human life is still a mystery to me.

And herein lies the most puzzling aspect of this whole debate.

Those who argue for experimentation on and destruction of embryos are arguing that the same rights afforded to them should not apply to others. For me, this argument is inequitable and cannot be justified.

No puzzle about this debate at all Cris. I realise that I am here
by cheer chance. Had my mother had a headache, or had a cup of tea
before I was made, I would not be here. If she had aborted me I
would not be here. So what? I would not know about it. Instead
she might have had somebody else. Thats life, its a lottery ticket,
not a right. If a woman decides not to have another child and
flushes the egg down the toilet instead, should she feel guilty
that she has denied some other potential person a life? Of course not. How many kids
she can raise and wants to raise is her decision
alone.

Fact is that there is near unlimited potential for potential new
life, but only so many resources at one time, on a limited planet.
If we humans don't live on it sustainably, because of overpopulation
at any one time, what we put at risk is future generations of humans
and other species enjoying this planet too. If we push things over
the edge and it goes back to cockroaches and ants, how many humans
will then have lost their potential at life? Our species will simply
have gone extint.

Take a look at situations like Easter Island, when people lived unsustainably,
to see what can happen. Or Rwanda, what people do
when overcrowding becomes an issue. Its not a pleasant experience
and one would think we humans have at least evolved to have enough
intelligence to not repeat it.

My point about dna is that you don't stay exactly the same person,
unlikes HH's claims. Same dna, but different person, affected by
your environment as you grew. Is Osama bin Laden evil? Would he
still have been evil, if he grew up as a Catholic schoolboy in
Sydney?

My point again, I am here not because of rights, but because of
sheer circumstance. If I was not here, I would not know about it.
So there is nothing to miss.

Yabby, it's because you were allowed to live and grow into an adult that you can indulge yourself with **If I was not here, I would not know about it. So there is nothing to miss.**

But Yabby you cannot speak from a position of NOT being born because you WERE born.

The inescapable fact is you WERE born - you ARE here - and by virtue of BEING here you benefit from the opportunities life has afforded you - such as making your own choices and expressing your own opinion about whether or not YOU were worthy of continuing YOUR life.

It's only by virtue of BEING HERE that you're in a position to express that opinion about yourself.

The proposed process creates a new human being in the very earliest stages of life - unique in every sense of the word -rare and irreplaceable. You propose they should not have the same opportunity as you - you propose they're not worthy of our respect, not worthy of growing, not worthy of life. You propose we should USE that life - experiment on it in any way we deem fit for OUR purpose - a life completely innocent of any wrong doing is given no right of recourse.

And still you don't see anything wrong in playing judge and jury - deciding who is and who is not worthy of life. Any logical person is capable of perceiving how dangerously far that could lead.

Yabby, the stem cell bill proposes taking the next step in USURPING the RIGHTS of those unable to speak for themselves - today it's embryos, tomorrow it could very well be you.

Any person who sees their life as a gift, who is grateful for the opportunity life has afforded them, is capable of seeing how blatantly unfair that proposal is, and how frightening our future could become.

HH

“I don’t believe there is any warrant in common sense parlance or in scientific discourse to say that Rex existed as the separate sperm or ovum that came together at his conception prior to that moment.”

This is true, but neither did Rex the person exist at the point of conception: This is merely another stage in the process by which a human, which may or may not become capable of abstract rational thought, is formed. The first stage in the creation of Rex the person was the creation of the unique sperm and ovum from which he formed after their fusion.

“I’ve never read a science textbook which says, “Water exists in one state as any particular hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are destined to combine.””

True again, but you wont see any mystical significance attached to the combination of the two, neither would you claim that the hydrogen and oxygen atoms cease to exist when they form a water molecule (Try putting that in the next chemistry or philosophy exam, and see what marks you get.). And any chemist could tell you that the chemical symbol for water is H2O, not W. You might also note that water was once considered to be one of the four elements before Lavoisier discovered it to be an oxide of hydrogen.

Fester,
Having the capacity to do something by no means necessarily implies the ability to remove by oneself any impedance to that capacity. There are times one implies this, and there are many times when one does not.

The fact that the marooned violinist might 1. imagine playing the violin or 2. play the island coconuts does not gainsay the fact in any way that he can’t here and now play the violin. Yet we still – properly – call him a violinist. Now, you imply, on this univocal meaning of ‘capacity’ that if he can’t swim back to civilization, one cannot properly say ‘he has the capacity to play the violin’ or, in other words, that he is a violinist.

I do hope I’ve misunderstood you: this is nonsense. For one, it’s not by any means the only or even the predominant way the word ‘capacity’ is used. If I said of that man “he’s a great player” it would be simply disingenuous of you to say you didn’t know what I could possibly be referring to, given that there are no violins around and he can’t swim to get hold of one.

Secondly, supposing that the word ‘capacity’ WERE only ever used in this restricted sense, one could STILL use other concepts to refer to a real world distinction between the incapacity of a man who plays the violin beautifully when he has one, but for whom an instrument is here and now insuperably unavailable, and the incapacity of a man who can’t play the violin even if one is given to him.

It is the capacity of the former (to play) that I am referring to when I speak of humans having an innate capacity to reason. The mere fact that they can’t self-correct any bodily impedances to their ability to reason is therefore not a relevant factor any more than it is in the example of the violinist.

Now, you may dispute the existence of that innate capacity in, say, the zygote. Fine, let’s discuss that. But you can’t just define it away.

Fester, my point is not that Rex the person first existed at conception. It’s that Rex the human being – the member of the species homo sapiens, first existed then. The person may have existed then, but I think that’s too mysterious a situation to plumb at this point in science and philosophy.

So what’s your schema? First conception, then, at some other stage, human being, and then at another stage person ? I’m interested: when is Rex human? And what species is he a member of before then?

Do you agree that the destined sperm and ova are not Rex prior to conception? That was the point of my water analogy. Well you’re in a position to see why Cris & I don’t treat sperm and ova, even those predestined to fuse, as human beings. They’re not, any more than predestined hydrogen and oxygen atoms are already water. So you may disagree that Rex is a human being at conception (do you?). But you can’t argue that because we think he is one, that we must logically think the predestined sperm and ova are, too. We could be arguing that a new entity is created on conception which is not to be identified simply with the elements from which it was created.

Actually, I do wax mystical about the incredible differences between hydrogen and oxygen, and the water which results from their bonding. That’s why I love science. But sometimes Rational Beings are created by the fusing of non-rational entities, and that’s bloody marvelous. Of course, you dispute this. But if you did see it this way, do admit, you’d be enthralled - no?

Just because hydrogen and oxygen are not destroyed in the formation of water, it does not follow that in every creation of an entity from separate elements, there is no destruction of those elements. Hydrogen and oxygen can be separated again by electrolysis. The sperm and ova cannot be reconstituted after conception. This is a good warrant for saying they have, qua sperm and ovum, been destroyed. Much like the cereal I ate this morning

Cris, the fact that I was born is mere chance. As a child,
my mother commented many times that she made a mistake,
she should have flushed me down the toilet, but there
you have it :)

Of course I can comment on birth, just as I can comment
on death, they are simply lifes realities, get used to them.

If I was not here to express my opinion, then I would be
missing nothing and not know about it, so what is your problem?

The earliest stages of life are certainly not unique or rare,
but common as chips and dirt cheap. What is rare is mothers
who actually want to have another child, as is their right.
If you want a few spare embryos, line up at the abortion clinics,
there are plenty of unwanted ones, so what is rare about them?
Do you want them? Do the churches want them? Clearly not,
alot of the noise is simply rhetoric, as I could show.

Wether an embryo will be kept is the mothers choice, she takes
on the responsibility after all. Which of her 400 odd potential
babies that she wants to keep, should be her choice alone, fact
is that she can only keep a few of them at most.

Human embryos are as innocent as bonobo or chimp embryos, they
all have the potential to reason one day, given the right environment.
But they still are only strings of dna with potential,
nothing more.

I dont see my life as a gift, I see it as pure chance against
the overwhelming odds, as is how things happen in nature.
Life is not fair, get used to it. The real frightening future is
if we humans wreck the planet, in the name of false philosophy.
Then there won't be a humanity to fuss about. Think about it.

Only perhaps 1 in 3 embryos survives to the live baby stage, even if there is no deliberate interference. That is why the IVF clinics to produce surplus embryos, to give their clients a better probability of a baby. If you pro-life people were really concerned about embryos and not the guilt of people having or performing abortions you would be calling for a massive diversion of medical research funds from cancer and heart disease to failure to implant and to subverting the natural mechanisms that cause abnormal embryos to be expelled. (The failure of these have recently been linked to the problems of women who habitually miscarry.) After all, the embryo is just as dead whether it is deliberately killed or not. Could it be that the real concerns relate to such things as demographic competition, maintaining the supply of cheap labour for the elite, or keeping women in their place?

There is also no one-to-one correspondence between surviving embryos and people. This is not only due to embryos splitting to form identical twins or triplets, but because two entirely separate embryos that would normally form identical twins can be squeezed together in the uterus and then cooperate to form a single individual (Google 'tetragametic chimera'). A case was discovered in England a few years ago when DNA testing revealed that a 50 year old woman could not possibly be the mother of her two sons. Although not true in this case, the embryos making up the chimera can be of different sexes and could theoretically have different fathers. In the lab, chimeras can even be formed using embryos of sheep and goats, which are not closely related enough to hybridise in nature (humans and chimpanzees?). What does this say about the soul entering at the moment of conception?

If you can accept the concept of brain death, why can't you accept the concept of brain birth?

Sorry, I meant to say "fraternal twins" and not "identical twins" when discussing the process for forming chimeras.

HH

I suggest that you look at the definition of innate(instead of capacity), which by my understanding is natural or inborn. Thus, a human embryo with a genetic defect that results in a human being without the capacity for abstract rational thought does not have an innate capacity for abstract rational thought.

Perhaps the discussion would be clearer if a human were defined as a genetically human organism, a human being were defined as a conscious human organism, and a person were defined as an organism capable of abstract rational thought. By this distinction it is clear that a human is present at the point of conception, but a human being or a person is not.

Human embryos are far more complex than drops of water, as gametes are when compared with hydrogen and oxygen, but it is a useful analogy. In the creation of a person, surely the fundamental step would be the creation of the unique gametes that would fuse to create a unique embryo, just as the creation of hydrogen and oxygen atoms is the essential precursor for the creation of water molecules? Human beings or persons clearly they are not, but that they are the fundamental building blocks of all human beings is undeniable.

My schema is simple: Human gametes(are they not human?) are formed, they fuse to form human embryos, and the embryos then differentiate and grow into what we recognise as human beings. With the capacity for abstract rational thought, the human beings can function as persons. My interest is in understanding the qualities that make all humans unique when compared to other animals, hence my questions pertaining to anencephalic babies and innate capacities. I am also interested in understanding why some give such great significance to the fusion of gametes in contrast to the significance given to the creation of the gametes themselves? My own view relates to the decision of the mother to have a child and the stage of development of the embryo.

