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?