First Veto...

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Perhaps so, but if that is what the americans want, then that is what the americans want. It's not so long ago that Russia was thought to be among the most developed countries, but after scratching the surface...

That's not the point. The point is that they feel it is wrong and thus argue against it to the grave. They do not understand what it is about and they do not want to go against their feelings, so what is there to be done except overrule them?

 

Well, that's not entirely true. First of all, you don't donate the stem cells directly, but rather you get the stem cells from fertilized eggs. So you are dealing with fertilized eggs, as unfertilized eggs will not produce stem cells. All of them are already fertilized, and the intention to implant all the fertilized eggs is there. The fate of the cells aren't decided until the woman whose eggs have been fertilized decides she has no use for the remaining fertilized eggs.

Here's how it typically works: A couple goes to a fertility clinic, and has some of her eggs extracted to be fertilized by her husband's sperm. (It's not artificial insemination as Gnarff suggested.) The procedure to extract the eggs from the woman requires surgury. As such, the doctors don't go in and take one egg, because if the initial implantation attempt fails, they'd have to go back and do more surgury. So they usually go in and take about 20 eggs.

The next step is to fertilize the eggs with the husband's sperm. For one reason or another, this isn't nearly as easy as it sounds, and they are typically only able to successfully fertilize about half of the eggs. So of the original 20, you have 10 left that can theoretically be implanted back into the woman.

Most fertility clinics have success on about 20% of all implantation attempts. This means that more likely than not, it's not going to work, and typically several attempts are required before the woman actually gets pregnant. As these procedures are very expensive, most couple are satisfied with having a single child. As a result, sometimes there are left over fertilized eggs that the woman will never use. The fertility clinics store them for several years on the chance that the woman might change her mind, but after a time when she makes it clear to the fertility clinic that she's never going to use them, the fertility clinic wants to then get rid of them. They have finite storage capacity, and storing fertilized eggs ad infinitum that are never going to be implanted is senseless. So if they can't be donated, they are literally thrown away.

 

Stem cell research is not a problem for most people -- it is embryonic stem cell research which the debate is centered around. There are three main stem cell sources:

Adult stem cells -- these can be harvested just as organs can be.

Cord stem cells -- these are found in the placentia and umbilical cord.

Embryonic stem cells -- these must be harvested from human embryos in very early stages of development.

From what I understand, the embryonic stem cells are the easiest to manipulate and at the highest concentration. Hence, it's the easy and fast way to results (and publication for researchers).

I think many people don't necessarily want the scientist to take the lazy route and use human embryos. Instead, the embryos should be a last resort for a source of stem cells and the scientists should concentrate on using stem cells from other sources.

It's really a question ethics. Use the embryos and get faster results -or- use other source stem cells and get (possibly) the same results a little slower.

I see valid points on both sides.

 

To me, as I've said before, the argument that embryos are life can only rest on the notion that consciousness comes at the moment of conception when God imbues the embryo with a soul, as opposed to conciousness arising, say, from the interaction of a sufficiently developed neural net. It seems to me that the latter view isn't incompatable with religious belief (in fact, neither Augustine nor Aquinas believed the human soul was present at conception).

I find it sad that medical progress can be held up by the ridiculous idea that a clump of cells contains an immortal soul...

 

My opinion about embryonic stem-cells is the same as about post-mortem organ donations. They're dead! They have no use for their tissues, cells or stem-cells for that matter. It is a bit morbid however, I agree, but people's lives can be saved without the donor getting hurt in any conceivable way.

I suppose that the people against using embryonic stem-cells are against organ donations as well. At least if there's coherence in their ethical beliefs.

Try as I might to understand their line of thinking, I simply cannot fathom what the major problem exactly is. If it's the resurrection thing, that the people who donate their cells or tissues need their bodies whole by doomsday, then it just seems that a)their faith in God is pretty thin and superficial and/or b) they don't know the tenets of their own faith pretty well, since according the Holy Bible each of those who are resurrected at the end of days will be given new bodies, which have little to do with these corpses we inhabit.

Of course this might be considered as an issue concerning free will, that is since the embryos haven't freely decided to donate their cells, they shouldn't be used, but the same law should apply to embryos as to minors' post-mortem organ donations. That is, to my understanding, the parents can give the permission for harvesting organs from their under-aged deceased child, if these organs are to be used into saving another persons life.

 

Technically embryonic stem cells aren't dead - if they were dead they wouldn't be of any use. There's just no chance that the embryo will ever become a human being. Just because it won't even be a living being, doesn't mean that it's dead. I think this is more than just a semantic point to those holding this religious belief.

 

Not true. Using embryonic stem cells is closer to abortion than to organ donation. If you want to stereotype them, you could lump the pro-lifers into the anti-embryonic stem cell crowd (but that's a very broad and simplistic stereotype).

Using adult stem cells is exactly like organ donation and there does not appear to be an argument about adult stem cell research. I agree with you on the whole organ donation thing and people who object to allowing their organs to be used after they die -- but IMO embryonic stem cell harvesting is not the same as organ donation.

 

Using embryonic stem cells is not due to laziness and publications. ES cells are the only cells that are totipotent. Adult stem cells are very limited in what they can/can't differentiate into. They likely also have finite life spans whereas ES cells are more or less immortal. ES cells have the most potential for medical application, because you can pretty much generate any organ from scratch under the right conditions, and you know the organ won't die on you in 3 years.

 

So if Stem cells can be harvested from unbilical cords, which would otherwise be discarded, doesn't it make sense to do that?