How does destroying a gamete or embryo make a difference when the result is identical?

Fester, They're not identical ...
' ... What the researchers found, in essence, is that a person's DNA does not contain just two sets
of genes, one from each parent, but also on occasion multiple copies of one or more genes and some
that are missing altogether. These extra or missing parts of the genome are called "copy number
variations," or CNVs. While that analysis confirmed that humans share much of the same DNA, it also
found that the amount of variation among humans is "huge" - an estimated 12 per cent of any person's
genetic material. ... '
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/061122/x11229A.html

Chris

Let me clarify. Your concern seems to be about destroying potential persons. Now imagine a time line over which a human being is created and ultimately dies. My point is that if you were to prevent this person from existing, whether you destroyed the embryo or one of the gametes that formed the embryo, you would still be destroying the potential person. The difference is that you are acting one step earlier in the process. I would ask you and HH why you would see a difference between destroying a single celled embryo and destroying a sperm just before it is about to fertilise an ovum? Would you and HH with your reasoning see one act as murder and the other not murder?

Fester, as a matter of beside the point, I'd like to congratulate
you on your great questions !

I get the distinct impression that you are running rings around
these people and that they cannot answer many points, but sorry,
thats just me and my 5c worth from the cheap seats on this forum :)

"My earlier statement **I go further and suggest we should not detrimentally interfere with nature** has not changed. The key words in the statement are 'detrimentally interfere'. So to clarify, if the interference is beneficial, not detrimental, to all stages of human life - I'm okay with that."

Re your comment above Cris, that is what I see as the problem
with your philosophy. You are promoting ever increasing populations
of humans, without giving a thought to the long term sustainability
of future human populations, by your present actions.

What we know from nature is that if its not sustainable, it will
inevitably crash with a bang, just give it time. Thats all very well if its just some
little island ecosystem, but putting our only planet at risk
in the name of philosophy, is extremely dangerous to the future
of mammals as a whole and humanity in particular. Personally
I regard it as quite foolish and short sighted

Hi Fester,

An embryo is not a single celled organism but a human in their earliest stages of life. The same cannot be said of a sperm. I therefore don't have any problem with someone acting one step earlier in the process. (I think there's even some obscure terms for those acts already in use - abstinence, contraception, containment, and self-control.)

For those caught in unfortunate circumstances there's adoption.
For those with no desire to share their lives with children there's hysterectomy and vasectomy.

In all of these options not one life is experimented upon or destroyed.

"In all of these options not one life is experimented upon or destroyed."

Cris, I remind you that what you say might be your particular
philosophy, meantime the world population keeps growing by
about 80 million a year, mainly in the world's poorest countries.

These poor women don't have the options that you suggest and
the Vatican, who might have lost power since the Inquistion,
nevertheless still has alot of power to influence, in the
third world. They don't have your options, they are victims
of flawed philosophy, all very sad really.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3147672.stm

I suggest that your read the transcript download of that
programme, its eye opening stuff about the power of religion
over the poor and unfortunate on this planet.

Fester,

The logic of your first para. is “X doesn’t own a car. Therefore X doesn’t own a red car”. This is certainly a valid piece of reasoning, but not very helpful, and, moreover, assumes what has to be proved. Our dispute is over WHETHER “I OWN A CAR” IS TRUE OR FALSE: or, in our terms, whether there can be a human being without the capacity for rational thought.

I think you’re conflating current ability with capacity. “Jack can’t do Y, so Jack hasn’t the capacity to do Y.” Jack may have the capacity to Y, but be impeded by some factor. Our violinist has the capacity to play, but doesn’t have a violin handy. Even if his arms are chopped off, he still can be said to have a capacity. We say: “he can’t play now, but if he had arms and hands, he’d play beautifully”. This is capacity. Anencephalics can’t think. But that’s because of a defect in their biological apparatus. Fix that and they would be able to think. This is NOT (to revisit a question of yours) the same as tooling up a bonobo for rational thought. That’s adding to a bonobo something ‘supernatural’ – ie beyond what by nature it was due. An anencephalic is a DEFECTIVE member of the species. Do we say an ordinary bonobo is defective for lacking the ability to think abstractly in the way of humans?

Suppose there is a blind woman with every part of her sight system perfectly in order except of one cell in the nerve on the way to the brain which is incurably defective. We can reasonably say that that woman has the capacity to see. She’s all geared up for it except for this one pesky cell. Fix that and she’s right. Agree? Now, cell by cell, imagine worse & worse cases. At what point do YOU say “this person doesn’t have the capacity to see?”

(Please excuse shouting capitals – there’s no other way to emphasise.)

Fester,

Human gametes are not human beings. (Another example; your liver is human but not a human being.) Neither are gametes organisms in the sense of being separate individuals. They are cells – part of a whole - , though of a special kind – parts that are perhaps destined to participate in the creation of another whole of the kind of which they are a part. [It’s ‘my sperm’ and ‘my ova’, but ‘OUR baby’, and even then the possessive relationship is not quite the same.]

From what point of view is the creation of the gametes the ‘fundamental’ step? Why not go all the way back to the creation of the world? On the other hand, as opposed to the creation of the gametes, with conception we have you as an INDIVIDUAL entity for the first time. This is like the seed which Yabby can’t see is in fact the same individual as the oak tree it grows into. But even he gave the game away when he said “when you were conceived”. See, our ordinary, commonsense, unselfconscious discourse trips us up.

“What WE recognise as human beings” (emphasis added)

?? Again, aren’t there assumptions here? I’m recognising zygotes as human beings. They’re the same individuals as the Ivy League professors they (may) grow into.

P.S. There’s a certain unreality about this whole conversation (I don’t mean yourself necessarily). Original question: can embryos be killed for research? Original worshipful drawing of line in the sand: “Yes, but only until they have a brain.” Subsequent disclosures: It doesn’t matter a toss whether they have a brain or not. Abortion’s fine – brain or not. And anyway, morality is just about being “practical”. So kill anyone if the survival of the species depends on it. So abortion, infanticide - heck, killing anyone’s OK for a good enough reason. “Oh, but you pro lifers - how DARE you exalt the zygote when when self consciousness is the gold standard which WE so highly reverence!” Cut the cr*p!

Yabby,

A judge must have an appreciation for life.

They must have this appreciation because if they did not, they wouldn't have the capacity to reconcile the value of what has been lost against an appropriate ruling - therefore, justice can never be served by a judge who has no appreciation for the value of life.

You've stated repeatedly you have no appreciation for the value of life.

If someone has no appreciation for the value of life they have no capacity for fairness when weighing life and death decisions, and therefore are not qualified to play the part of 'judge'.

Cris, a good judge is one who can see the big picture and look at things from various
perspectives. If your philosophy happens to be that you insist on sitting on railway
tracks, a good judge would point out the extreme risk of you being hit by a train,
despite your philosophy.

In a way I value life more then you do, as I insist that it is sustainable, not just
about today.

HH, you clearly missed the point of my argument. Yes the dna stays the same,
but we are made up of more then dna. If it was only about dna, then identical
twins would be exactly the same, which they are clearly not, even if similar.
Read up on some identical twin studies.

Nutrition matters, environment matters, experiences matter, in making us whom
we are. I repeat my Osama argument, think about it.

Human reason I think, as has happened in Western society, has in fact come up
with quite reasonable moral standards, once we got rid of the religious dogma.

We differentiate between people and beings. We accept that a person is somebody
with a human brain. We generally accept abortion in the first trimester, after that
it needs some very good reasons. We accept that killing other people is wrong.
We think that suffering is a bad thing and attempt to reduce it. We accept
that sex between two loving people is quite natural and normal, nothing evil
about it. We generally agree that we should live sustainably and that the future
of the planet matters, for the benefit of our children and their children, etc.
More of are starting to accept that the suffering that many people go through,
as we wait until they slowly and painfully die, is in fact cruel and inhumane,
we would not even put our dog through that experience

Dear Yabby,

Your threat **If your philosophy happens to be that you insist on sitting on railway tracks, a good judge would point out the extreme risk of you being hit by a train, despite your philosophy.** has given me cause for concern.

Making a threat is more the act of a terrorist than a person who values life.

Yabby, I use my real name because I'm not ashamed of my position and I'm happy to stand up and be counted.

Unfortunately, using my real name places me at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with unscrupulous people who hide behind pseudonyms.

Is this the price I pay for dismantling rhetorical ramblings?

Now do please tell me Yabby - should I be extra careful when I cross the street from now on?
It would also be nice to know how long I'll need to take extra care - 2 weeks, 2 years, 20 years?
How long do you usually hold a grudge?

Chris

The hypothetical I gave differs from the forms of gamete segregation you mention as in this instance the gametes are in the process of fusing when the sperm is destroyed. I make this distinction on the basis that it leaves no doubt as to which gametes would form the resultant human organism.

HH

I wasn't trying to argue that innate meant inborn or natural, but pointing out that innate is defined as inborn or natural. You state that it could be possible to fix a defect which prevents a human being thinking. So how then could repairing this defect be an innate process when it would require external parties?

The reason I think the creation of gametes to be the fundamental step in the creation of human beings is because they represent the first stage of differentiation from existing humans necessary for the creation of new humans.

Now I believe that this discussion could be simplified somewhat if it is looked at on the basis of what stage it is acceptable to prevent a human from existing. Would you agree with Chris that it is acceptable to destroy a sperm as it is about to fuse with an ovum, but unacceptable to destroy the zygote at any time after fusion? And so as to make this zygote more meaningful for participants like Yabby, let's say that this fusion of gametes, if allowed to grow and differentiate, would become a Nobel Prizewinner for altering the DNA of Bonobos to give them the capacity for abstract rational thought.

Cris, I'm sorry if I expressed myself very unclearly or if you
misunderstood my post. I was suggesting a hypothetical example,
a bit like HH's violinist.

Frankly I don't care who you are or what you do, I am here to discuss points of reason, not people or their personalities.
You could be the pope himself for all I care, it would make no
difference to me.

When it comes to morality, the question does arise as to whom should
be a judge in setting standards. I have heard claims by the churches,
that we would all be savages, but for their moral guidance. The
Catholic church considers itself as a fine judge, IIRC.

Personally I believe that morality is part of evolution, social species evolved to live in relative harmony and cooperation, as it is in their best interests. That is where the church and I differ
in opinions.

HH tells us that it is ok to kill "wicked" people, in the name
of the common good. Who is to judge the defintion of "wicked"?
Is a heretic "wicked", as the church used to claim?

One of the self proclaimed judges, Cardinal Caffarra, told us that
it was better for an hiv infected couple to have sex without a condom and risk spreading hiv, then to use a condom, which was a grave sin.

