Posted on 02/27/2003 12:02:54 PM PST by MHGinTN
Why did the President call for a ban on human cloning?
For the vast majority of Americans, the acceptance quotient regarding nascent life falls somewhere between ‘legal protection for all conceived individual human life’ and ‘legal protection for partial birth abortion.’ With acceptance of in vitro fertilization, followed eventually by the apparent necessity for some legal abortion, our society too quickly arrived at acceptance of, no, defense of, infanticide. Our society can degenerate further.
A straight-line course from our current reality will have us embracing the notion that ‘exploitation of embryonic life is needed to bolster unencumbered lives of worthy pursuit.’ Those forces pushing for therapeutic cloning and exploitation of embryonic stem cells assume (in New Jersey, at least, and now democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are trying the same tactics) that the American people will accept conception of individual human lives and then killing those individuals for their body parts (embryonic stem cell exploitation). Folks, that’s cannibalism as surely as if you were directed to eat embryonic individual humans for medical treatment.
To legally exploit individual embryonic life, someone must arrange our agreement that killing and harvesting embryos is not the same as killing an individual. Scientists who would carry out these medical marvels know this is a lie but they do not correct the lie because it serves their purposes. Here's the key to the deception: the science of Embryology holds as axiomatic that individual life is a continuum with a beginning at conception (an unbroken chain of events hallmarked by form and function at each age of an individual life; if the chain is broken, death of an individual life occurs); those seeking legalization for embryonic exploitation must promote the blatant lie that ‘embryos are not individual human life’ ... or worse, have the nation agree that these are individual human lives, exploited in earliest stage of their ‘less worthy life’, defining a higher purpose for the body parts of these embryonic individuals, to sustain others.
The first level of agreement those promoting therapeutic cloning seek from us is based on a calculated lie; the second descending level of agreement is acceptance of cannibalism based on that same lie that embryos are not human individuals existing at a normal age in a human lifetime.
Many people warned of a slippery slope back when outrage over in vitro fertilization was squelched. Our nation is already far down that slope, gaining speed in our decline.
Exploitation of nascent life is now a reality: the fetal tissue harvesting industry, with more than a billion dollars in business receipts, already influences when some women ought to have the abortions they seek, because fetal tissue differentiation makes later rather than earlier killing and harvesting of the preborn more desirable to those who will profit from the killing. But things can get worse: 1) embryonic stem cell exploitation now demands the conception and killing of untold numbers of embryos; 2) therapeutic cloning is based on the in vitro fertilization / conception of individual human life, with killing and harvesting as the goal when the embryo has differentiated sufficiently to make specific target-cell identification reliable. Both of these 'scientific advances', if they are not to be outlawed, require our nation to accept the specious notion that an individual human life doesn't begin with at least first cell division (onset of mitosis).
Having read this far, some will assert, "But an embryo in a petri dish is not the same as an implanted embryo, not the same as a fetus, not the same as a born child, not the same as a toddler, not the same as …" That’s using the continuum concept to define the life of an individual human being. Using a continuum argument to arbitrarily eliminate earlier ages along the continuum glares paradoxically and perniciously, for the very science now hurrying to exploit embryonic life is convinced an embryo IS an individual human lifetime begun. "Outrageous assertion,” some will say. Okay, let the goals of the scientific pursuits speak for the scientists covering for the lies.
With in vitro fertilization, a female gamete is fertilized by a male gamete (gametes are the ‘sex cells’ of the adult male or female). Once cell division is evidenced and the embryo reaches a desired number of body parts (the embryo’s stem cells), the individual embryo is placed into the uterus of the target woman. [In most cases, several individual embryos are implanted at the same time; if too many achieve life support, the attending medical personnel will advise aborting one or more, to improve the odds for the escaping survivor].
The technician watching the product of fertilization in the ‘petri dish’ is looking for cell division, to assure that an individual human life has begun to express itself, to grow.
The technicians must achieve transfer from petri dish to human uterus at a specific stage in cell division; if they try implanting too early, the embryo will not have the sticky coating it creates which allows for attachment to the uterine wall. The individual life, after it implants in the uterine lining, forms its own protective barrier, to prevent the woman’s body from identifying it as a separate life from her body. The attached individual life sends out chemical signals, to induce the woman’s body to send nutrients for life support. The individual life builds its own protective capsule while building its own individual body, incorporating portions of the capsule into the developing body to be part of the later gut and ligaments (for example) of the later aged body of the preborn. Timing is crucial along this life continuum as the embryo seeks to survive. [If you’re still wondering, this continuum concept of individual human existence is the same reasoning regarding the onset of puberty, for example, as a normal stage in a human lifetime. Note again that the life continuum is hallmarked by form and function; even the embryo is defined by form and function of its body parts, its stem cells.]
