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A Throw Away Culture in Reproductive Medicine
Crisis Magazine ^ | October 16,2013 | Arland K. Nichols

Posted on 10/18/2013 8:27:42 AM PDT by RBStealth

The “Brave New World” of genetic manipulation in reproductive medicine has arrived, and its arrival embraces the utilitarian calculation that the death of the innocent is a legitimate means to secure the health of another.

Mitochondrial diseases, such as Leigh’s Syndrome and Alpers Disease are passed down from mothers to their children because offspring inherit their mitochondria (the energy producers of cells) exclusively from their mothers. Often caused by mutations in the mitochondrial DNA, these diseases can be devastating. Modern medicine has yet to offer a cure.

Researchers in the UK and USA have developed a number of procedures to prevent the inheritance of disease-causing mitochondria. The most favored method appears to be “Pro-nuclear Transfer” (PNT). PNT involves the creation of two one-celled human beings (zygotes) in a petri dish. One is “donated” and the other is the offspring of the parents who have passed on a mitochondrial disease. To bypass this disease, researchers remove and discard the nucleus of the “donor zygote” and replace it with the nucleus that has been removed from the infected zygote.


TOPICS: Catholic; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS:
The Catholic Church speaks:
In a recent speech Pope Francis lamented a “throw away culture” that is increasingly operative in medicine and science. One can hardly conceive of a more clear manifestation of this throw away culture than PNTs deliberate killing and discarding of one human being to immediately secure the health of another.

Why do all the other Churches remain silent?
1 posted on 10/18/2013 8:27:42 AM PDT by RBStealth
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To: RBStealth
In a recent speech Pope Francis lamented a “throw away culture” that is increasingly operative in medicine and science.

That sounds judgmental.

2 posted on 10/18/2013 8:29:55 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Matthew 5:37)
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To: RBStealth

Though wait until medical research comes to a virtual halt under barrycare.


3 posted on 10/18/2013 9:09:17 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: RBStealth

>one-celled human beings (zygotes) in a petri dish

hu·man be·ing
noun
1. a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.


4 posted on 10/18/2013 9:21:05 AM PDT by soycd
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To: RBStealth
Maternal spindle transfer involves the transfer of maternal DNA from an unfertilized egg to an unfertilized donor egg.

It would not require the death of an embryo when used therapeutically but undoubtedly would result in discarded embryos in the experimental phases.

Utilitarian scientists pursue both routes, looking for whichever works best, or first. Fame, wealth, and prizes to the winner of the race.

5 posted on 10/18/2013 11:10:29 AM PDT by heartwood
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To: soycd

Wow, we know the conversation has sunk to low levels when the other pulls out a dictionary to win an argument, not even an appropriate medical or biological dictionary at that.


6 posted on 10/18/2013 1:14:19 PM PDT by RBStealth (--raised by wolves, disciplined and educated by nuns.)
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To: RBStealth

With all the real tragedy of yanking living humans out of the womb, a single cell in a petri dish is hard to get excited about. I just can’t see calling a single cell a Human Being until it has become a Human Being.


7 posted on 10/18/2013 2:08:03 PM PDT by soycd
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To: soycd

When does it become a human being? Is it justified to kill the clearly human organism before it becomes a human being?


8 posted on 10/18/2013 2:29:16 PM PDT by Pyro7480 (Viva Cristo Rey!)
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To: soycd

Its not all about the body, each human being is endowed with a soul that comes at the moment of conception. God has a plan for each life that is conceived.


9 posted on 10/18/2013 3:16:07 PM PDT by RBStealth (--raised by wolves, disciplined and educated by nuns.)
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To: soycd
1. a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.

A zygote qualifies as a child of the species Homo Sapiens. If you tighten the definition to the actual presence of "superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance" as opposted to membership in the species, you must logically reach the conclusion reached by Michael Tooley, Peter Singer, and others, when they not only defended abortion but also infanticide, because newborn infants lack any traits, other than species, that might usefully distinguish them from animals philosophically. To accept that it's OK to kill a zygote for any purpose or even limited utilitarian purposes is to accept that it's OK to kill an infant for the same reasons. Is it OK for parent to have a second child, only to kill that child to fatally be used as an organ doner for a first child in failing health?

