Posted on 10/20/2004 10:42:20 AM PDT by MisterRepublican
Michael J. Fox is a famous TV and movie star. He is witty. He is charming. A few years ago, we learned he has Parkinson's disease.
PD is a slowly progressive neurological disorder, characterized by tremors, shuffling gait, a masklike facial expression, "pill rolling" of the fingers, drooling, intolerance to heat, oily skin, emotional instability and defective judgment (although intelligence is rarely impaired).
PD is currently incurable, although there are several methods to slow its advancement, including drug therapy and surgery.
PD is tragic, particularly in Fox's case, because it rarely afflicts persons under 60 years old.
Yet everyone faces tragedy at one time or another, in one form or another. A person's moral fiber is revealed in tragedy.
So we learned through Fox's affliction that he has either extremely poor judgment or a diabolical character flaw. He supports human embryonic stem-cell experimentation, thus contending that some humans are subhuman and expendable for others' personal gain.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
>>> if human embryos are too primitive or too unlike born human beings to merit protection, then the rational position is that they should be used for everything or anything. if human embryos are too primitive or too unlike born human beings to merit protection, then the rational position is that they should be used for everything or anything.
To play devil's advocate (I support the President's position because it is the President's): why is it an all or nothing proposition? Can't these life forms have less value than a developed human but more value than Baco's? Should we be using cats as salad garnishes because they are not as "valuable" as humans?
Basically, while I always support the President, I am not sure your "only rational" approach to this issue is rational at all.
A typical cycle involving a woman in her mid 30s and no male factor issues would go along these lines:
--12 eggs retrieved
--8 fertilize (after attempted fertilization on all)
--by day 2 only 7 are still developing
--by day 3 only 6 are still developing, and one or two of those show clear signs of problems (significantly fewer cells than they should have at that stage, and/or cell fragmentation)
--around day 5 (protocols vary as to when transfer is done) the strongest looking 2-3 embryos are transferred, and the remaining 1-2 that are still developing are frozen in case this transfer doesn't result in a pregnancy, or for use in attempting to have a second child later (number of embryos transferred is limited according to age-related guidelines, so as to limit the possibility of high-order multiples, and the associated complications which can include miscarriage; in 40+ year old women, often 4 are implanted, if she managed to produce that many, and yet there is still only a small chance that even one of those will develop into a baby; on the other hand, with a woman in late 20s, whose fertility problems aren't usually realted to egg quality, no more than two would be implanted, and if the embryos were of good quality when implanted, there would be close to a 50% chance that at least one of them would develop into a baby, and significant chance that both would).
But there is limited predictability in these numbers, so there would be no way to ensure that you don't end up with more embryos than it would be safe to transfer, unless you take a huge chance that the whole set of procedures will end up with NO embryos to transfer. A woman might produce 12 eggs, as in the example above, but then have only 3-4 fertilize and then have one or none develop far enough to transfer. So if you decided only to try to fertilizing 4 of them, it's more likely than not that this particular woman would end up not even having one embryo to transfer, much less having a baby result -- and you really don't know in advance whether her rates will look like the example above, or like my grimmer second example. For a couple who has just scraped together the money for one cycle and may have to wait 2-3 years to scrape together enough for a second (while the woman's fertility continues to decline over that period), or whose insurance covers a maximum of two cycles, this is not a realistic or reasonable approach.
It is not possible to fertilize the eggs one at a time and wait and see how they develop before fertilizing another one, because the eggs will lose their capacity to fertilize if they're left sitting around (though within a few years, improvements in egg-freezing technology will change that factor), and because the woman's body has to be at just the right stage in the hormonal cycle for the embryos to have any chance of implanting.
Supporting stem cell research is one thing...advocating "harvesting", "growing" human's for donors is another.
I support stem cell research myself...but not at the expense of innocent human life.
FRegards,
Exactly.
I wonder how Michael J. Fox would feel if so meone were to suggest that we sacrifice people with Parkinson's Disease in order to do experiments that might one day cure cancer.
I know that I would recoil in horror at the thought of sacrificing one human being in order to do experiments that might find a cure for a disease.
But, apparently, Michael J. Fox (and others) see nothing at all wrong with this sort of sacrifice.
I think it is because they feel that the embryos are just going to be thrown away anyway.
To which I say, people with Parkinson's are just going to die anyway also.
The predictability issue complicates things, and for real extremists on the issue, rules out the whole process. For example, I met one woman in her late thirties who had unexpectedly produced 26 embryos from a single IVF cycle. Producing this many eggs (regardless of whether they fertilize) creates a high risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can be very serious (in rare cases even fatal), and which is aggravated by pregnancy, threatening both the woman's health and the survival of the embryo/fetus. So, having expected to produce a handful of embryos, and have all or most implanted, this woman had 26 in the freezer. She was getting ready to have a few thawed and implanted, but it's highly unlikely that she'd ever have them all implanted.
You know, you're right.
And I guess, using your logic, it would be OK to take comatose people who are going to die anyway and use them for experiments for new techniques on curing diseases.
Comatose people aren't suffering in the slightest.
With their consent yes, because in the case of comatose people who were old enough to comprehend the matter, they'd have had the opportunity to give consent. For anyone who never reached that stage (embryo, anencephalic, profoundly retarded, etc.), I would delegate the decision to the parents. Personally, if I were comatose and clearly going to die without regaining consciousness, I would want to either donate my organs to help other people live, or let my body be used for research. It wouldn't hurt me a bit, and would be selfish not to.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Who said anything about consent?
If the criteria that are important here are (1) finding a cure for diseases like Parkinsons, and (2) making sure that there is no suffering, then why in the world shoud it matter whether you -- or anyone else who might be comatose -- gives h is or her consent?
Why shouldn't the State, in the best interests of minimizing suffering caused by dieseases such as Parkinson's, simply allow the sacrifice of those sub-humans whose sub-humanity is defined by the fact that they are comatose? And isn't finding a cure for something as awful as Parkinson's much more important that giving you -- or anyone else who might be comatose -- your own dignity as a human being?
"Stop it, stop it. Stop this cannibalism. Let's have a thread about clean, decent human beings."
Really, I think it depends upon what you believe about life and death. For those with no belief in God, this life is it. Preserving THIS life is more important than anything else. The highest "moral" is staying alive so that, anything is justifiable.
I don't believe that today. I won't believe that tomorrow. It won't matter what disease I am faced with. Staying alive is important to me, sure, but not at the risk of my soul.
With a headline like that, regrettably, I can't help but think of the Christopher Reeve episode of South Park, but it's the image that comes to mind.
Be honest, you would have thought that even if Stanek hadn't given you permission.
If consent/non-consent is reasonably available, it should be a requirement.
Huh? An embryo which still consists of completely undifferentiated cells can suffer? How? It has no brain, no nervous system whatsoever, no capacity for sensation of any kind.
Well, federally funding embryonic stem cell research isn't going to do doodly squat about Parkinson's or Alzeimer's disease.
The reason this issue is a political football is because people see the President as being vulnerable on his position, because they know people will not look at the ugly side of the "utility of life" argument.
Oh, a lot of people make this argument. Of course, a lot of people make the argument that a quadrapalegic or somebody with Parkinson's is a life form with less value than a "normal" human being. Once you start assigning relative values to various kinds of human life, it does not make sense to draw a line at some arbitrary point.
Of course, people do. That doesn't make it right.
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