Where is this amazing respect for human life, if spreading hiv
is considered a lesser crime then using a condom? Why should I accept that moral code?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/more-the-church-than-human-life/2006/11/26/1164476070712.html

Yabby:

(re. your penultimate post)

I think I’ve now identified your “line” in the sand. Killing embryos and indeed any other humans is OK, not just up to 24.9 weeks in utero, but whenever its “practical” (from an earlier post) or when there are “very good reasons” or (maybe), when it “reduces suffering” or for the good of the survival of the species.

In other words, the line in the sand is (as I suspected all along) as wide as the beach itself.

“We” when it means you and a mob – but not me! People tend to believe anything that makes it easier for them to evade harsh realities. The mob once saw no wrong in slavery, until, as you know, some “dogmatic” Christians persuaded them it was wrong. A German ‘we’ went along with Auschwitz. What I subscribe to is reason.

(re. last post to Cris.)

You object to my permitting the execution of community-threatening wicked people on the grounds “who is to judge what is the definition of wicked?”.

Hadn’t you better ask yourself the very same question? : Who (from above section) is to judge what is “practical”, or “reduces suffering” or what are “very good reasons” for killing humans?

I disagree with Caffarra (unless, perhaps, the risk in the particular case was quite remote). The solution when AIDS will certainly be transmitted is – neither adultery nor marital intercourse.

But the moral premise he is relying on is correct. There are lots of actions we should not engage in even if our not doing them might result in the loss of human life. (Again Socrates: it’s better to suffer (or even die) than to do wrong.) If hostage takers threaten to kill unless a woman is raped, it’s nevertherless impermissible to rape the woman. If they threaten to kill a hostage unless I torture a little child, it is nevertheless impermissible for me to torture the child. In neither case am I intending that human life be attacked. It is the hostage takers that are doing so, against my will.

Yabby,

As is my custom I spent a great deal of time pondering the point you were trying to make ...
**you insist on sitting on railway tracks, a good judge would point out the extreme risk of you being hit by a train**

I was unable to decipher any point of reason or any basis of a hypothetical in your statement. Eventually I realised your intent.

A threat under any guise - thinly veiled or otherwise - is still a threat - and has, quite naturally, more weight when attributed to someone who has demonstrated no value for life.

Yes I could be the pope - or I could just be one of the majority of people on this planet whose inherent sense of what is fair gives them an innate understanding of the need to defend human rights for all - regardless of the stage of human life through which they pass.

Yabby ..more wild assertions '..in a way I value life more than you do,as I insist that it is sustainable ,not just about today..'
How can you know that about somenone you do not know?

But overall, Yabby I think I wholly agree with you , in theory at least, and that it something.

I guess as my arguement unfolds my veiw will differ somewhat, not necessarily from yours but because I have yet to read all there is.

So, Cris Kerr, when does human life begin for the case of the chimera? Two entirely separate embryos are squeezed together in the womb and cooperate in forming a single individual instead of fraternal twins, as they would normally do. Some of the cell lines in the body are descended from one embryo and some from the other. Did the human life of the woman I discussed begin when the two embryos started to fuse or when the sperm first joined the ovum in one or both of the constituent embryos?

Could I offer my take on chimeras?

Clearly “human life” as such began with the early separate embryos. 1. They’re human individuals 2. They’re alive.

The question I think is, rather, what happens to those individual human beings upon the fusion of the zygote/blastocysts and the formation of the chimera?

Two possibilities

1. The individuals of the 2 embryos are both destroyed and a new individual is simultaneously created asexually from their bodies.
2. One of the indivduals is destroyed and his/her body is assumed into the body of the other.

Neither raises philosophical/logical difficulties – but the question of which one is the actual process is of course very difficult to determine.

This recalls discussion about twins that used to go on before cloning was a feasible technique (not that it necessarily is feasible, even now.) The argument was: because the embryo could split into twins, it wasn’t a human being up to that point. But now supposing human cloning to be possible, I - an adult - could generate asexually a ‘twin’. Since it is clear that I am a human being now despite this possibility, the argument that a pre-twin stage embryo wasn’t a human being because of the twinning possibility has fallen into abeyance.

Fester, just saw your latest post - thanks. Will try to get something back tomorrow.

Fester,

A gamete is a cell, and is not human life.

This debate is not YET based on legislation that seeks to destroy gametes, though legislation will open the door to that possibility in the future - because at its core it usurps a basic human right and vests that right (the power to make life/death decisions) in governments and scientists.

For now, the debate centres on one deeply concerning core question:

Is it right or wrong to create human life for the sole purpose of experimentation and destruction?

My response to this question remains unchanged:

1. Human life begins with fertilization - regardless of whether fertilization is achieved by natural or chemical means, because the result is the same - a human in the earliest stages of human life. Diverging from this to blindside the topic with obscure or rare complications will not change this.

2. It is wrong to usurp any human life of their right to live regardless of the stage of that life or their capacity to reason.

3. By virtue of being here every one of us has benefited from the right to live and experience life. As beneficiaries of this opportunity we therefore have an obligation to 'pass the opportunity forward' and do not have the right to deny the same opportunity to another.

4. Not one person during this whole debate has presented a fair and equitable argument that justifies the taking of one life for another. Not one person has justified why only one of those two lives should be considered worthy.

5. Reducing the value of life to numbers is totally illogical - 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years - once we've reduced the value of life to numbers on a sliding scale it's very easy to slide the scale on and up.

6. It is not just inequitable but dangerous to implement legislation that opens the door to experimentation on and destruction of human life at its most vulnerable. History attests it is far more difficult, if not impossible, to close the door after it is been opened.

HH, when I mention “practical” in a certain context, let me put to you again the
weird sounding moral dilemma which you did not answer previously.

If you were absolutely forced to choose between flushing a pinhead sized human
embryo down a toilet or skinning your dog alive, would you really choose to
skin your dog alive? Its easy for us to be bombastic when preaching morality,
but very often when the crunch of reality hits, most of us do in fact become quite
“practical”.

My line in the sand is far narrower then you think, just more complex to define
then as a one liner.

I remind you that some Christians in fact used the bible to justify slavery. I remind
you that popes have sent their crusaders off to war, to kill others. Absolute power
corrupts absolutely it seems. So who should be the judges? I do think that our
presently evolved system of democracy with the important separation of the powers,
so that nobody has absolute power to misuse, along with an educated population,
is not perfect, but better then anything else we have come up with. Educated
reason then has a high chance of success.

So I agree with the first tremester abortion rule, that is slowly becoming a Western
standard and provides a large margin between a being and a person. I am against
partial birth abortions. I agree that people in their last gasps of terminal disease,
should be allowed the dignity of choice to end their lives, when they see fit,
rather then us torture them to last breath in the name of bad philosophy.
Socrates was right, its your definition of “wrong” that I have a problem with.

Cris, my statement was used in a metaphorical way. Look at the big picture.
Our population has increased from 1.5 billion to 6.5 billion in 100 years,
based on food grown with cheap, finite oil. Our planet is warming, our fisheries
are collapsing. In 50 years, Indonesia’s population will be around 500 million.
Do you really think that unlimited human population growth is sustainable?

Yabby,

You and I both know what you meant. Time to move on.

No, I don't think unlimited human population growth is sustainable in the longer term but neither do I think as you do - that killing new human life is the only solution.

I answered the same question when it was posed by Fester earlier (even though it has nothing to do with this debate). My position remains unchanged.

A debate needs to remain focused, and those who distract with repetitive diversions should not be indulged - so I won't be spending any more time on it.

In relation to this subject - readers are far more intelligent than you give them credit for. They recognize strategies employed to 'divide and conquer' for what they are.

For example, one of the 'divide and conquer' strategies employed is to discredit religion. We notice pro-legislation supporters raising the topic of religion on far more occasions than the opposing camp. This strategy is employed to tar all religions with the same brush - to divide and conquer.

The purpose of the strategy is to weaken the moral argument. But, this is a consistent mistake made by those with questionable scruples. When you don't have an innate sense of fairness you're incapable of understanding what drives that quality in others.

With no innate understanding of what is fair, the pro-legislation camp is subsequently rendered incapable of understanding the key driver of 'moral behaviour'.

It is a person's innate sense of fairness (humanity - the quality of being human) that drives moral behaviour and draws like-minded people to like-minded groups and like-minded community service activities - religion is just one of those groups but there are many others. Discrediting religion therefore, will not 'divide and conquer' because it is not religion that draws people to church.

The church may provide guidance on moral behaviour but it is a human's innate sense of fairness that is the key driver of moral behaviour.

Supporters of the proposed legislation will therefore not weaken a fair-minded person's morals by trying to discredit religion.

Even very conservative Christians would have no problems in turning off the life support of a brain dead patient, even if medical technology could keep the heart beating for another 30 years. They recognize that no one is there anymore. Yet somehow a zygote, embryo, or early fetus that would certainly fail the brain death test becomes a human life rather than human tissue. Yabby, Fester and I would say that no one is there yet. I (and probably they) would also find it acceptable to use the organs from an anencephalic baby to save other infants on the grounds that there has never been anyone there. You say that the zygote probably has the potential to grow a proper human brain. I accept this, but don't see why it is morally relevant. You seem to be relying on medieval natural law arguments that the rest of us simply don't accept. It is like a Hindu trying to explain why cows are holy.

If a zygote really is fully human then you need to accept the implications with respect to the enormous natural wastage and the high proportion of dead embryos that are grossly abnormal. We have a positive obligation to save human life and not just a responsibility to avoid harming it. Why aren't you calling for (and funding) research in this direction?

Cris, what I meant seems bleeding obvious to me. Unless humanity lives
sustainably and that includes dealing with our ever rising population in the
name of religion, we will indeed be hit by a proverbial train, once ecosystems
start to collapse. All I’ve ever heard in response is “ah but god has a plan”

Well mother nature too has a plan and when the time comes, that is usually
short and swift.

To assume that people who don’t accept you particular line in the sand as
having no innate sense of what is fair, is absolute nonsense as far as I am
concerned. Plenty of secular humanists are very pro stem cell research,
also pro choice. There simply is no such thing as objective morality,
so its down to our subjective opinions, where we draw those lines in the
sand.

If you say that religion has absolutely no input as to where you draw your
particular line in the sand, then you are one of very few people that I know
with such an opinion. I have followed the abortion, ru 486 and similar
debates fairly closely and people could give awfully long winded explanations
for their opinions, but nearly all of the time they turned out to have some
connections with the so called pro life movements, the Catholic or one
of the Fundie churches.

The Vatican are extremely good
lobbyists and have a huge network to do exactly that, in ways that are
not always apparent that its them pushing buttons behind the scenes.

Pointing out the flaws of us using religion as a guide to morality,
rather then our ability to reason, sometimes just points out the
obvious, there is really nothing to divide.

Personally I actually think its quite inhumane of us, to leave people
sitting in wheelchairs for life etc, whilst we flush sperms and ova
down our toilets by the millions and billions, without a second thought.

