Posted on 05/27/2003 6:15:41 PM PDT by MHGinTN
For years, essays opposing cloning and embryonic stem cell exploitation have been posted from this writer onto various discussion sites across the Internet. This will likely be the last of such efforts, for Science has won; the amorality of scientists has vanquished yours truly. The fundamental axiom that embryological human life is not the life of an individual human being has become so ingrained that to continue opposing the notion only furthers the goals of the scientists seeking unfettered exploitation of nascent life. From the scientists’ lofty positions, their carefully crafted derision for opposition to their flawed axiom passes for proof of their axiom.
The authoritative science outlet, Scientific American, now routinely publishes articles with the assumed axiom that the human embryo is not an individual human being, thus the embryo is fair game for all manner of exploitation, approved under the guise of application of science for the advancement of medical miracles.
In the June 2003 issue, on page 63, the article ‘Pandora’s Baby’ assumes as foundational truth the notion that embryos are not individual human lives, thus the conception of such, the storage of such, the implantation of such, and the discarding of such is enlightened application of science … and the implied proof of this axiom is the acceptance of in vitro fertilization (IVF), world-wide, numbering now more than an estimated one million individuals conceived and born via such technology since the first individual, Louise Brown, came into the air-world, 25 years ago.
Editorial staff of Scientific American magazine saw nothing untoward in passing the axiom along as foundation for their article, an article posing the notion that therapeutic cloning will likely be as accepted a few years from now as IVF is since Louise Brown’s birth. The author of the article cites the desire of scientists to keep separate the perception of reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning … or, as the author so craftily restated it, research cloning instead of therapeutic cloning. After citing this desire to keep separate methodologies that have the exact same first steps of cloning embryos in vitro, the author offers the notion that such a paradoxical assertion should be authoritative, thus lending substance to the purposed obfuscation (if not outright chosen lie; all cloning of embryos is reproductive, with only the end goal for the cloned individual life to define a specious difference).
This arbitrary positioning of ‘non-moral foundational principles’ regarding the earliest age of individual human beings may not seem of any great significance to the average reader at Scientific American, or of any merit to scientific minds convinced that their pursuits are beyond the realm of ethics and morality, as objective studies of life’s reality. But to this struggling writer, the assumption that embryo is not the earliest age along the lifetime continuum of an individual human being is an horrific plateau deep down along the slippery funneled slope of dehumanization for our species, in preparation for our acceptance of cannibalizing younger human beings to serve the lives of older human beings. It’s been a helluva war.
Author of the article in the June issue cites with derision the nay Sayers when IVF first began, decades ago. The derision is founded on the notion that alarmists based their arguments against the manipulation of embryonic life on ‘silly notion that exploiting embryos would lead to horrific things’. Well, if this writer is correct, and embryos are in fact individual human beings in their earliest age along their individual lifetimes, then what the magazine author is praising with ‘research cloning’ is in fact the warned of horrific potential, verified! What nay Sayers warned of, is where we have actually arrived with research cloning.
The magazine author doesn’t make a clear connection of past arguments, instead, she obscures the warnings from that past age by citing weaker versions of the underlying warning to enhance her derisive power … kind of like ridiculing the wheels on a funny looking car as a way to discredit the whole car.
Because the lies of those in support of abortion on demand (and that is the camp to which this female author belongs, as alluded to in sentences that denigrated objection to IVF as connected to the ‘failed anti-abortion movement’) have become so ingrained with so powerful publishers as Scientific American, this writer has come to realize the war is lost, come to realize that nay Sayers will not be granted venue in which to state objection … no matter how well written are essays countering this exploitation of individual human life, the controlling authorities cannot allowed them to be published, for the foundational axiom posited is contrary to the one the prestigious magazine has adopted as ultimate truth in their ‘amoral’ reality.
What impact will my bowing out of the war have upon the ultimate outcome? Likely, none; the war is already lost at the legislative level, with no less powerful figures to crush opposition than Senators Orrin Hatch, Arlon Specter, Barbara Boxer and Tom Harkin, assisted of course by the ‘amoral’ networks in search of empowerment for their media. These powerful forces have decided, for whatever constituency’s advantage, to push for therapeutic cloning protected by Federal law. Embryos don’t vote, and the folks donating embryos and the gametes to conceive future embryonic life don’t object to exploitation of nascent individual human life, so the powerful who are able to silence nay Sayers by ignoring them have already won the war.
Cannibalism is now an agreed upon fact for America’s future, as enlightened application of medical ‘miracles’. I suppose I should be relieved, I can now exit the battle and return to what amuses me; I’m already 57, so I won’t be around to witness further degradation of the human species; my granddaughter will live in an ‘age of cannibalism’. I shudder for her and the world she will inhabit, but then I realize, those cannibalizing human beings in their embryo age won’t tell the truth of what they’re doing, so life will go on, and on, and on, and … well, maybe. What is the longest reigning species for planet Earth?