The methodology of technicians seeking embryonic stem cells or technicians seeking to clone life have much in common with the in vitro fertilization process. All cloning, whether therapeutic or reproductive, begins with reproduction, conceiving a unique individual human being for exploitative harvesting or birth.
The clone is a close genetic duplicate of a parent DNA donor. With the goal of a conceptus in mind, the clone technician seeks to use a mature female gamete only, from which the chromosomal nuclear ball has been removed and the 46 chromosome nuclear material of the ‘adult donor’ is inserted (called somatic cell nuclear transfer). [‘Adult donor’ refers to an organism with a normal compliment of 46 chromosomes, not to the age of the donor.] In some cloning procedures, the product of male/female conception (sexual reproduction) is stripped of 46 resulting chromosomes prior to first cell division, and the 46 chromosomes of the donor are inserted.
If the cloning technician seeks to fully reproduce the genetic donor, the conceptus is observed for evidence of cell division (proving it is expressing its individual life), then, just as with typical in vitro reproduction, the embryo is inserted into a woman’s uterus (for continued life support of a proven individual human organism that is a close genetic duplicate of the DNA donor).
If the technician desires ‘therapeutic cloning’, instead of reproduction for a fully expressed parent donor, the embryo is not always implanted in a woman’s body (but in some procedures it is); before too many months, this individual is ‘harvested’, killing a being conceived for a ‘tissue specific’ cloning purpose. [To be sure, the current arguments cite the embryonic clones being allowed to live for only fourteen days, to allow sufficient stem cell division for differentiation, killing, and harvesting, but not to reach the fetal stage through implantation. Science will eventually figure out how to produce an artificial womb, and then these ‘non-human individuals’ will be raised into the fetal stages before killing and harvesting, you can be sure of that because tissues and organs of these cloned individuals will be more desirably differentiated!] Both types of cloning reproduce the donor; the chosen destiny for the newly conceived clone defines the procedure … a short lifetime for a harvesting target (so called therapeutic cloning), or a long lifetime as an individual identical twin (so called reproductive cloning).
Why is it important to realize that an embryo is a human being at an early age along a continuum of individual life? Because therapeutic cloning coupled with embryonic stem cell harvesting aim to cannibalize individual human life.
Defenders of therapeutic cloning are seeking to characterize that ‘type’ of human cloning as non-reproductive, but the truth is, ALL cloning is reproductive, all cloning conceives an individual human life. Defenders and promoters of therapeutic cloning deny that the embryonic individual life is a human being at that age of a lifetime begun at conception. Democrat elected representatives stand before the U.S. House of Representatives and purposely mischaracterize therapeutic cloning as merely the creation of stem cells, purposely omitting the truth that these stem cells are the body parts of an individual human life conceived for the purpose of harvesting the stem cells, the body parts, thus they support killing the newly conceived individual human being before further ages can be reached along the continuum of life begun at a designer, cloning, conception.
The science of Embryology holds as fundamental truth that even an embryo no bigger than a grain of sugar is an individual human life. Is it acceptable to kill that individual for body parts? If it is, that's cannibalism as surely as eating body parts or whole embryos for medical cures. That's why this President has called for a ban on all human cloning. It’s time to expose the lies and dissembling now moving this nation into acceptance of cannibalism as enlightened medical advance.
Please tell me about adult stem cells. Can they be and are they being used without cloning?
I saw Mary Tyler Moore one night on Larry King Live pushing the embryonic stem cell research issue, pleading that it be allowed to continue to save lives, blah blah blah. I forget who the guest host was, but it was not your typical CNN lib. Who was it? Maybe someone else will remember. It was a conservative. Argh! I hate it when I can't remember! Anyway, he asked MTM if she understood the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. She looked puzzled and said not really. He went on to tell her the difference (one comes from an embryo and one comes from an adult, usually the spine (?)) She said she had never heard that before. He then asked her if she would continue to support abortion for research if stem cells from adults could be used. She was just shaking her head. She kept saying how she did not know that was possible and how it changed everything. She apologized for not having all the information available before taking such a stand on a cause. I really think she was surprised. Her answer to his question was no, she would not support abortion if another alternative was available and could he give her the place to start researching adult stem cells.
I've always thought adult stem cells were the answer, but if you still have to clone in order to reproduce body parts, then there is no difference between the two, and it is still premeditated murder, or cannibalism as you accurately call it.
Can adult stem cells be used to reproduce body parts without cloning? Is "reproduce" the key word here?
Research is ongoing to remove precursor cells, or stem cells, from a patient then manipulate those cells to 'grow' the needed organ or tissue to treat the patient from whom the stem cells were removed. But that effort to grow organs/tissues is not a cloning procedure. If the stem cells are used to derive a nuclear transfer into a denucleated ovum, then that is cloning for an identical twin to be harvested (cannibalism) or to be life supported to birth and a continuing lifetime.