If wasted sperms and ova could assist in having people walk
again, reduce suffering etc, to me that is the logical, rational and
humane thing to do

Yabby,

I'm past that. I've let it go. Let's move on.

Population strategies were addressed earlier and have nothing to do with this debate so I won't be revisiting that diversion.

The religion argument and related spin has been exposed for what is.

Humanity is at the core of this debate Yabby - not religion.

Regarding your statement **inhumane of us, to leave people sitting in wheelchairs for life**

Yabby, the western world is based on a free market system for all industries. Health is one of those industries.

The principle of a free market system is that money is invested with an expectation of a profitable return ($).

Let's now consider the path of investment dollars for health. In a free market health system research money and investment is determined solely by the size of the potential health market - not by degree of suffering - not be degree of need.

The equation is simple. The larger the market = the larger the potential profit = larger research funds. Subsequently most money is directed into those research projects that are most likely to return the greatest profit.

CURING someone is not a profitable exercise. If it was, chronic disease would have been wiped out long ago.

Fact is, if the wheelchair-bound do not present a tantalizing economic argument for research investment their condition will not top the 'to do' list - so indiscriminately raising the hope of sufferers with unqualified promises of potential embryonic stem cell cures is cruel, inhumane, and should be stopped.

Yabby,
My apologies. The reason I didn’t answer you question is because I didn’t understand what the dilemma was, and I thought subsequent remarks of yours might clarify things. They didn’t.

I can only assume this scenario: I’m being threatened at gunpoint with either flushing the embryo down the toilet or skinning the dog? Well the answer is that I think it perfectly moral to do neither, and to bear the consequences. In no circumstances would I think it moral to for me flush a living human being, no matter how vulnerable and small, down the toilet.

But doesn’t your question beg our whole debate? YOU think it will bring me up short because you think it’s OK to flush away: in fine, you think it’s OK to destroy non-vicious human lives sometimes. But you seem to have overlooked that I don’t and am asking you always (in vain, it seems,) to justify your position.

Here’s another place where you beg the question: you appeal our “democratic” system with its wonderful non-abusive “separation of powers” and “educated” people as the arbiters of who is & who is not to be killed. But if as I and many others argue, the zygote is a human being, worthy of the rights of all others, then this system is profoundly UNdemocatic – over 80,000 humans are being abusively slaughtered every year in this country under our “democratic” laws. (And even then, no-one voted for the current abortion regime. It was unelected judges who opened the gates to this Trojan horse.) In a truly democratic system as we view things, the presumption would be that any voiceless human being would vote to stay alive – as 99% of all voting humans do. Likewise parents would be given extra votes – in proportion to the number of their progeny, so they could adequately give voice to the interests of their children. Our current democratic rules are a sham. It’s a system designed by the powerful for the powerful.

Education? I have 3 graduate degrees and 2 postgraduate diplomas. What’s gone wrong with the system?

Fester,

I’m confused: I thought we’d covered the innate thing already. viz; One could have all sorts of innate capabilities that can only be repaired by external parties. “Innate”, I said, doesn’t mean “I on my own can repair all defects in my systems preventing me exercising my capabilities”. Suppose I find a chick with a broken wing and I repair its wing. It eventually flies away. Are you saying it had no innate capacity to fly? If so, then it seems we’re starting a long way further back than I thought was the case.

Without prejudice to other interpretations, I like the reason for your use of the word “fundamental”. But I argue that this differentiation is only realized when the zygote is formed. Until this stage, each gamete cell is as much identifiable as a cell of the body from which it sprang as any other cell – eg a skin cell. In other words, the differentiation significance is retrospective – from the moment of conception! If a gamete perishes outside of conception, it does so as a member of the body which produced it. No differentiation beyond that of other body cells has occurred.

But once conception occurs, we have a new entity _ a new self-organising individual, distinct in many ways from its parents, distinct in all sorts of ways from the sperm and zygote that contributed to its emergence. As Yabby argues, even if the DNA is the same as a twin’s (or, in a clone, as the sole parent’s), there are all sorts of ways that the individual is distinct and the environs of any individual being is by definition unique.

I certainy agree with Cris that killing a body cell such as a sperm or ovum is a qualitatively different act, morally speaking, to killing a human being qua zygote. Killing the sperm/ovum for the precise reason of preventing a human being coming to be seems close to homicidal and it is, to my mind, definitely morally inexcusable. But not of the same gravity. Indirectly killing it for medical purposes is another matter.

HH, given the options, you did not answer my moral dilemma question, but I
had good reasons to ask it. It is easy for you and I to sit back and navel gaze about
morality and tell others how they should live. But in order to empathise with
others, we have to realise that sometimes the crunch of reality hits, they are placed
in real life situations of choice and simply HAVE to decide between a and b, even
if both go against their moral principles. We then have to search deeper, right down
to our core, to think about how we would react. For me the answer is clear. I could
not put my dog through that kind of incredible suffering, for a being that neither
thinks nor feels nor suffers. Perhaps you would prefer to skin your dog alive, you
have not said. Think about it.

My point about our system is that its better then anyone else has suggested. Ok we
could tamper with it. Like say Switzerland, we could vote on virtually everything.
Our present pollies simply rely on surveys to achieve a similar effect. I gather that
on abortion, about 80% -90% of people accept first trimester abortions.

Cris, you might want to ignore population or religion in this debate, but fact is that
they will stay part of it, like it or not. If the core is humanity, then the future of
humanity is clearly part of it too.

Regarding health investment $, you are correct, a part of the health industry, drug
companies etc are for profit. What you ignore is the huge part that is not. I remind
you that 2 individuals, Gates and Buffett, have just donated tens of billions of $ to
do good. Fact is the richest of people realise that they can’t take it with them and
philanthropy is a huge industry with huge amounts of money involved to benefit
humanity. Govt funds are another source, ie NIS US funding. The Christopher
Reeves Foundation alone funds millions of $ of research each year.

People care, there is hope!

Please dwell on the following statement which is undeniably TRUE:

HUMANS ARE VULNERABLE AT MANY POINTS AND TIMES DURING THEIR LIFETIMES.

HOW IS THIS TRUTH RELATED TO THE DEBATE AND PROPOSED LEGISLATION?

'Conditioning' is an unscrupulous process - the purpose of which is to influence someone to respond in a predictable way - as real estate agents have been known to 'condition' sellers to accept a lower price for their house.

If you've been following this debate, you'll have noticed insidious arguments creeping in. Posts repetitively focussing on the APPEARANCE of early human life, AGE of early human life, and INCAPACITY of early human life to reason. Note, EVERY ONE OF THESE ARGUMENTS can ALSO APPLY to ALL STAGES of HUMAN LIFE, and therefore bear sinister testimony the slippery slope 'conditioning' process has already begun.

Are YOU being gradually 'conditioned' to consider every chink in the human armour as evidence of a life unworthy of living? Are you being influenced to respond in a predictable manner?

Give this time to really sink in. Today, supporters of Embryonic Stem Cell Research say they want to create and kill embryos, but some are already 'conditioning' us to consider other vulnerable (unworthy) humans - those without capacity to reason.

The scope of 'capacity to reason' includes most other vulnerable stages of human life - too innumerable to in a few words here. Just to get you thinking about future consequences, the same arguments could be applied to Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia, Autism, Depression PLUS ANY OTHER MEDICAL CONDITION, accident, or adverse health outcome that might transform your body from a 'person with capacity to reason' to a 'person without capacity to reason'.

Just four years ago politicians were against creating embryos for experimentation - but four years of 'conditioning' appears to have dramatically altered this landscape.

Are you fully informed?

Have you fully considered the long-term consequences of this legislation and the future risk for yourself and your families?

BAD THINGS CAN ONLY HAPPEN WHEN GOOD PEOPLE ARE 'CONDITIONED' TO DO NOTHING.

Well Cris, what I have learned is about the dangers of the slippery slope
of taking too much notice of the “Religious Right”

They are great lobbyists, sheesh, I’m told that they even helped George
Bush get over the line against Al Gore! Perhaps now, in hindsight,
even they realise that that was not really such a good idea after all.

I once read that when the telephone was first invented, there were people
warning about it being evil. It seems that even they could not envisage
the slippery slope to broadband :)

To me this debate is quite simple. We have near unlimited supplies of
ova and sperms being flushed down the world’s toilets. We have people
in wheelchairs who are suffering and whom we might be able to help.
We have clever scientists in Aus. We have resources available, as I have
shown earlier. Lets bring them all together and make it happen!

Anything else to me is inhumane and lacks compassion. I refuse not
to try and help these people, in the name of some flawed religious
or philosophical dogma.

Have you read there'll be no more medical advances if there's no change?
I have.

Do you believe the propaganda?
Neither do I - and here's why.

The pro-legislation camp operates from a flawed platform.
Want both sides of the story? Read on.

....

Celling a Strategy (extract only)
27 November 2006

' ... targeted biologist David Prentice, (in a letter to the journal Science) for publicly pointing out that 65 human medical conditions are being treated with adult stem cells or cord blood, whereas ESCs are treating none. While this accusation falsely represented Prentice's statements, if anything Prentice UNDERSTATES THE FACTS. ... '

' . created human liver tissue in a petri dish from cord blood stem cells. Commenting on this breakthrough, Investor's Business Daily said, "Remember, you read it here first. In fact, this might be the only place you've read it, given the mainstream media's blackout of any successes resulting from non-embryonic stem cell research." ... '

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWRhYmZlYzI3NzQ5ZGM2ZDdkMTk2NTQ3NjMxNDczZTc=

Keeping a focus on ethics in medical research (extract only)
July 19, 2006

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Do adult stem cells have more promise than embryonic stem cells?

Dr. David Prentice: They certainly hold more promise for helping patients with diseases and injuries. Their normal function in the body is repair, and we're seeing more and more examples of their utility in this respect. Embryonic stem cells are difficult to control, tending to grow out of control as tumors, or not form the necessary tissue and integrate to repair damage.

[Dr David Prentice, Ph.D. Biochemistry, Founding Member of Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWU4MDI0NmUzZThhNWM3ODdmZTRiZGRhODY4N2I1NmE

Right here, right now, patients with disease and injury are more likely to benefit from advances in ADULT stem cell research.

So why the big push? Here's another TRUTH:

Vaccines and medications for ENDURING DISEASES provide ENDURING REVENUE for companies, shareholders, patent holders - which has a flow-on effect for doctors, medical ethicists, scientists, etc, etc, etc.

Cures do not provide enduring revenue.

HH

Thanks. The example you give describes repairing a wing: It was broken, you helped repair it (but remember that it is the bird's innate ability to heal itself that you depend on for success), and the bird is then able to fly. My thinking of innate was along the lines of a bird with DNA(defective or natural) that would prevent it from flying; vestigial or absent wings for example. Such a bird (eg an emu) has not an innate capacity to fly.

