response 26 of 104:

Apr 14 14:59 UTC 2002

re #24:  Are you suggesting that the example you provide of a friendless, 
homeless person and that with which you are comparing it, the zygote, are 
identical to you?  A thinking, feeling human being with (theoretical) 
concern for its own existence and the conditions thereof and a clump of 
cells which in and of themselves represent only an indeterminate 
potential for the development of same?

If you do not believe these to be the same thing, then your argument is 
specious.  If you do, then living in your world must be excruciating, 
because if everything is equal to the greatest possible potential it 
represents then you must not be able to do much of anything without 
having to consider the potentialities you are disrupting or destroying.

response 28 of 104:

Apr 14 17:20 UTC 2002

        At what point does a gamete become human, though?  Clearly there are
several stages in the development from sperm and egg cells to humanity, and
if the initially fertilized egg is human, then what of the gametes?

response 30 of 104:

Apr 14 19:04 UTC 2002

re janc:  " even if doing so
 could substantially improve many many human lives."  And even if doing
so could substantially harm many human lives, I suppose you'd argue?

response 32 of 104:

Apr 14 19:49 UTC 2002

The fundamental difference between the pro-choice and the anti-choice
positions, best I can tell, boils down to whether you believe that humans are
highly developed animals -- accidents of nature, or that humans are somehow
divinely manifested and fundamentally different from other beings.  

Since this is truly a core perception of the nature of being and the universe,
people rarely change camps.  This particular issue traces so directly from
these divergent beliefs that it seems to me this argument will always be
intractable as long as people in both camps have a voice in society.  The
status quo at any given time will be reflective of who speaks with the loudest
voice (and of course, the most money).

response 34 of 104:

Apr 14 21:49 UTC 2002

Re #18:  You're making a dogmatic assumption there, John.  The
assumption is that "human lives" are present in a Petri dish.
You should have some chain of deduction to support that.

It's the law of the land that a fully-formed, independent human
organism becomes a bag of spare parts when its brain gets smashed
beyond functionality; *not even so-called Right-to-Life has a
problem with this*.  Even if you have some question about the
proper status of a 4-month fetus, there is none about that of a
32-cell blastocyst; once you've admitted that the body which
spilled its brains on the pavement in a motorcycle accident isn't
a human being, you can't sanely argue that a blastocyst is one.

People who've made a zygote in a Petri dish have the option of
implanting it and trying to make a baby, or throwing it down the
drain.  Stem cells seems like a better fate than the drain, and
dis-allowing their use for stem cells is completely inconsistent
with the existing system of medical bequests.

Re #23:  Autografts are vastly superior to allografts.  So, if a
rich person clones a zygote which is used to extract stem cells,
and those stem cells are grown on a scaffold into tissues which
form an organ needed by the rich person, you've got an "organ
farm" (more like a grow-to-order garden, but small difference).
What's the moral or ethical problem here?  Who was hurt?  What
other organism existed that deserved greater consideration than
said rich person's appendix?  (It wasn't even genetically unique.)

Re #25:  Very well-said.  (World ending, film at 11. ;-)

Re #27:  We apply the utilitarian view to the brain-dead, you
know.  Parents often donate the organs of their deceased infants
and toddlers to save other children.  What's the difference?

response 36 of 104:

Apr 15 02:09 UTC 2002

Re #32:  I don't buy that.  Even if you do subscribe to the "divinely
created" point of view, you cannot escape the fact that zygotes are
formed and discarded with utter abandon.  Even worse:  you have to
accept that dumping zygotes may very well be divine will!  You can
arrive at the Bush/Ashcroft/Right-to-Life position only by completely
disregarding the facts and leaping to conclusions; a position based on
reality has to leave considerable room for doubt, and thus conscience.

response 38 of 104:

Apr 15 04:56 UTC 2002

Re 335: we've been over that several times. Since there is a continuum
in the development of the fetus from insensate cells to a neonate,
the choice of a point to separate "fully developed" to "not fully
developed" is ours to make by discussion and compromise. That is what
the Supreme Court did in Roe vs Wade. No new information has been
developed that shows an uniquivocal reason for a change in that 
dividing line.  

response 40 of 104:

Apr 15 06:31 UTC 2002

Re: 36 - Russ, there's a difference between a sparrow falling from the sky
in the middle of the woods in November and a sparrow having its head twisted
off, wouldn't you say?

That said, your point about brain-dead organ donors is a very good one, and
a very apt analogy to the situation with blastocysts and stem cell harvesting.

response 42 of 104:

Apr 15 11:14 UTC 2002

 re #34:
   
 >  It's the law of the land that a fully-formed, independent human
 >  organism becomes a bag of spare parts when its brain gets smashed
 >  beyond functionality; *not even so-called Right-to-Life has a
 >  problem with this*.  Even if you have some question about the
 >  proper status of a 4-month fetus, there is none about that of a
 >  32-cell blastocyst; once you've admitted that the body which
 >  spilled its brains on the pavement in a motorcycle accident isn't
 >  a human being, you can't sanely argue that a blastocyst is one.
   
 and
   
 >  We apply the utilitarian view to the brain-dead, you
 >  know.  Parents often donate the organs of their deceased infants
 >  and toddlers to save other children.  What's the difference?
  
 Without offering an opinion on whether or not a blastocyst is a "human life"
 deserving of legal protection, I'd like to point out what I feel is a serious
 flaw in Russ's analogies above.  An early stage embryo is clearly not yet
 conscious but it has the potential to develop consciousness.  A living human
 whose brain is damaged beyond potential for recovery has no such potential.

 (Please note that I am NOT asserting that potential for consciousness is an
 automatic qualification for protection.  Such a position easily reduces to
 the absurd, I think, but I still see the issue of potential as a blow against
 the equivalency attempted by Russ's analogy.)

response 44 of 104:

Apr 15 14:02 UTC 2002

Every living nucleated cell in the body has the *potential* for consciousness,
as far as is presently known. The fact that as a whole organism we are
a colony of specializing cells doesn't mean the potential isn't always
there, just not the machinery to take advantage of that potential. 

response 46 of 104:

Apr 15 14:58 UTC 2002

The line drawn between fetus and human is generally the birth canal.
Before birth the owner of the womb gets priority.  Among the ancient Romans
the dividing line was drawn a bit later - the father got to choose whether
or not to raise the child and it became a part of the family by decision.
I don't know if it was considered human before this.  For fetuses grown
outside a womb the rules no longer fit.  I predict some day (if the human
population survives long enough) many or most fetuses will be grown
artificially and then there will be all these new ethical problems about who
is allowed to pull the plug if they change their mind or discover some defect.

As far as growing some of your own tissue into an organ replacement, how is
this ethically different from a skin graft?  

Murder is the killing of a creature that is part of your own group, which at
various times and in various groups has excluded slaves or included
mosquitoes.  During war it is not murder to kill the enemy.  Currently a fetus
is not considered part of the human social group.  

response 48 of 104:

Apr 15 15:47 UTC 2002

By current rules, when it is able to survive without being attached
to another human.  It is part of the group if it is attached to a machine and
dependent on it for survival.