That, in a nutshell, defines the two logically defensible positions one may take concerning the personhood of an unborn child in the abortion debate because abortion is essentially prenatal infanticide and you can't logically separate the morality of the former from the later. There is no relevant trait that distinguishes the newborn from either an animal nor that same child moments befor birth, nor from the zygote. Oh, there are certainly differences, but none that would lead you to conclude an adult animal was a person if it exhibited the same characteristic. Animals have heartbeats, brains, feelings, and so on, too, and chimpanzees certainly look fairly human, so that the newborn has such characteristics and the zygote doesn't makes such things irrelevant as distinguishing criteria.

Sure, you can then argue that even if the unborn child is a person that a woman has no obligation to take care of it, even if the results of her removing it are fatal to the child, but then you wind up having to support child abandonment. Several years ago, a woman in New Jersey wanted to go out partying. After several attempts to find a babysitter failed (she did actually try to get others to take care of the child for her), she decided partying was more important than her infant son so she tossed him off a bridge into the Passaic river. If you do't think a child has the right to force a woman to take care of it, then I find it difficult to see how you could find fault in this woman's actions (Perhaps it might have been better if she'd just abandoned him on the bridge and it would have been find if he fell into the river himsef?).

10 posted on 10/18/2013 3:31:01 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: RBStealth
Wow, we know the conversation has sunk to low levels when the other pulls out a dictionary to win an argument, not even an appropriate medical or biological dictionary at that. Years ago, when I worked at Random House, they had a display when you got off the elevators on one of the floors illustrating how dictionaries are made, including how word definitions are derived. Let's just say that it's a subjective process that is subject to the opinions of the editor. And I would be surprised if every editor of working on a modern dictionary was not acutely aware of the relevance definitions of words like "person" and phrases like "human being" have to the abortion debate and would not be surprised if their personal opinions on the subject had an impact on their definitions. So using the dictionary definition is often essentially begging the question.
11 posted on 10/18/2013 3:37:46 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: Question_Assumptions

agree. Sometimes using a dictionary is appropriate, sometimes a ‘field of study’ dictionary is appropriate.
Sometimes a general encyclopedia is appropriate and more so
a ‘field of study’ encyclopedia may be the ticket.

But something as advanced as the debate of the beginning of human life and reaching for a Random, and I do mean random, House dictionary is very low brow.


12 posted on 10/18/2013 3:42:03 PM PDT by RBStealth (--raised by wolves, disciplined and educated by nuns.)
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To: Pyro7480
When does it become a human being? Is it justified to kill the clearly human organism before it becomes a human being?

It becomes a human being the moment it becomes a distinct individual. Two parents become two parents and a child during fertilizatoin. Identical wins go from being one individual to being two individuals when the zygote splits. Chimeras go from being two individuals to being one individual when they lose a distinct individual identity. This works well even with the hard cases to define and strange science fiction examples, such as a Star Trek transporter splitting one person into two people.

The key is understanding that "when does a human's life begin" is a trick question. The cells involved are never dead because dead matter does not spontaneously spring to live. That quaint idea went out with the development of microscopes and the discovery of bacteria, sperm, and eggs in the 19th century. The question isn't "When does the baby become alive?" because it's never dead. It's also never not human at any point. So the question here is, "When does it become a distinct individual?" which is what's generally meant by "human being" and the answer is typically at fertilization, which is the problem here.

Now, if you want to try to draw a line somewhere between that zygote and an adult human where the human being in question develops some set of traits that you want to use to distinguish between what philosophers genererally refer to as a "person" and a non-"person", you are free to do so, but an honest assessment of any such characteristics will quickly lead one the conclusions reached by Michael Tooley and Peter Singer, which is that to accept abortion is to accept infanticide because there is no relevant difference between a child before or after birth nor at any particular phase before birth after fertilization. If you want to test that, ask yourself if finding the same characteristic in an animal or alien lifeform would be sufficient to consider it a person. And before considering the mental capacity of a newborn to be an obvoius distinguishing characteristic, please look into the true non-romanticized mental capacity of a newborn really is.

13 posted on 10/18/2013 3:53:21 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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