What is essential for understanding (so that the liars cannot manipulate tacit acceptance of something society rejects if the truth is opened up) is a grasp of what the embryo is. The embryo is one age of an individual lifetime begun at fecundation/conception. It is as real an age/stage of an individual human being's lifetime as birth, or puberty, or menopause. What defines any age of an individual's lifetime is the form and function of the body in which the individual soul dwells.
An embryo is a completely normal age for the individual at the early stage of the lifetime and it, the individual human embryo, is doing all it can to survive. If the embryo age is ended, the later ages/stages will not happen in that individual's lifetime. The exact same can be said for a toddler killed before puberty. From the moment of death onward, none of the later stages/ages will be realized for that individual human being. The stem cells of an embryo are the body parts of the individual human being alive at the embryo age for their lifetime begun at conception.
If one refers to 'embryonic stem cells', they are the body parts essential to staying alive, for the embryo (like removing the lungs of an adult). If adult stem cells are referred to, that can mean stem cells taken from an embryo or fetus all the way to stem cells taken from an octogenarian. Stem cells are precursor cells, less differentiated cells that may become the organs and replacement tissues of the human body. Stem cells may be found in a wide variety of places, besides in embryonic individuals. Placental cord blood is rich in stem cells. Red bone (like breastbone or pelvis) is another good source. So far, no organ has been grown from stem cells taken out of a patient then manipulated to grow target tissue. But there have been a few dramatic successes in growing target cells from a patient's own stem cells.
[[There is a flow chart approach to stem cells: totipotent = can develop into all the tissues and organs of the body; pluripotent = can grow into specific tissue and organs systems; multipotent = can grow into the different range of cellular structures of an organ, etc. Of a truth, the first cell produced with the union of the gametes (sex cells, sperm and ovum) is the most complete age of an individual human being. From the first cell division onward, the genetic information contained in the first cell is differentiated more and more, and the ability to become all the portions of the placenta and individual is gradually lost by a coding/methylation system. The great boon to humankind would be to figure out how to take an adult stem cell and back it up, to de-methylate it back to a pluripotent or multipotent age/stage then bring it forward as a specific tissue or organ. Science will learn to do that, but experiementing with living embryos, killing them for their stem cells, is cannibalizing individual human life.]]
Keep up the good work posting on FR and keep me on your ping list!
Your column was great. It was not too long, but it is complicated (at least for me), and I suppose that’s why few people will engage.
It is vitally important that people understand this as well as they can. Without thorough and proper comprehension on these matters we are doomed to have the lies take hold.
Case in point: In another great work exposing the industry of death, several facts were revealed the left must fume about: (some excerpts) source: http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/casey/ch3.html#S4
Pro-Choice Advocates Agree that Abortion Kills Humans. Many abortion advocates have agreed that abortion kills human life: A 1963 Planned Parenthood brochure says that life begins at conception: "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun." Plan Your Children (Planned Parenthood, 1963). (On file with author.) (The pamphlet also informs the reader that "[abortion] is dangerous to your life and health. it may make you sterile, so that when you want a child you cannot have it ... [in comparison] [b]irth control merely postpones the beginning of life.").
Similarly, Dr. Mary Calderone, former director of Planned Parenthood has stated that "[a]bortion is the taking of a human life"{69} and Dr. Alan Guttmacher,{70} former president of Planned Parenthood and founder of the Guttmacher Institute, the research affiliate of Planned Parenthood, has stated "[f]ertilization has then taken place; a baby has been conceived."{71} {72} While many abortion defenders readily concede that abortion kills human life, it is necessary to expound on this point because examining the nature of the unborn human being at the point of conception shows the inherent dignity that we all share from our biologic beginnings that are hidden from eyes of the world.
Not only have representatives from the nations largest abortion provider agreed that life begins at conception, but others who support abortion have agreed that abortion is murder. Dr. Magda Denes who performed two years of research in an abortion facility and compiled her results{73} told a Chicago newspaper "There wasn’t an (abortion) doctor who at one time or another in the questioning did not say ‘this is murder.’"{74} Even Kate Michelman, President of N.AR.A.L. seems to be moving in the direction of agreeing that abortion is murder by her statement that "[a]bortion is a bad thing."{75} Others who have at one time been heavily involved with abortion have later agreed, such as "Jane Roe" Norma McCorvey, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, and Carol Everett.
In addition, everyone who uses the term "fetus" unwittingly acknowledges that the unborn human is an unborn child because fetus is Latin for "unborn child." Unfortunately for the unborn child, the term fetus has fallen into use as a way of dehumanizing the unborn child, as shown by the primary use of this term by people when they are arguing for abortion rights, in comparison to when they are discussing a baby that is wanted by the mother.
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