I Cannot defend abortion for research purposes, and certainly wouldn't want that done on my behalf...

 

I'm glad to know that, and I certainly agree with you. No single life is of more inherent value than any other, that one should die so another could live.

However, are you opposed to recycling at the most basic level - finding a useful purpose for something that would otherwise be trash? I would think that someone who works the land (and you've mentioned that you live on your parents' farm, if memory serves me correctly) would deeply understand the need for making the best possible use of humankind's very limited pool of resources. The best analogy I can come up with is that you've just eaten a candy bar and you're about to throw the wrapper in the trashcan when someone comes running up and asks to have it. "It's urgent," he says, "the well-being of my family depends on that wrapper!" But since you can't imagine what he wants to do with it, you toss it away and keep on going.

Sorry, but that makes utterly no sense to me. Likening this process to abortion is like trying to describe a tuna fish sandwich by talking about oranges.

 

And technically donated organs aren't dead either, even if they'd be harvested from dead people. Otherwise they wouldn't work.

So what makes embryos more alive if they've already been aborted or if they're the result of a miscarriage?

If they won't develop beyond a clump of cells, they're not alive.

Or

I propose a funeral proceedings for all those miscarriaged embryos. Dumping your never-to-be-born children with other human waste must be an intolerable thought for all those who claim that embryos have souls.

I'm already sorry for writing the above...but consistency demands for going into such extreme thoughts.

 

I agree with T2 in that stem-cell harvesting and organ donation seem to me to be nothing alike. However, though I suppose it's logically true that this issue is closer to abortion than organ donation, it's certainly a stretch to liken it to abortion.

Gnarff,

Earlier in this thread I posed to you the question:

Despite several posters since, myself included, stating the fact that no one is advocating aborting fetuses for research purposes, you say this:

I'm inclined to think you've just answered my question. I really don't understand this disconnect. No one is advocating stem-cell harvesting through abortion, yet this is now the second time you've characterized it as just that, despite assurance that this isn't the case. Is this the only way you want to see this issue?

 

You actually hit it dead on, DR. For a lot of people, embryonic stem cell research is exactly like abortion. You take a fetus -- that could live -- and experiment (Irenicus voice included). You will either kill it (abort it) or grow it (to some this is playing God and is a strict no-no).

I think arguments on this issue are as fruitful as arguments about abortion.

 

Jehovah's Witnesses abhor blood transfusions for religious reasons and their reasoning goes along the same lines as of those who are against using embryonic stem cells. They believe that since the soul is in the blood, it is against God's will to perform blood transfusion.

The similarities of tissue, or organ donation and using embryonic stem cells should be apparent enough, but the problems aren't in drawing the line between what's alive and what isn't, or even what's capable of producing a human life and what isn't.

The real problem is what's sacred and what isn't, and the religious right has drawn the line into embryonic stem cells. This should raise some questions on the fact that why haven't they rallied against in-vitro fertilizations as Death Rabbit has already pointed out, and leads to such absurdities as why aren't they having funerals every time they try to have children but don't succeed, or when a miscarriage happens even in the first weeks of pregnancy, which does happen quite often.

But when something is deemed sacred in a religion, logical consistency and rational thinking usually have nothing to do with the subject. In fact there's a long tradition of accepting paradoxical religious truths wholeheartedly in christianity. After that, there's little point arguing with common sense.

 

Well, you've hit on it, too - we aren't talking about a fetus. We're talking about pre-embryos. Experimenting on a fetus IS abortion. That's not the process that's involved here.

Let me put it this way. Babies are like cakes (just go with me here). Cakes, like babies, need a mixture of ingredients. Where a cake needs a combination of eggs and flour to make batter, a baby needs the combination of a sperm and egg to make an embryo. It's through the baking process that the batter becomes a cake (or a fetus, as it were).

In the case of stem-cell research, the scientists want to conduct research not with a cake, a half-baked cake, or anything that's come close to an oven - but a bowl of batter that has no chance (for whatever reason) of ever becoming a cake. If some good can come from that raw batter, it's certainly better than just throwing it out.

Again - I agree that if embryos were being created specifically for this purpose, then I too would have a problem with it. But that isn't the case - at least not here in America.

Edit: we can liken this to organ donation in another way. Say you agree to be an organ donor. That doesn't mean you're expected to walk in and give up a kidney just because there's a need for one. Your kidney will only be harvested when you're dead - when it couldn't possibly do you any good anymore. It's the same thing with these pre-embryos. The potential for these pre-embryos creating a human being has been exhausted, for whatever reason. So rather than waste that potential, it is made use of in another, far more beneficial way, which also happens to be the only possible alternative use for it. What's wrong with that?

 

I hate getting last post on a page in the Alleys, everyone misses it.

 

i read it..

thought you had a good point

 

Cord stem cells are still limited in their ability to differentiate into every tpe of cell, but they are faster growing than adult stem cells. Probably don't collect as many genetic mutations either. You could possibly still have legal problems with umbilical stem cells if the child grows up and says - "hey this guy used my cells without permission!" Unlikely, but with everyone sueing each other these days you never know.

 

I got the point about discarded embryos, but if the law forbids allowing embryos to be transfered to someone who WOULD give them the chance to be born, then that's a problem right there. We are talking about potentil human life, not garbage here. It is equivalent to shedding innocent blood to make my life a little easier. If this could come from Umbilical Cords, which would be otherwise discarded, then that would be great...

 

@Rallymama: Didn't miss it. I'm just agreeing with you so much that there's no need to say anything.