The reason for my hypothetical was to introduce the idea of extrapolation. I would suggest that if you had the prescience to know of the human being that would develop from the fusion of a particular sperm and ovum, and their life in our great human civilisation, then neither you, nor I, nor anyone else on this thread would consider its destruction less abominable at any stage from gametes onwards. But we do not have this prescience. Instead, we have tens of billions of potential human beings created every year, all equally deserving of life as ourselves, yet only a small fraction of these can possibly have this chance. If cloning technology advances, the number of potential humans that can be created each year rises phenomenally when you consider cell turnover and the hundred trillion cell estimate for each developed human body.

Chris and yourself avoid this moral dilemma by denying any consideration to the human life cycle prior to the fusion of gametes, whereas Yabby and myself, by considering the human life cycle in its entirety, see the death of millions of potential humans as a natural daily occurrence. So for myself at least the question is why should these lives be wasted when they could be contributing to the greater good of humanity? How is there greater dignity and less suffering in flushing this potential humanity down our sewers than by using it for research? And surely the decision for the fate of these potential humans should reside with their guardians, as they cannot think for themselves and are in any case condemned?

Chris,

You are so eager to portray us as Nazis and yourself as a martyr for the 'unborn' that you are really begging the question. Calling a rock a pet doesn't make it so, and the same is true if you call a clump of cells a human person. To a very real extent you are your brain. You are still you after a kidney transplant, but not if your brain is removed and replaced with someone else's. People who are brain damaged are still treated as human because no one can know to what extent personhood is left. When it is clear that the entire brain has been wiped out, i.e. brain death, neither the churches nor the overwhelming majority of ordinary people, religious or not, have any problem with pulling the plug. In practice, with lesser brain damage the community often takes the attitude of "need not strive/ officiously to keep alive". The death rate of schizophrenics on the streets is pretty bad.

Again, you show an unwillingness to think through the consequences of your beliefs. Here is another example. There was a recent short article in a science magazine (and I am trying to track down the original paper) on the problem of recurrent miscarriages that afflict some women. Some good friends of ours desperately wanted a baby, but eventually gave up because of the health risks to the wife from continual miscarriages. There have been a number of theories about the problem, but this latest paper claims to have evidence that it is the woman's immune system that has gone wrong, so that it tolerates abnormal early embryos that would normally be expelled. The embryo implants and continues to develop for several weeks or months, but is eventually killed by its abnormalities, causing a miscarriage. Now imagine that the research is fully confirmed and that there is a safe drug available that will cause the normal immune system to react in the same way. Does a woman have an obligation to take the drug? What about the abnormal embryo's right to life?

Those supporting new legislation in the hope of cures or treatments need to consider this TRUTH:

Research funding pools are limited.

Please re-consider your support for ADULT stem cell research.

Why?

Because ADULT stem cell research represents a HIGHER PROBABILITY of success in the NEAR FUTURE but it would be compromised if funding were re-directed to embryonic stem cell research.

Because progress on research that is ETHICAL, MOST PROMISING and has a HIGHER PROBABILITY of near-term SUCCESS would falter (and may even grind to a halt) whilst funds are redirected to research which is UNETHICAL, LESS PROMISING and has a LOWER PROBABILITY of SUCCESS.

Conceivable scenario? Yes.

As a consequence, treatments using ETHICAL stem cells would be pushed even further into the future, leaving those who are suffering (those you say you care about Yabby) waiting even longer for help.

For those more interested in the future promise of 'human spare parts' - your bet’s safer if you support ETHICAL stem cell research:

' … human liver tissue in a petri dish from cord blood stem cells. Commenting on this breakthrough, Investor's Business Daily said, "Remember, you read it here first. In fact, this might be the only place you've read it, given the mainstream media's blackout of any successes resulting from non-embryonic stem cell research." ... '
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWRhYmZlYzI3NzQ5ZGM2ZDdkMTk2NTQ3NjMxNDczZTc=

Yabby,

Lobbyists get paid. I’m just someone who takes an active interest in our children’s future and feels compelled to act when it’s at risk.

Because population control is important to you I’m including this news extract – fewer pregnancies, no lives sacrificed:

' ... The U-N report points out that prevention programs focusing on those most at risk of H-I-V infection are having some success. It says that campaigns promoting abstinence, the use of condoms, and fewer sexual partners have lowered infection rates in Botswana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. ... '

http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-11-28-voa9.cfm

Fester,

There is no 'human life cycle' prior to fertilization because prior to fertilization a human life does not exist.

Divergence,

Two posts per day don’t extend to three diversions - perhaps later.

Cris, rather then trust your judgement, given your obvious agenda, well meaning
as it may be, personally I think its quite foolish to predict exactly what Science
might or might not discover.

There are actually far more resources around then the limited ones that you
claim. Philanthropists simply want to make sure that money is well spent.
I note that Paul Allen donated 100 million$ for his brainatlas project, to
benefit everyone. Not to make money, but so that we can further understand
Alzheimers, etc. etc.

Tying everyones one hand behind their back, for the sake of flawed ideology,
just makes no sense at all to me. Let them see what they might discover!
It might be you or I in a wheelchair one day, or one of our kids, benefiting
from all that discovery.

Sorry, but I just can’t get emotional over a string of dna, that would have been
flushed down life’s toilet anyhow.

You might claim that religion plays no role in your decision, but that is certainly
not the case in this overall debate. The religious right are amazingly good
lobbyists, I grant them that. In debates like this, they appear from everywhere.

So rather then trust various people with various claims as what Science will
do, I’d like to give Science and scientists a chance to discover and show
what they can do, using both hands. I’ll also let the philanthropists prepared
to risk huge amounts of money on this kind of research, to be good judges
as to whom they entrust their money to do the work. People like Gates,
Buffet and similar, are not exactly fools.

Stopping all this from happening, due to some flawed ideology or religious
dogma, makes absolutely no sense to me

Yabby,

If you're a parent (I have my doubts) I’m sure you've been open and honest with your children;

- explained why they had no value (to you) until they developed a neo cortex around 25 weeks and 'looked' more like what a REAL human should look like;
- told them that up to that point you had no qualms about dispelling them from your body, and;
- told them how the same measure you passed over them before they were born could be passed over them again later if their brain is damaged in any way.

How did your children react when you told them their earliest stages of life were no more valuable to you than 'worthless strings of dna flushed down life's toilet'? Did they take it well?

Being a reasonable type you’d also tell your children they're welcome to apply the same measures to your potential grandchildren - and then of course to you personally once you've outlived your USEFULNESS to them. When you're at your most vulnerable your life will be in your children's well-trained hands - a sweep of the pen all that's needed - perhaps a second sweep for your assets too.

Yabby, I don't know if you're male or female because your entire identity is fictitious. If you're really a parent, please, please choose your words very carefully. Choices have consequences.

I don't understand your reference to Gates and Buffett. If you're trying to impress with celebrity and dollars, please don't waste your time. I'm impressed by ethical people and ethical actions, not wealth. I'm impressed by genuine people who continually find ways to benefit society without dismantling something valuable (humanity) in the process.

I'm impressed by people who understand the 'ripple effect' consequences of their choices and actions. I'm impressed by the insightful. I'm impressed by the selfless.

But most of all, I'm impressed by those who are so deeply committed to doing the right thing they resist pressure, forgo personal gain, stand up for what's right. I'm impressed by the valuable legacy they leave for the future, for our children.

Cris, to me the most important thing for kids to know is that they were really
wanted from conception onwards. The world is full of people with psychological
scars, from parents who reminded their kids that they were forced on them
by the system. Thankfully this has now changed somewhat in the West, as
mothers in fact have more options, unlike years ago.

I am male actually, but very much defend the right of women to decide,
which of the 400, all potentially cute babies they decide to carry for 9 months
and provide for, for another 20 or so years after that. As Darwin rightly pointed
out, nature will always create far more potential beings of any species, then
care ever survive.

When and if I am ever at the point, as people like Betina Arnt have pointed out,
where I am in agony, heading toward my last breath and pallitive care can’t
help me, I want the choice to decide what happens. I don’t want the system
to torture me to my last breath, I would not even do that to my dog quite frankly.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20803861-5006029,00.html

You are free to be impressed by the selfless. Last I read, some MRI scans were
done on people to understand altruism. What was found was that the
dopamine/reward/pleasure centres of the brain lit up, in other words, they
do it as it makes them feel good! Perhaps that’s not so selfless after all.

I am more impressed with people who get results, despite the odds. If
scientists and philanthropists come together, stuff happens and people I know
who are in wheelchairs, get their lives back, I will be impressed!

Perhaps it will then also make me feel good, to know that I pointed all these
things out to some guy called Cris and that despite his protestations, I perhaps
played a teensy weensy part in persuading somebody in internet land that this
all should go ahead and it did

Yabby,

You claim compassion for the wheelchair-bound so I have to assume you’ve told ‘people you know in wheelchairs’ about major advances in ETHICAL stem cell research, because not to do so would be unconscionable. The significance of the following news extract is that the nervous system is also implicated in MS.

Stem Cell Therapy In Multiple Sclerosis - Now It Is Time To Really Start, 24 November 2006 - Clinical research with human stem cells to REPAIR BRAIN DAMAGE in MS patients should be intensified. Although not unanimously, this was the main conclusion of an international medical scientific conference on MS and stem cell therapy in Italy today, organised by the independent European Charcot Foundation. ... According to the 300 SCIENTISTS gathered today, preconditions to this challenging research are:
-- autologous stem cells should be used (derived from patients' own bone marrow, skin, blood).
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=57455

Yabby, There’s no immediate benefit to society in this proposed legislation. There's a very real long-term danger to society in this legislation. There's also a very real danger funding will be redirected whilst progress on ETHICAL stem cell research, which holds more promise, falters or stops.

Why do you continue to ignore the balance of evidence? Perhaps it’s because this legislation is well-suited to your philosophy. For example; your solution to over-population is to indiscriminately destroy embryos. Your solution to the prospect of deficient parents - indiscriminately destroy embryos. Your solution for those not ready for motherhood (or fatherhood) - indiscriminately destroy embryos. Your solution to human suffering – indiscriminately destroy embryos.

I see a pattern here. Do you? Destroying embryos and 'using' embryos appears to be your solution to all the world’s problems. My obvious concern with your ‘philosophy’ is that apart from being immoral and unethical, it’s clearly unsustainable. All you present is a philosophical abyss – a downward spiral with no end, no bottom in sight.

Yabby, Darwin spoke of evolution and natural selection. Darwin did not promote abortion as a preferred method of birth control, nor did he recommend the human race embark on new industries in embryonic spare parts.

Cris, I remind you that there is no such thing as objective morality, simply our
subjective opinions. Therefore what you call ethical or moral is simply your
opinion and no more. Clearly the majority of Western society does in fact
not agree with you.

What people in wheelchairs and others with various disabilities and diseases
need to know, is that we care enough to to leave no stone unturned, to try
to alleviate their suffering and help them regain their lives. Anything else
would be inhumane.

