Stem cells...AGAIN!

Remove all ads!

@ Tassadar: I was in metabolism research, if you want to call it that (not a lot of research mainly just analysis). I have gone back to school to get my Masters in Clinical Research and my Pharm D.

 

@ archbiship - what about using stem cells from fertility clinics? As I recall fertility clinics have thousands of embryos that are frozen that they can never and will never use. This is because they typically go out and fertilize about 20 of the woman's eggs because implantation has a relatively low chance of success (I've heard the estimates range from 10%-25%.) As such, they take a lot to have a good chance of getting one or two to implant properly. However, after the woman has a child or two, they often have embryos left over, and they don't want any more children. Since these will never be implanted to produce children, do you have a problem with using them (assuming they have an OK from the would-be parents)?

Presently, the only alternative to donating them for research is the trash bin AFAIK.

 

@ Aldeth: If the embryos are not going to be part of the attempted pregnancy, then they should not be fertilized to begin with because they are simply ova when they are removed from the mother, which I must admit is an inexact process at the moment. So, winding up with many more ova than needed from overstimulating the woman's reproductive organs is all but expected. However if these ova will not be used, they should be discarded rather than fertilized with sperm and later discarded. Probably a fine line in most peoples' opinions, but that is where I draw mine.

 

To tackle the burning office question: Theologically, the right answer is to save the most potential lives (the cooler) you could, but that logic goes out the window when there's a crisis as you've described. Saving human lives, emotionally, would take a priority. One step further: Suppose that I had to choose between my son or a you, who idon't know, and unless we got to talking, I wouldn't know that. I'd save my son over the stranger as an emotional response.

I don't know what is meant by Stem cells. If these can be harvested from adults and from the after birth of children (umbilical cord and other things that would be thrown away), then by all means do this. But even though I have Tourette Syndrome and a family History for Parkinson's Disease, I wouldn't ask to be cured at the cost of taking the life of an innocent.

As for Organ donation, When I die, I no longer need my physical body, so by all means take my organs that others may have a second chance to live. I'll get a perfected body when I get ressurected anyway...

 

Sorry to have another go at you, Gnarfflinger, it certainly isn't anything personal (well, it could become personal, if you were my type - but I prefer slim guys ).

You say:

So you admit that the theological answer is not feasible. You admit that a life in potentia is not a person.

Why follow a religion that cannot provide feasible answers to life's crises?

 

I'm a non-extremist ProLife Christian Protestant. Yes, I do not support tooling with the unborn. It gives me a "What you don't know can't hurt you"-feeling. The end is good, but the means are not. I have no difficulty with taking samples from adults, they can decide for their own. But young kids and the unborn should, imo, be left alone (not alone and seperated, but rather 'in piece' ).

Exactly!

 

It's not that it's not feasible (the question assumes that it is feasible to take the cooler instead of the child), it's just that in a crisis, the contents of the cooler don't necessary register. In panic and fear, we don't always do that which is theologically right.

BTW, Off topic, but how much weight would I have to lose? I'd like to get down to a 38 to 40 waist. I'm not going to be a little guy, but I would like to work down the gut...

 

OK, so your answer is: "I'd grab the cooler, of course." Anything else is just avoiding a straight answer (e.g. "I would like to grab the cooler, but I might stumble on the stairs with all the contents spilled, so I better grab my son, because if I stumble he will just get a bruise but nothing more..."). Let's just assume that we don't panic but are rather cool-headed in spite of ourselves.

 

Yes, a straigt answer would be nice.

That would largely be based on how tall you are. Obviously you need to weigh less if you're 5'5" as opposed to 6'2",

 

A cool head would see me telling the kid to run for it (he's 10 years old according to the scenario) while I get the cooler and get the hell out of there. The either/or is not a logical choice...

And I'm about 6'2" Size 12 feet, a big Frame (but still some gut to work off).

