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?