Cris, you don’t know what the benefits will be from this proposed legislation
and ensuing research. So lets find out. When the telephone was invented,
who predicted the internet and broadband ? Only 12 years ago, when
I was the first around these parts to see the potential of the internet and
joined up, many thought I was crazy. Look at it now!

I don’t ignore the balance of evidence. I just think that you happen to
try to dig up evidence that suits your agenda, so why should I look
at you as unbiased? I’ve experienced very similar chestnuts before,
in similar kinds of debates.

Cris I simply draw a line in the sand a bit different to yours. You seem
to have no problems about millions of sperms and ova being flushed
down lifes toilets, yet when they join up, you become emotional about
it. Sorry, but I don’t become emotional about cells, as you do. I’d rather
use those resources to reduce suffering. Cells do not suffer, feel or think.

Its not my decision what women do with their embryos, its their decision.
I respect that right of theirs, to make that decision, unlike many, who want
to force and compel them. That’s all very well for some, to sit back
and pontificate, they don’t have to decide between A and B, as many
of these women do in the real world. I remind you that when HH was
faced with that difficult dilemma, even he has so far not responded.

You believe in holy cells, I don’t, all quite simple

I'm curious. Where does it say in the Bible at what point a human being exists? I've always thought it was at birth, which would make Yabby's definition very conservative in comparison. What would you find less distasteful, treading on a two day old fertilised egg or a two day old chicken? I'll just have to go with my feelings on this question, and I believe that others should be allowed to also. The morality that would make a huge distinction between gametes about to fuse and an embryo of a few cells is completely beyond me.

Yabby,

Our understanding of morality differs markedly. You believe it’s morally preferable to abort new human life. I believe it’s morally preferable to carry a child full-term so two loving, adoptive parents can begin their family.

Society understands the axis of morality lies in balancing fairness for ALL.

Your axis is subjective - with the ‘subject’ being SELF. Perspectives based on an axis of ‘self’ (however guised) can never impersonate a balanced moral perspective in the context of society as a whole. A wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf.

The majority of Western Society has been under-informed on the consequences of the proposed legislation. Most aren’t even aware Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) involves artificial fertilization resulting in a human embryo. Society therefore can’t legitimately support that which it doesn’t truly understand – and your claim of ‘majority support’ belongs in the same category as ‘full disclosure of SCNT information to the public’ – missing.

Interesting choice of the familiar proverb 'Leave no stone unturned’. Use of this proverb infers that which is sought is nowhere in sight and cannot be found, but on the balance of evidence you and I both KNOW this to be a FALLACY.

This whole charade can be likened to a man lost in the desert facing dehydration and death. An oasis appears just ahead but suddenly, he detours. Why? Because he's been 'conditioned' to believe the water is better in a different oasis (IF the different oasis even exists). After he’s changed direction the unrelenting sun begins to evaporate what always represented his best chance of hope and survival.

Fester,

If religions ceased to exist tomorrow, humanity, morality, and ethics would still prevail because they're based on an inherent human quality - the capacity to recognize what is FAIR and therefore REASONABLE. For example, it is neither FAIR nor REASONABLE to divert a topic from very serious humanitarian and societal issues to scenarios involving trampled chickens.

PS No-one mentioned the bible.

PPS No humans or chickens were trampled during the writing of this response.

Chris

I only mention trampling chickens and eggs to emphasise the distinction people make between life of a few cells and the developed organism. I think this most fair and reasonable as your own extrapolation morality leads you to see someone experimenting with a human embryo of a few cells as a baby killer, but someone else destroying gametes in the process of fusing as acting acceptably. There are many who believe that humanity is far more than the fusion of two gametes.

And yes, the Bible has not been mentioned, but why not? What is wrong with advancing religious arguments? Why must they be hidden behind a wall of pseudo scientific justification? I would suggest that religion is very ambiguous on this issue, leaving open a wide range of interpretation. What I find distasteful is your dogmatic insistence of your correctness, and your attribution of immorality to characters like Yabby for holding a differing opinion. The heroes of Christianity have risen above this behaviour.

Cris, I’m not saying anything is preferable, simply that its acceptable and most
of the Western World agrees with me. Talk of adoption is all very well, but
if 85000 babies a year would be put up for adoption, you would very soon have
what you used to have, orphanages full of unwanted children. Those children
already exist in overseas orphanages, so why not make things easier to adopt them?

I’m told that in America there is huge demand for “white normal” babies.
“Black abnormal” babies are largely unwanted. Is this the Christian love
that is preached by the most religious Western nation on earth ?

So I simply accept Darwin’s observation of nature, that far more potential
individuals of any species will be created then can ever survive. The biggest
killer of embryos is in fact mother nature herself, as was pointed out by
Divergence.

Cris get used to it, people in general don’t get emotional over a few cells,
no matter how much you preach to them. Abortion law has been overwhelmingly
accepted in virtually every country where its been voted on.

IMHO, this whole debate at its core, is still one about religion. Some of the religious
are trying to do what the ID mob did. A bunch of fundamentalists, failing with their
6000 year old earth theory, changed course, obtained a heap of money from
some rich US benefactor and came up with the ID story. So dvds went out,
lots of talk and promotion, trying to avoid the god story, but still driven by the
same fundamental factors as they always were.

Are you religious Cris? Do you believe in God?

Fester,

You defend an outspoken adult but cannot defend the innocent?

Yabby,

You demonstrated disdain for altruists because it's somehow bad they may feel good helping others, and you’ve expressed outright contempt for religion. What’s the motivation for raising religion again?

Is it because religion represents a moral hurdle - a hindrance to doing whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want?

Like-minded people have drawn together throughout history in times of urgent humanitarian need. This is one of those times and religion is therefore a part of that. Religious denomination becomes irrelevant when humanity’s at risk.

You ask about my personal beliefs. Hmm, before I respond I wonder ... is that a FAIR and REASONABLE question while you, Fester, and Divergence conceal your real motivations behind fake identities?

Some people find it difficult to recognize what’s 'FAIR':

Is it ‘fair’ you get an opportunity to live but deny the same opportunity to another?

Is it 'fair' you push embryonic stem cell research whilst ignoring the AVALANCHE of EVIDENCE in favour of ETHICAL stem cell research?

Is it 'fair' you OMIT IMPORTANT INFORMATION whilst promoting the obscure?

Is it 'fair' to DIVERT funding from promising ETHICAL RESEARCH - DELAYING or halting sufferers' BEST CHANCES of treatments or cures?

Is it 'fair' to CREATE new HUMAN LIFE with the single intent of sacrifice to EXPERIMENTATION and DESTRUCTION?

Is it 'fair' to USURP an innocent human's BIRTHRIGHT to CHOOSE TO LIVE whilst handing life and death decisions to scientists and government departments who operate without moral charter or humanitarian obligations?

Is it 'fair' to put this wonderful nation on an ever-spiralling downward path that DEVALUES HUMAN LIFE in INCREMENTS of APPEARANCE, AGE, and MENTAL CAPACITY – endangering all STAGES of HUMAN VULNERABILITY and all stages of a human’s lifecycle?

Is it 'fair' to consign your NEW-AGE HUMAN VALUE SYSTEM to every generation to follow - every young Australian to follow? Is that a desirable legacy for the Australian people, for the human race?

BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN GOOD PEOPLE LOSE SIGHT OF WHAT IS FAIR

Cris, no disdain for altruists at all. Simply an understanding about why so called
“selfless” people are like they are. Clearly they have their rewards!

My question about religion is simple, I respect honesty! If you believe what
you believe for religious reasons, why not just say so?

I’ve tried to understand how the Catholics came up with their line in the sand
in biblical terms and the best reference I could find was in the Catholic
Encyclopaedia, where a reference is made to some old testament
“holy sperms”. God seems to have punished some guy for wasting them.
The rest is seems to me, is pure theological speculation.

Why should I accept their interpretation of a line in the sand, as the
Divine truth from the Almighty himself?

No fake identities on OLO Cris, simply online nicknames. Given that
we have had religious fanatics bomb abortion clinics or threaten to
kill people who say a wrong word about Allah, that makes perfect sense
to me. Good debate is about reasoning about issues, not about the people
who wrote them. Why do you have a problem with that?

As to your questions about fairness, is it fair that as a sperm you
swam like mad, you got home first, meanwhile the other millions
of sperms all died , flushed down the toilet, without a second thought
by anyone?

Is it fair that perhaps last month, you and your wife decided that you
did not want another child, so that potentially cute baby or the sperms
and ova that can make it so, were flushed down lifes toilet? Why did
you decide that, yet expect other women to be forced to have children
that they don’t want or can’t afford to raise?

No new-age beliefs in my human value system Cris, simply an understanding
and acceptance of nature.

Fester,

There are innate capacities: capacities that are with us when we are born – or, better - conceived.

The exercise of those capacities can be impeded – either by internal defects or by external obstructions. For a bird in whose nature there is the capacity to fly, an internal defect might be a congenitally deformed wing. An external obstruction would be a vacuum. Neither type of obstruction removes the capacity. Fix the wing or fill the vacuum with air, and the extant capacity can be exercised.

HOW one cures an internal defect – via innate healing processes or totally external means (or a combination), or removes the external obstruction, is irrelevant to the predication of capacity. What is vital to ascribing innate capacities is whether any inability re a certain quality (here: flight) is a DEFECT or something which is not in the nature of that thing. Inability to fly (because of a broken wing) IS a defect in a crow. It is NOT a defect in non-flying species, such as emus, kiwis, humans and tortoises.

So a bird with defective DNA which means it can’t fly is still rightly spoken of as having the capacity to fly. For example if DNA corruption meant a crow was born with a deformed wing, we would say this crow is in exactly the same category (for these purposes) as a crow born with the same manifest defect resulting from a post-conception abnormality. Both have the capacity to fly, which, barring possible available corrective surgery, they can’t exercise.

But there is nothing DEFECTIVE in the DNA of an emu determines its inability to fly. Neither is there in humans or tortoises (except some flying varieties, of course). Emus, humans and and most tortoises I know of don’t have an innate capacity to fly. Crows with whatever deformity do.

Fiddling with emu (or human) DNA to endow them with functional wings is not curing a defect. Such operations render them abnormal, not more exemplary, humans or emus.

Anencephalic humans have an innate capacity to think. They are impeded by internal defects

[Note that, as the crow/congenital deformed wing example shows, innate defects which impair the exercise of capacity can co-exist with that very innate capacity.]

2) Sperm and ova have no innate capacity to think or reason in the human way. Human zygotes do: their barrier to thought is that they are immature specimens of humanity, though of course they may be perfectly normal specimens of a human being at that stage of development. A newly-hatched chick vis a vis the ability to fly is in an analogous situation. [No one says that newly-hatched crows “don’t have an innate capacity to fly.”] Sperm and ova (for the thousandth time!) are NOT human INDIVIDUALS. Their occasional union RESULTS in humans, but each sperm though “human” in origin in the sense of being a part of a whole: (the human individual of which they, like liver cells, are a PART) are not themselves HUMAN INDIVIDUALS. [Ova in the girl embryo are not themselves embryos.]

