abortions

[Kristine]

Originally posted by Osanya
As of right now, you are right, there is no way to make a baby without using at leas one embryo. However, the line between stem cells and embryos is very thin. Back to the cloning issue, stem cells do become babies. It's not just stem cells turning into other tissues, but stem cells turning into every tissue.

Sure but however you do it, even if you start with stem cells, you still have to get to a point where there is an embryo.  Human development will not occurr without starting at point zero (as you said yourself there's no way to make a baby without an embryo)

At what point is it a mouse and not part of a mouse? The line gets really fuzzy.

Biologically speaking, the only time it would be a part and not the whole is when it's simply a cell without in itself the complete code to grow into a human being (or a mouse) skin cells, sperm, even stem cells, have DNA and genetic information which can eventually be brought to the point of creating an embryo that will then continue on to grow through all stages of development of that particular creature.  But there must be a point A.   It is a human being (or a mouse) when it is a fully integrated entity.  That is to say nothing more must be added or removed from its core substance to cause it grow through stages of his/her specie's development. 

It is hard for me to accept that one step in development is all that different than the next step. Shettles' statement implies that sperm and egg aren't human or living. That's just not true. A sperm is human. It's alive too.

I mean no disrespect, but are you sure you've studied biology at a reputable school? Of course sperm is alive in that it contains human DNA.  But sperm in its current state will never grow arms or legs or organs.  Neither  will an ovum, neither will my hair cells, skin cells, or big toe.  Yes all of them contain the genetic information that could be used to create an embryo that will grow human body parts, but according to their biologically current and inherent potential, they are nothing more than the part of another human being.

The embryo is self-integrating and in her current state, right now she has the ability to grow legs and all human functions. 

A sperm could fertilize an infinite possible number of ovums (or none at all).  The embryo already in her current state is a sure thing, already starting to develop according to the pattern of human development.

As far as I can see, all of development is a cycle. There are no points that are more or less important than another. However, killing a sperm is different from killing a child.

No disagreement here.

...I think there is a need to assign personhood at some point in development. The point is somewhat arbitrary, but implantation seems most logical to me because that's when the embryo begins to develop structures.

You're right.  That is arbitrary.  Your reason for granting personhood at implantation is based on the embryo's level of development.  Hardly fair considering we don't hold level of development as a mark for any one else's personhood.  

You said it 'seems most logical to you', despite your decision being, as you said 'arbitrary', and yet you didn't provide any real support for why this stage in development is a reasonable place to count personhood, over any other.  (I'll overlook your 'confusion' over failure to see the difference between sperm, ovum, stem cells and the embryo, since I've already dealt with that earlier on in the question of inherent and current capacity.)

I don't see the need to assign personhood to the fertilized egg. It just makes more practical sense to say it's at implantation.

Indeed, in your line of work, I understand it is much more practical to deny personhood to the ones you are experimenting on and destroying for parts. 

Osanya, please be honest with yourself... Is it possible that you do not wish to entertain the idea that a human embryo before implantation is as much human and has as much the same inherent ablity to grow through all stages of human development (granting being left in its natural envrionment where it may access the appropriate nutrients when it has need of them) as does an embryo just after implantation...because acknowledging their personhood would make you responsible for the destruction you are inflicting on these pre-implanted embryos? 

In fact, your plight is not unlike those of past societies who grappled with when to grant personhood.  Indeed countless debates were held regarding whether or not to grant personhood to black slaves.   Those who were implicit in the discrimination and mistreatment (slave owners) could find no end to excuses to denying personhood to these human beings.  (Some even argued it was for "society's good" and even "their own good"). 

Likewise, Germans and leaders of the 'Aryan race' were quick to find it 'obvious' that Jews were not people.   Like human embryos, human Jews were denied their personhood and experimented on because doing so would lead to cures for illness that would help humanity. 

In reality, it is never humane to sacrifice the life of one human being, without his/her consent, so that others may live.  It is no more just whether the one being destroyed for research is a Jew or an embryo. 

I don't believe you are ignorant, nor do I really believe your school didn't accurately teach biology.  But I do believe the reason it is hard for you to see the difference between sperm and a living embryo just prior to its implantation, is that you don't want to see it.   Like the slave owners of the past, you stand a lot to gain from denying personhood to these embryos.  And a lot to loose if you begin to respect them. 

 

[John MacNeil]

Knowing when a person is born is scientifically determined to be at conception. Every scientist knows that and so every politician must know it too. The reason that the killing of womb-dependant children is allowed on a large scale has to do with the moneyed classes wanting it as a form of birth control so that they can pursure their hedonistic lifestyle without interuption. Failing to realize that is to argue interminably over the wrong issue.

sperm or ovum by themselves have as much value as shed skin cells or hairs tangled in a brush. The life begins when the egg is fertilized and not any time before or after. Our society is forced to deal with issues that affect our moral integrity in correlation with us advancing our science. This issue of killing womb-dependant children was not prominent a century ago, but now it is going to be with us forever, for even after we wise up and begin treating the womb-dependant children properly, it will always be in our history that at one time we had a for-profit business that killed millions of womb-dependant children.

The killing of womb-dependant children is always going to be a controversial practice for humans until we can develop an incubator that is capable of sustaining a womb-dependant child at inception. The reason this is so is because, in the future, there will likely be cases of rape where a woman becomes pregnant and to force her to have the child of the rapist would be a further assault on her. As moral as we can be, it would not be proper for society to allow such an assault to continue if the woman didn't wish it to. There will be other areas where we cannot allow our moral values to avoid the taking of a human life that is womb-dependant. If the choice is between the woman's life or the womb-dependant child's life, the woman's life will always have precedence. But those type of scenario will be infrequent and we will be able to deal with them in a practical manner. What should never be gotten used to, is the wholesale killing of womb-dependant children for profit or convenience.