Posted on 07/23/2006 6:18:49 PM PDT by gridlock
Powerful.
Reminds me of what they did with the "Gelflings" in the movie "Dark Crystal".
Only to those of us who are already against embryonic stem cell research. To those who draw a distinction between conscious life and unconscious life I doubt this story will have any power at all.
I wish polititians would just ignore anything to do with stem cell research and abortion. These are medical and religious issues not suited for implementation as national policy. I'm reminded of the horror of China's One Child policy and the official government cruelty that follows. Leave this stuff alone at the national level, and let the states and cities decide on what laws along these lines they wish to adopt. I don't want to see anything like Nazi or communist law making for the whole land. People on both sides of these issues need to have both safe havens against something and freedom to choose.
I compare the use of embryonic stem cell use to cannibalism.
Since embryonic cells have never had consciousness, and most will be discarded as medical waste if not used for research, I don't think this story stands as a cautionary tale against using stem cells. I doubt if the father would have had qualms about destroying embryonic stem cells to save himself so he could continue to protect and support his living family.
But for me the author raises interesting questions about our expectation that we should have unlimited resources at our disposal to find off death even at an advanced age. Embryonic stem cell discoveries might extend young lives and give normal functionality back to vigorous people. We can also be sure that it will be used to try to extend lifetimes past the normal span, and bring back youthful physical traits to the elderly. I believe we each need to give this some thought personally. It will, of course, prove impossible to prevent the technology from being used this way by people with money.
Even if embryos were not human, which they most certainly are, the adult stem cells are a far more viable option for cures then embryo stem cells, which actually have not opened any possible cures to date.
Even using the ones(400,000 can you believe that?) that are already in storage is repugnant to me. Just MO, for what it is worth.
It's the slippery slope you have to watch out for. Already couples have had another child to harvest bone marrow and kidneys to save an earlier child. How long before we aren't petry dishing these embryos to placenta fluid aquariums to harvest organs.
The lifeline could bring down the ship while saving the swept over soul.
So, what is your thinking here... That the lives of the elderly are worth less than young lives of vigorous people? Are the elderly something less than human?
Should people be permitted to live past a "normal" life span, or should they be cut off from care as soon as they are abnormally old?
I don't care if you give this all a lot of thought personally. But make your decisions for yourself, and leave me out of it. One reason I am adamantly opposed to nationalized healthcare is because the instant the government starts writing the checks, busybodies like yourself are going to start deciding about who gets to live and who has to die, and which lives are worthy and which lives are lacking.
I would not accept embryonic stem cell treatment even to save my life. There are just some costs not worth paying. I don't think I could live with myself afterwards. I agree with you, the whole idea is repulsive.
I agree with what you wrote.
What's next? It's too expensive to treat an illness for someone whose life expectancy is shorter than "X" number of years?
I think the govt. has stepped too far into our personal lives already.
I say "butt out!" of our personal lives, defend our country, make treaties and oversee trade..........that's what the federal govt should be doing.
FYI, newborn infants don't have consciousness, either (do some research on infant mental development if you don't believe that statement). Would you support allowing women who don't want their infants to donate them to be killed and cut up for organs to save the lives of wanted children in need of a transplant? What makes you think that isn't a possibility, down the road, if we define the point at which we protect a person's right to life as the point of consciousness, which occurs well after birth (perhaps as long as 2 years after)? If you think that's silly, I think you should read philosopher Michael Tooley's arguments in favor of infanticide in his essay "In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide" (you can find a copy in almost any college-level current moral and ethical issues textbook) and the arguments of bioethicist Peter Singer. Once you define personhood as requiring consciousness, you've stepped on a slippery slope (into a chute, actually) that ends in the justification of infanticide.
I doubt if the father would have had qualms about destroying embryonic stem cells to save himself so he could continue to protect and support his living family.
You have no way of knowing how the father would have felt either way since you don't know the father. The author of the article, on the other hand, who saw a strong similarity, did. So should I trust your assessment of the father's feeling or the author's?
Do you really believe that all human life "should be protected regardless of it's [sic] capabilities"? Really? You know what Saddam is capable of. If his people give him the death penalty should we offer him asylum here in the US? Should Schwarzenegger have commuted Tookie Williams' sentence?
I know that's not what you meant by "capabilities" but assuming you're for the death penalty you're acknowledging that not all life has equal value... that not all life is worth protecting.
Or what if we find OBL but he's carrying a newborn everywhere he goes. If you attack, he promises to murder the little one. Do you charge in anyways? Most people here, I'd wager, would say absolutely. Sucks to be that baby... sucks to be the parent/sibling/third cousin twice removed of that baby... but that sacrifice would ultimately be worth the thousands of lives we'd potentially be saving by taking out the (insert your favorite expletive here).
The decision becomes even easier if he's carrying around a test-tube with a 4-5 day old blastocyst that's about this big.
Are we then caught in a "utilitarian haggle over the greater good"? Absolutely. Is it hard to digest? Yup. The realistic notion, though, that not all life is worth protecting at all costs is going to be present in the minds of those who approve of this type of research.
IMHO the key is to get people to re-evaluate the cost vs. the reward.
Imagine Grandma's dying. She's 105 and was starting to lose touch before the stroke last week. She's in a coma now and will be dead within 24 hours. The doctor approaches you with an unusual request. There's a new theoretical method for reattaching severed limbs that just appeared in all the medical journals. The doc wants to know if he can experiment on Grandma. He'll simply remove her arms and legs and then reattach them. He'll pump her full of gallons of morphine so pain will be no issue. With a lot of luck this could save... or at least significantly improve... many, many lives somewhere down the road. Somewhere... twenty years or more down the road... and maybe never.
Yeah, given the she's pretty much guaranteed to die on the table, but she's as close to dead as you can get. She can't think... she's not aware of her surroundings... and she won't feel any pain. Is scientific progress worth it?
The author didn't have a perspective on the father's opinion about sacrificing blastocysts for survival. All he knew was that his father put his young boys' survival above his own. That's why I didn't think the article made a good argument against stem cell research.
You're right, I don't know that the father wouldn't have preferred to drown if his survival meant that embryonic stem cells would be used for research rather than being discarded as medical waste. I think it would have been utterly selfish of him to make that sacrifice on behalf of his whole family, but that's just my opinion.
I don't believe we can control the use of medical technology by the wealthy, so my opinions about it don't matter. Radical procedures to extend life will be beyond the reach of the poor and middle-class anyway unless we decide to subsidize it as a nation. I think we are heading toward nationalized healthcare because it will be the only way we can compete with business in other countries. So at some point we have to decide how much of our resources we're going to devote to extending lives past the "normal" span. If you can pay for it, no one will be able to keep it from you, nor would they want to, but I seriously doubt many insurance companies will sign up to pay for treatments to keep people going for sixty years after they retire.
One bullet will solve the problem nicely, thank you.
No, the actual problem is that once you allow subjective judgements, it becomes the *duty* of the state to destroy those with "inconvenient" views, as those views are prima facie evidence of diminished capacity.
See also the Gulag.
(Think of the sneer towards Dan Quayle, "Whose values?". Exactly. If the left legitimizes this dehumanization based upon sentinence, mass euthanasia and concentration camps for their political enemies will become inevitable -- and seen as positively meritorious.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