Killing a sperm or ovum is NOT homicide because there is no human being in existence. As I’ve said just recently, this act may well, however, be a grave wrong - BUT NOT HOMICIDE - if it is done with the malicious intention of preventing a human being coming into existence. In like manner, fiddling with the DNA of a sperm (or smoking) in order that a conception results in a human who is eg deaf is also a grave wrong. But it is not, precisely, assault, even though it is as grave a wrong as deafening an extant human being. It is complete rubbish to suggest that I don’t give (as I have explicitly given before) consideration to gametes pre-conception.

So the “prescience” argument fails. Killing a zygote is murder. Deliberately preventing a sperm/ovum in order that a human life not come into being is, in my opinion, gravely wrong. But it is not murder, and the argument for its wrongfulness are, though related to that act, not the same.

3) The fact that X WILL die doesn’t ground any right to kill X. Dispute this.

"Killing a zygote is murder."

Its been great to see that reason has prevailed in the parliamentary
vote. Perhaps some of those against this kind of research will them
selves or their loved ones benefit directly from the outcome.

HH, talking of murder and homicide when it comes to cells, makes
for great spin and might push the odd emotional button, fact is
that the general community simply don't see it your way!

People can differentiate between people and cells, for most they
are not the same.

Now I know that trying to make out as if they are the same is old
Catholic dogma and will be repeated endlessly by the leaders of
the church. The result really has been a split of the Catholic
Church, into Catholics for Choice etc, Catholics who accept family
planning, abortion as reality. A few Catholics still actually
believe in the dogma repeated by Rome. Their numbers seem to be
fewer and fewer. Perhaps that explains why those church pews
are seeing less and less bums on seats.

What I can see is that as people have become more educated and
less gullible, they have also become more questioning. They don't
simply believe as easily as they used to. In that case the
evolution of morality in our species as a social species will become
more obvious and religious lines in the sand will play less of a
role. Frankly to me that is good news !

Yabby and Fester,

Here is the position I have been defending.

1. A single-celled conceptus, the zygote, is an individual being: a self-organizing entity distinct from the sperm and ova which resulted in its conception, and the same individual which will, in the normal course of things, later manifest powers of reasoning and will. A zygote is not a part of a greater whole: it is a separate living entity. In this it is distinguished from liver cells, bone tissue, tumour cells, and sperm cells and ova. None of these are separate living organisms, classifiable into species. I came into being when I was conceived. I manifested rudimentary consciousness later when I developed a brain. But it was the same individual who was conceived and who developed a brain.
2. Human zygotes, like all other, more developed human beings, have an innate capacity to think and choose. Of course, this capacity can only be exercised if and when they develop a brain, which normally occurs weeks on in their life. In like manner, most birds are born with an innate capacity to fly. However this capacity can only be exercised if and when they develop mature wings. Defects may impair or even impede altogether the exercise of a capacity. The existence of a defect doesn’t remove the innate capacity itself.
3. Humans seem distinguishable from other animals in the order of their innate capacity (note: exercisable or not) to think and choose. They are, uniquely, self-conscious (“rational”) beings, or persons.
(Continued below)

4. Even humans without functioning brains have this capacity. So, a zygote is a human being in the process of building a brain for itself. And we can hypothesise an adult human snap frozen but revivable – like a frozen embryo. With NO extant brain functioning, that frozen adult nevertheless retains this capacity. It is wrong to kill this adult, REGARDLESS of the lack of a functioning brain. The wrongfulness is bound up with his/her retained CAPACITY to think. That capacity is something which zygotes also have, but sperm and ova don’t. Neither do completely de-brained adults. If the latter COULD re-grow their brains as lizards to tails, our moral obligations to them would be different to what they are now.
5. Therefore the only coherent line in the sand for not deliberately killing seems to be tied to this capactity. The line is: any human life from the zygote stage onward. Any other subsequent line such as “awareness” or “functioning brain” forces us to treat as killable those who, when it comes down to it, seem deserving of life – such as deeply comatose patients, the frozen-but-not-dead adult, or – consistently – the most severely deformed anencephalics. Drawing any EARLIER line – eg, the sperm or ova stage, is treating as individual human beings things which are merely parts of other human individuals. Of course, treating parts of humans recklessly or wantonly is itself wrong too, but it’s a different kind of wrong than that of destroying a human being altogether.
6. The only ‘killable’ humans seem to be malicious, fully responsible adults. The argument is that they have, by an act such as wilful murder/s, declared hostility to other humans – and also their own – innate capacity, treating it as an evil. Executing them when the common good requires it is a punishment in accord with the logic of their actions. Should they repent and accept this punishment willingly, their dignity is restored.

NB: There are no religious premises in the argument. Atheist philosophers support exactly the same line of reasoning.

HH, what your argument boils down to, is basically a question of semantics.

One definition of “capacity” is the ability to do it. A zygote does not have
the ability to think of feel. It simply has the potential to perhaps develop
that capacity, under certain conditions.

To me a frozen human is not a person, but a frozen corpse! If the cleaner
accidentatly pulls out the plug on the freezer as she vacuums, do we charge
her with murder? Under certain conditions that frozen corpse might well
come back to life, but whilst its frozen, a corpse it is. That corpse does
not have the capacity to think or feel, but the potential to reinstate that
capacity, given certain conditions.

You have the same dna as when you were conceived, that does not mean
that you are the same person. Environment, maternal nutrition etc, could
have affected you in many ways, to make you quite a different person,
compared to whom you are today. I therefore dispute your claim that
dna is the only thing that matters, in making you who you are today.
The evidence clearly shows that nutrition, the environment in which
that zygote develops etc, played a role. That is exactly why even in
identical dna twins, they are similar, but not identical.

In fact the evidence suggests that hormones in miniscule amounts
affect the developing brain and its masculanisation for instance.
So those innate tendencies of sexual attraction could well be
decided long after conception and the formation of your particular
dna. So would HH the heterosexual be the same person as HH
the homosexual,? all innate drives after all.

Sperms and ova, under certain conditions, have the potential to go
on and develop the capatity to perhaps think and feel, but just
like zygotes, if those conditions don’t apply, but are flushed down
life’s toilet.

You have still to point out as to who should decide as to whom should be declared
as “evil

Yabby,

Whilst you’re right to beware of semantic confusions, I don’t think it applies in this case. Most kinds of bird have an innate capacity to fly. Do you deny this? Do you say that a crow chick born with a bent wing doesn’t have a capacity to fly? Of course it does! Fix the wing, and it will be able to fly! And if you’re semantically hung up on the word ‘capacity’ well then, I’m easy … call it ‘Factor X’. Crows are born with Factor X, whereas Emus aren’t. Emus aren’t defective re. flying. Making emus fly isn’t curing a defect, or enabling a capacity. OK?

On the other hand, it’s you that has semantically strayed with your use of the word ‘corpse’. Any dictionary predicates ‘corpse’ of a DEAD person. Since when is a REVIVABLE person a DEAD person? Over to you. [Incidentally, I noticed you didn’t say whether it was OK to pull the plug on this frozen human. Could you give an answer, and a reason? Obviously, I think so doing would be wrong.]

Your fourth para. totally confuses accidental features with essence. I totally agree that all sorts of alternatve occurrences might have shaped the way that I think and feel about things today. The point is that I am the same INDIVIDUAL that is the subject of discussion. Had the sun rose half an hour earlier this morning, I might have had different thoughts and made different choices. But it would be the same ME.

You’re fixated on potentiality re. sperm and ova. I’ve refuted this time and again. A sperm has no ability to develop thought processes. When conception occurs, a sperm and ova CEASE TO BE. No serious scientist refers to a zygote as a ‘mature sperm’ or a ‘mature ovum’.

If a sperm WAS a human being, why are scientists so obsessed about cloning EMBRYOS, and not just fiddling with sperm or ova?

Yabby,

‘You have still to point out as to who should decide as to whom should be declared
as “evil””

Let me remind you of YOUR answer: Educated Western Democracy! Since you’re a moral subjectivist, I’m at a loss: Why should this class of people be able to determine moral evil or good any more than say, Stalinists or Nazis?

But since I’m a moral objectivist, my answer is easy: ‘Those who are able to determine whatever IS evil’. Which includes most of the human race, apart from yourself (and even yourself, when you’re not angsting about it.)

Divergence,

Regarding your post of Friday, 1 December 2006 9:33:24 AM

There’s no such thing as a 'safe' drug if it INTERFERES with the body's immune system. A healthy immune system has everything it needs in its arsenal to defend itself, repair itself, etc. If the immune system is challenged too frequently (as with multiple vaccines, drugs, poor diets, no exercise, etc, etc) then it needs support and assistance - not additional challenges.

A healthy immune system would attack and destroy any embryo as a foreign invader because every embryo is genetically different from the mother and unique – BUT pregnancy hormones (part of the immune system) kick in following conception – and their presence is critical.

Pregnancy hormones ensure some very important immune system adjustments take place - which in turn ensure the embryo is NOT seen as an invader and is therefore NOT attacked and destroyed. It is these hormones that cause morning sickness - a very good sign for a normal, healthy pregnancy.

I'm curious if your friend experienced morning sickness. I'm not a scientist - just a very curious person. Due to continuing pregnancy problems I'm wondering whether her doctor (among other tests, eg; folic acid levels) monitored her hormone levels during each pregnancy to try to diagnose a cause.

Thinking out loud - it's possible critical pregnancy hormones did not kick in for her and that the embryo continued to grow whilst the body's immune system continued to attack the embryo as an invader - perhaps even causing abnormalities that concluded in natural miscarriage.

Your statement 'the immune system tolerated an abnormal embryo’ is not a definitive diagnosis but another different theory, so I can't answer your question in the context it was posed.

(PS Similar immune system conflicts are experienced with embryonic stem cells because they’re seen as foreign invaders by the immune system - resulting in tumours. Encapsulating them before injection won’t fool the body’s immune system. A patient's own stem cells are far better tolerated for this very reason, so ethical stem cell research should have been the preferred course for Australia.)

HH- yes you contain the same string of dna as you did when you were conceived,
but you might well have turned out quite differently, depending on your
environment. Your brain might be wired quite differently for instance.

Yes, most birds have the capacity to fly, but most avian zygotes don’t
have that capacity. Their dna contains the potential to perhaps let
them fly one day, given suitable circumstances in development,
but there is a difference between potential and capacity!

I looked up the word “dead” and it was defined as “not living”.
Clearly a frozen corpse is not living! No brain activity, no heart
pumping. Clearly a corpse is not a person! Clearly science is
breaking your old barriers here, with the potential to turn a corpse
back into a living person, given various conditions.