Now, back to what I do for the fun of it … fiction.
Out of curiosity, with IVF do the techs usually produce many separately-fertilized zygotes, or do they produce one and repeatedly twin it?
I would only address your 'technical' question by noting that when the first mitosis occurs, the 46 chromosomes are not polarized such that you could differentiate the 23 from one parent and the 23 from the other parent. In SCNT cloning the nuclear body is even more fixed, as you know.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but during cell mitosis the individual chromosomes of the original cell remain intact; a copy is made of each. Of the two resulting cells, each gets one original and one duplicated chromosome from each pair. Is this not correct?
I would expect that it should be possible to grow a rat on a diet high in C-14, extract its DNA, and clone it using a rat zygote and rat which is completely C-14 free. The original 46 chromosomes should then be laden with C-14 while the new ones should not; unfortunately, I'm not sure whether the levels of C-14 involved would be detectable or whether they would affect cell function.
Alternatively, I would expect it to be possible to locate some "junk" DNA and make some creative change that could not be copied accurately. Again, I'm not sure what would affect cell function, or how the original set of chromosomes could be located following the birth of the baby rat.
BTW, I hope some of the research with umbilical-cord stem cells pans out. From what I understand, such cells would be quite plentiful if harvested and are more versatile than adult-derived ones, but they're less prone to go 'wacko' than embryonic ones. An overall win all the way around--do you agree?
The humane (non-cannibalism) way to exploit stem cells is to utilize cord blood stem cells or stem cells from the patient's own body. The 'master gene' has now been discovered which appears to instruct the pluripotent flow series toward tissue differentiation. With that info, non-embryonic sources will be very usable. I would imagine the researchers (like Advanced Cell Technologies) dependant upon exploiting embryos and doing cloning of embryos are worried that non-exploitative research is going to catch and pass them into obsolescence.
Suppose further that a technician removes the above-mentioned chromosome from an egg and a sperm. Since neither the egg nor the sperm is a human being, the technician hasn't "killed" anybody.
Now suppose that egg and sperm are combined. How would you describe the result? What level of viability would be necessary for the entity produced to be considered a human being?
On a somewhat more nightmarish note, suppose a mad scientist were to alter human eggs and sperm to include various mixtures of human and animal chromosomes and then attempt fertilization; suppose further that a fertilized egg was viable and grew into some sort of semi-humanoid creature. How would one go about determining whether such a creature should be considered a "human being"?
That's pretty creepy. What is the morphology of those clusters? Do they form a hollow ball, or a solid ball, or is there more specific structure to them?
So you wouldn't make the pro-abortion and scientifically illiterate statement - conception is not the beginning of life
MURDER : Life: Defining the Beginning by the End
Again, I do not know why you have sent me this stuff. Read through all of my posts CAREFULLY. In case, after doing so, you are still in doubt, let me state in a matter that I hope makes things perfectly clear:
I AM NOT PRO-ABORTION.
I AM PRO-LIFE.
THE USE OF ABORTION AS BIRTH CONTROL SICKENS ME.
What I have been doing here is trying to present a rational PRO-LIFE position. I am a scientist. PhD, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. I probably have more experience and training than anyone else on this thread in the matter of what is biological life and what isn't. I do not know how I can be more clear: saying that conception does not begin life because there is no beginning is NOT the same as saying there is no life. I have never said that the product of conception is lifeless.
I will admit to inferring that I do not hold the sanctity of life of a blastocyst as high as that of a fetus, and that is for the simple fact that the blastocyst does not have a brain, does not feel and is not aware. That's a far cry from cheering on partial-birth abortion.
My life never had a defined beginning. As far as my perspective goes, I have always been alive. Haven't you?
I am a scientist. PhD, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. I probably have more experience and training than anyone else on this thread in the matter of what is biological life and what isn't. I do not know how I can be more clear: saying that conception does not begin life because there is no beginning is NOT the same as saying there is no life.
106 posted on 06/03/2003 1:03 AM EDT by exDemMomMy statement that conception is not the beginning of life is not a pro-abortion statement
This doesn't mean that I don't know it is a unique and individual being; it does mean that I'm not going to be upset about the death of a 128 cell blastocyst. A 5 or 6 week old embryo is a different matter
. 88 posted on 06/02/2003 2:44 AM EDT by exDemMomMy life never had a defined beginning. As far as my perspective goes, I have always been alive. Haven't you?
109 posted on 06/03/2003 1:24 AM EDT by exDemMom (Tax cuts for the rich (i.e. working people) NOW!)Were you a toad or a king in your previous life? You should have been a historian, you could correct them all. I think you need more help than is possible on this thread.