 

Gnarfflinger. Please. The matter at hand is what we cunningly call a thought experiment. It is no use arguing about the shortcomings of the set-up, since it is only there in the first place to make a complex problem less abstract.

You've got the either/or choice, nothing else. It's besides the point to argue that this case would most probable not happen in reality. The question is - plain and simple -:

if you were given the choice between saving one and condemning the other (without any further explanation needed), what would you do?

If you try to wriggle around a clear answer then maybe it is because your religious world doesn't match with your emotional world? Just a question.

 

Then by challenging the results, it complicates the thought experiment. In the crisis, the cooler wouldn't register. But also, introducing family into it muddies the water further. Like I told RuneQuester in the Religeon and Politics thread, I'd grab my son and forget even other people in the waiting room.

Our Emotional world complicates our lives, often distracting us from what we ought to be doing by our religeous beliefs. My religeon teaches that I should not be sexually involved outside of legal and lawful marriage. Emotions dictate that sex is desirable, and no thought is given to marital status. This already is a conflict. We live amidst conflict between what we want to do and what we ought to do...

Man did I ever get off topic...

 

Gnarff,

Let's say the 10 year old is confined to a wheel chair, and because the building is on fire, the elevators aren't working. I suppose he could wheel himself to the stairwell and hope he doesn't break his neck in the process, but that doens't sound like a very good option B.

To answer your other question - to get down to a 40 inch waist and being about 6'2" tall, I'd imagine that you would still weigh at the very least 200 pounds. Possibly as high as 220 pounds.

 

AFI: If he's in the wheel chair, and I could lift the cooler, I could put the cooler on the wheel chair with my son and rescue both. This also assumes that the cooler doesn't require electricty, and that with attention, My son could still escape.

With a 46 inch waist, I'm just shy of 300 pounds. I get estimated between 220 and 250. I doubt I'd get below 250...

 

D: "You can choose between two options, A or B."
G: "Right, I'll take C."
D: "What? There's no C, just A or B!"
G: "But C is more logical than either A or B."
D: "Maybe, but this is not an exercise in logic. Please choose either A or B and explain your choice."
G: "OK, then I opt for D.
D: "D?! What the..."

Since you fail to make a stance for a clear choice on this matter, I assume we can read your answer as follows:

My believes tell me to choose the freezer and let the child die. I can't let the child die, however, since in spite of the doctrine of my church I feel that one living child is more important than thousands of "lives in potentia". Because I somehow suspect that the conglomerates of cells that may become human beings is not the same as an actual human being. Hence I try to do the sensible and rescue the child and at the same time to satisfy my need for straightening up my inconsistent believes by aha! and here goes: by not questioning my believes but rather by questioning the life that somehow doesn't wrap around my believes nicely anymore.

Do you understand? You are challenged with an inconsistency between life and belief - and your solution to the problem is to tell life that it has gotten it all wrong. Which seems to be the general idea of religious fundamentalists (broad generalization intended).

 

What? Where is this option C: "All of the above?"

 

Darkthorne. I answered the question the first time before ripping it. The theologically right answer will be lost in the chaos of life...

That's where I answered the question. I'd have panicked and saved the child. When that answer wasn't good enough, then I started looking at alternatives. My whole point was that emotion clouds judgement. It wouldn't register what may have been in the cooler. For all I know, it could have been the doctor's lunch...

The conversation is more like this:

D: Which is it, A or B.
G: A is right, but in the situation, I'd likely do B
D: That's stupid.
G: You want intelligence, C sounds smarter.
D: But C is impossible.
G: You never said that. How about D?
D: You're an idiot...

 

Again, I'd assume that the random child could escape on his own with a little guidance from me. I'd then risk my life for the cooler, assuming that a, it really is full of embryos (And I didn't grab the wrong one and save the doctor's lunch) and b, it can be removed safely from the building (not needing to stay plugged in).

If all three assumptions are allowed, then I can save them both, and thus have my original answer C. With a cool head in a crisis, I'd do every thing in my power to save both--even at the risk of my own life...