You are the same individual in dna terms only. Same dna, but that
dna interacting with environment, means that HH could well have
a brain quite different to the one he or she has now. As the mind
is what the brain does, various different HHs could have occurred,
with various innate tendencies, which would affect your behaviour in our
world.

As a claimed moral objectivist, you overlooked an important point. In
history we have had countless humans squabble about morality and
what objective morality should be, which you claim exists. Given
that we continue to squabble endlessly, clearly all we have had so
far is many subjective human opinions about morality, no clear
objective one

Yabby,

“Clearly a frozen corpse is not living.”

Naturally! But my contention is that a frozen-but-revivable human is NOT a corpse !! It is a human being in a state of what is sometimes called “suspended animation”. It is not dead. Can you refer us to ONE peer-reviewed scientific paper that speaks of frozen-but-revivable humans (eg frozen embryos) as “corpses” ?

And can you answer the REALLY important question: is it morally OK to destroy a frozen-but-revivable human? Why, or why not? Two German boys fell through ice into a pond two years ago. No heartbeat or ANY vital signs for about 11 minutes. They were revived. Was it OK to dismember them during that 11 minutes?

You’re just rewording my contention re. capacity. Most birds, I said, have an innate capacity to fly. This capacity can’t be exercised until their bodies mature. But as I suggested, if you don’t like the word ‘capacity’, call it Factor X. Crows are conceived with Factor X. Emus aren’t. The inability of emu chicks to fly is not just a question of immature body growth. Humans are born/conceived with another Factor, Y – which means that eventually they will think and choose. This innate factor is not present in other animals. The fact that they are human beings NOW – (and so have Factor Y) grounds the possibility that one day they will think and choose. The fact that a crow zygote is a crow NOW, and not an emu, grounds the possibility that one day it will fly.

So what if I could have had an altered brain? The point is, it would still be ME. When a scientist fiddles with zygote Joe’s DNA to give him white hair instead of brown, it’s still Joe. Or do you say that every time you walk into the hairdresser, a different individual of the species walks out?

Nothing follows from moral disagreement as to whether morality is subjective or objective. Is there extraterrestial life? Opinions differ. That doesn’t prove it’s a subjective issue. Either there is extraterrestial life or there isn’t.

HH, I remind you that cryopreserved bodies were declared clinically
dead, before the procedure was undertaken. Legally they are not people, but
corpses. Whilst there is much speculation about reviving them at some later
stage, if new science is invented, at this time that is impossible and nobody
has been brought back. Whilst the cryonics movement uses colourful
language to describe what it does, a corpse is what you have. Should the
cleaning lady pull the plug, the law would certainly not classify that as
murder. Right now that corpse can’t be brought back to life either.

Your question about the two German boys, you’ll find that in a state
of hyperthermia, people can appear to be dead, but are in fact not so.
We then have the difference between being clinically dead, ie the heart
stops beating, and brain death, which follows a bit later. Kerry Packer
was once what could be called clinically dead, but clearly not yet brain
dead, so was revived.

I’m not so much rewording your contention re capacity, merely pointing
out and correcting the flaw in your statement to make it accurate.
No need to talk about Factors X or Y.

A human zygote does not have the innate capacity to think, a human
baby does. A human zygote might have the potential to eventually
develop the capacity to think, given certain conditions beyond its
control.

Yes, it would still be you in terms of dna, same dna, but as a person
you could be quite different to what you might have been. As masculanisation
of the brain takes place well after conception, your innate feelings about
sexual attraction etc, could well be quite different.

As we have no substantiated evidence to confirm any kind of objective morality,
all we can go by is the evidence, which suggests that morality is simply the
subjective opinion of various people and is grounded in our dna as being part
of a social species

Yabby,

The case of people who die and then are frozen is irrelevant. I’m saying that if a person frozen alive were revivable then it would be incorrect to say they had died and to speak of them as corpses. IVF embryos are routinely frozen and later thawed. In the frozen state, they are not referred to as corpses in the literature. That is because they are revivable.

In any case, the substantive position I am defending is this: even with a totally inert brain in a human subject before me, if I had good grounds for believing that that entity would in, say, the next hour, resume brain activity, then my moral obligation is to treat that entity as I would any living human being.

Can you say if you agree or disagree with this position, and give reasons?

Crows are conceived with something emus don’t have, with respect to flight.
Even without violins, violinists have something non-violinists don’t have.
Humans are conceived with something non-human animals don’t have. If not killed off beforehand, they will manifest the ability to construct a brain for themselves with which they will think and choose.

I am a Tiramisu-maker. There are no eggs in my study here, there’s no coffee, no ladyfinger biscuits, no marscapone cheese, etc. But it’s still true that I AM a tiramisu-maker. I have Factor T as it were. All humans are thinkers.

“Same DNA”? The example I gave (changing hair colour) refuted that. It is the same INDIVIDUAL human being – Joe – before and after the DNA fiddling. That individual began at conception – not before, not after …
“A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo). Human development begins at fertilization… This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”
[From a sample textbook: “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology”]
There is no coherent position called ‘subjective morality’. Someone posing as a subjective moralist contradicts themselves, rather as do, say, solipsists who argue furiously with us that only they exist.

HH, of course embryos are not referred to as corpses. You might
well freeze and unfreeze embryos, but with people it does not work.
Embryos are not people after all! Big difference!

As to your hypothetical question, right now that is an impossibility
so it is really not an issue.

We can show that some non human animals can think and choose.
It seems that your line in the sand is about how much they can think
and choose, not if they can think and choose or not.

Yup the dna of each being is a little different, apart from identical
twins. So what?

Subjective morality is all that we have. Nobody has been able to
provide substantiated evidence of anything different..

Yabby, it seems we’ve come full circle, so it’s time for me to leave.

Embryos are individual human beings, and were from conception, but not before – as numerous secular embryological textbooks (inter alia) attest. Unfortunately you don’t understand what I’m getting at here, and are not raising any objections that are relevant, so I’m not going to push it.

[For anyone else (?) reading this, note that I’ve disputed Yabby’s contention that perduring as an individual is linked with retaining DNA. I’ve argued that even if my DNA is altered, I am still the same individual which is the subject of the alteration and that that individual began with the act of conception, not before or after. Yabby doesn’t seem to understand the point of this argument – that I begin as an individual at conception and that subsequent changes, even alterations in DNA, let alone the achievement by that individual of the construction of its own brain, don’t compromise the fact that it is the same individual human being who experiences these alterations.

He further doesn’t understand the point that when a mature human being’s brain is irreversibly destroyed, that being ceases to exist; whereas that a young human being in process of developing a brain, and a human whose brain is not functioning very well, or perhaps not at all, but whose brain is not irreversibly destroyed, might have a different metaphysical – and hence moral – status. For him, this is a ‘non-issue’, not worthy of any discussion at all, simply because, for some reason, (not argued), he views the temporary non-functioning of a brain, however brief, as an empirical impossibility. He seems unaware that science is pushing empirical possibilities ever wider, and that responsible discussion of issues should take into account what is conceptually, not just here and now practically, possible.]

‘Subjective morality’ is incoherent, and just as the arguments of a solipsist or universal skeptic actually point to objective morality, so the very argumention of subjective moralists actually substantiate the objectivity of morals. But that is another story….

Ciao!

HH, many thanks for the discussion, it was always clear to me that there could
be no agreement, simply agreeing to disagree. Our view about morality is clearly
quite different.

Where we disagree fundamentally is that I have long ago accepted Darwin’s
observation, that far more individuals of any species will be produced then can
ever survive. The problem is not creation of new individuals, that’s easy, its
about providing the resources for their survival, as
Darwin correctly noted.

So we can never agree. You want to fuss over every human zygote, I think that
they are largely expendable, unless they have a family who is prepared to care
for them. Most women have to choose which 2-3 of potentially 400, that
they can provide for and want to provide for.

You want to occupy your time pondering about whether corpses brought back
to life by science, would be persons once again. Ok have fun.

I prefer to ponder about what I consider the immorality of some philosophers,
who focus on zygotes and corpses, but seem to forget the hungry and the starving
which their philosophies could be responsible for.

Unlike yourself, some out in the real world have little choice but to face
A or B. Recourses are limited, should they fuss about a zygote or
focus on feeding their present family? I don’t blame them for choosing to
reduce suffering and hunger for their families. I can empathise with their
situation.

Look around you. life is common and life is cheap. Many preach the rhetoric
about the sanctity of every zygote, whilst in reality their own wealth and
splendor are clearly their own first priority. Why should I take any notice
of them?

So I will continue to prefer my own version of morality, which accepts
Natures laws as observed by Darwin and focuses on reducing hunger
and suffering. People will have priority over cells and organisms.
Reducing hunger and suffering on this earth is a very moral position
to take, in my humble opinion.

Ciao!

Scientists seek eggs after stem cell vote - 7 December 2006

'Australian stem cell researchers will start negotiating with IVF clinics to access human eggs following this week's landmark decision to overturn a ban on creating cloned embryos specifically for scientific research. ...

But the first step for researchers like Trounson is to get hold of a ready supply of human eggs and he's not sure whether there will be enough. ... Neuroscientist Professor Peter Schofield of the Lockhart review agrees that finding eggs will be a key issue. "In practice we will probably find that eggs may be a limiting factor," he says. ...

There are typically 25 years between the first experiments to a clinical application, he says. And researchers are "at best" seven years in.'

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1806539.htm?health

The spiral begins.

PS

HH - Your posts were of exceptional quality.

Michael Rogers, found your comment on Crikey this morning - well said!
http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20061212-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html

HUMAN BODY PARTS

The BBC is reporting that evidence it has obtained suggests that healthy newborn babies may have been killed in the Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm

Stem cell baby deaths probe 'too close to the truth', claims investigator

Bojan Pancevski in Vienna, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 17/12/2006

' ... "Pregnant women, especially from rural areas, are very vulnerable targets as they will obviously believe whatever the doctors tell them. It's easy to take their babies from them and tell them they died or were born dead due to complications."

The Council of Europe is to investigate allegations that newborn babies, and foetuses, have been killed to provide stem cells and internal organs for controversial medical and cosmetic treatments. ... '

' ... In 2003 its head, Tetyana Isayeva Zaharova, gave Council of Europe investigators a video which was said to show babies' bodies partly dismembered so that stem cells and organs could be removed. ... '

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/wbaby17.xml

The babies who are murdered to order

' ... Certainly, the Ukraine has become the main supplier of the global stem cell trade. ... '

Tatyana showed me the video she had been allowed to record of the post-mortem examinations that followed. The gruesome film shows the carcasses of babies, some of whom were full-term, with their organs and brains missing.

Neurones in infants' brain are a rich source of stem cells.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=423057&in_page_id=1774

DEAR READERS
first i express my honor to the people who honors existence of life.
a small question came to my mind .
as both the sperm and the ovum have life of their own and only one life is created after the formation of embryo where is the other life ? are we believing in destruction of life when we r suppose to support continuation of life?