Whenever you recover from whatever trip you are on:
When Do Human Beings Begin? former NIH bench research biochemist Dianne Irving demonstrates the scientific fact that the lives of human beings--and human persons--begin at conception.
III. When does a human person begin?
The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical question — not a scientific question. I will not go into great detail here,39 but "personhood" begins when the human being begins — at fertilization. But since many of the current popular "personhood" claims in bioethics are also based on mythological science, it would be useful to just look very briefly at these philosophical (or sometimes, theological) arguments simply for scientific accuracy as well.
That is good.
It is indeed frightening, because the syllogism at once accomplishes the complete dehumanization necessary to set aside ethicl/moral considerations where the earliest age of individual lifetimes is involved, to usher in full exploitation of individual human beings at their embryo age! [I hope you didn't think my ^ was an arrow pointing to your post, Snuffington. I use the ^ as an abbreviated 'bump to the top' symbol.]
Were you a toad or a king in your previous life? You should have been a historian, you could correct them all. I think you need more help than is possible on this thread.
Really. Ha-ha. If you can remember a time when you weren't alive, you're very unusual. I don't remember any such time. Ergo, I have always been alive.
When Do Human Beings Begin? former NIH bench research biochemist Dianne Irving demonstrates the scientific fact that the lives of human beings--and human persons--begin at conception.
I would expect a fellow doctor biochemist to know better. It takes a live sperm and a live ovum to merge to make a zygote. If life isn't already present in the sperm and ovum, it sure won't be there in the zygote. As far as I know, no one has ever observed life actually begin.
The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical question - not a scientific question.
Yeah, I think I figured that one out. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having these interesting discussions, would we? So--my philosophical determination is that it is a human person when it has the physical ability to be aware, i.e., it has a functional brain. The rest of the time, it is just human life. Since PhD means "Doctor of Philosophy", I am a bona fide philosopher and can say such things with authority.
addressing the notion of soul ...
Is the soul present before consciousness as you define it (dependant on an organ called brain)? A recent Catholic Homily noted that it is the soul that 'wraps' the body, not the body that wraps the soul, thus the soul is timeless while the body is not. It is, after all, the individual ORGANISM that is alive to build the body for later survival as realities change based on the developmental process of a human lifetime. The ORGANISM is already in existence, to do the work of surviving as it develops the next age of its existence in spacetime. First dependant survival occurs with a chemical 'trick' played on the woman's uterine lining, to obtain nourishment. The next phase of dependant survival requires a much more complex function and underlying form, which takes roughly six more months to develop adequately for survival in an air realm rather than a liquid realm. A next phase for survival comes along with the learned ability to communicate needs and wants for life support. The form and function waltz changes based on the environment where survival is sought. But it all starts with mitosis by the original single celled ORGANISM of conception.
Since it is generally agreed that the soul is not restricted to the spacetime of our sensory realm (the post-embryonic body functions as a complex mechanism to allow interacting with the air world), how can one arbitrarily assign soul advent to the time when a functioning organ is present, such as brain ... without a functioning liver, consciousness will fail to allow for survival, without functioning kidneys, same thing, and so it goes for the coherent ORGANISM at every age beginning with the embryo age; the will to survive is already active even at the earliest age of embryo along the continuum of an individual human lifetime? It is this ambiguity, at least, that begs the protection for the lifetime begun at conception. It is a given that if an embryo doesn't implant that is conceived in the human host, the lifetime of the individual pluripotent for expression will not have any more lifetime. Why is it not therefore wrong to purposely end the embryonic age in order to harvest the body parts of the individual already expressing its unique lifetime? That is why I've characterized the exercise as arbitrary in assigning non-human-being status, arbitrary simply because of the utility value of the body parts to be exploited in order to grow usable tissues and perhaps organs. And yes, SCNT is already rushing to do this exploitative behavior.
It is convenient to hold that embryos are not yet human beings, if one wants to have several conceived in tiro for the exercise of trying to become a life supporter for one or more of the embryonic 'things'. But to tenaciously ignore the clear arguments for protecting the humanity already existing in the embryo age of unique individual human ORGANISMS is quite arbitrary, very utilitarian, obviously dehumanizing.
You assert that it is your belief regarding the advent of soul to body that allows you your utilitarian perspective. I would argue that your inability to define at what stage the soul is in actuality with the body (and if you cite consciousness again, know that such is very imprecise since the functioning organ of brain is not fully coherent until after birth) that argues for protecting the entire lifetime of the individual human ORGANISM, from conception to ... ? Show me scientifically the moment when consciousness begins and I would consider it a milestone, but it wouldn't prove the advent of soul since we have yet to quantify in any way the soul of the alive human individual.
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