Kerry Promotes Expanded Stem Cell Research

[shprdslamb7]

I never said they're not life. They are definitely alive. The difference is that embryos are not persons. A person feels pain and has emotions. Embryos don't.

This post is intended for Christians. I do not plan on getting into a needless debate with non-Christians.

The elderly and mentally retarded are alive...yet to an extent, they are treated as subhuman. I've been working in healthcare for 10 years and have seen it over and over.

Let me give you an example. I work at a home for the developmentally disabled. A couple of months ago, one of our autistic ladies fell and her neck slid down a door frame. When the nurse assessed her wound, he could see her jugular vein. Thankfully, it was not nicked. We sent her to the hospital where the ER doc stapled it up. Guess what he sent her home with for pain? Motrin. If that would have been you or I we would have gotten at the very least Darvocet and possibly Lortab. But, since she is mentally retarded, I guess she can't feel pain like we can.

Here's another. I've seen a circumcision done. Docs like to say that the babies feel no pain...yet, the child that I saw it done on sure screamed his head off from the time the scalpel started cutting.

And, finally, I made myself watch an abortion on the internet once. The fetus was CLEARLY trying to get out of the way of the abortionist's devices. Yet, they can't feel, can they?

What's my point? The point is you have to draw the line somewhere. Since people have differing views on life...why not draw that line at the earliest point? The littlest humans that can not defend themselves should be that line.

Draw that line and take a stand for life like God wants you to do. There are other ways that those studies can be done.

 

[Nathan Poe]

your right there not the same, but they're still alive.

our definitions of life are different. thats all

And if you eat an egg or own a single product made of leather, your definition of "life" becomes irrelevent.

 

[Ampmonster]

no its not. God put animals here for human use. our biological similarities are 1/1000000 of our spiritual and emotional differences.

 

[kermit]

And, finally, I made myself watch an abortion on the internet once. The fetus was CLEARLY trying to get out of the way of the abortionist's devices. Yet, they can't feel, can they?

Abortion has nothing...I repeat, nothing to do with embryonic stem cell research.

 

[Ampmonster]

except the same lobby

 

[Hydra009]

Can someone help me with something else I can't figure out?

How can the Bush administration be against embryonic stem cell research, but be for invetro fertilization? Isn't this contradictory? Shouldn't there be a major push for banning invetro? I mean, if it is about saving the souls of babies...

What am I missing?

The political sway of the Christian right on this president.

 

[Jacob4Jesus]

This post is intended for Christians. I do not plan on getting into a needless debate with non-Christians.

The elderly and mentally retarded are alive...yet to an extent, they are treated as subhuman. I've been working in healthcare for 10 years and have seen it over and over.

Let me give you an example. I work at a home for the developmentally disabled. A couple of months ago, one of our autistic ladies fell and her neck slid down a door frame. When the nurse assessed her wound, he could see her jugular vein. Thankfully, it was not nicked. We sent her to the hospital where the ER doc stapled it up. Guess what he sent her home with for pain? Motrin. If that would have been you or I we would have gotten at the very least Darvocet and possibly Lortab. But, since she is mentally retarded, I guess she can't feel pain like we can.

Here's another. I've seen a circumcision done. Docs like to say that the babies feel no pain...yet, the child that I saw it done on sure screamed his head off from the time the scalpel started cutting.

And, finally, I made myself watch an abortion on the internet once. The fetus was CLEARLY trying to get out of the way of the abortionist's devices. Yet, they can't feel, can they?

What's my point? The point is you have to draw the line somewhere. Since people have differing views on life...why not draw that line at the earliest point? The littlest humans that can not defend themselves should be that line.

Draw that line and take a stand for life like God wants you to do. There are other ways that those studies can be done.

I can agree with you on a lot of those points. Just for the record though, in the past 3 months, I have had two friends with medical conditions. My friend Rodney had a severe hernia. Since it was not life threatening, they put the surgery off for 2 months. And when he asked for something for the pain, he was told to buy a bottle of Tylenol. My other friend, Michael, broke two of his toes... totally SNAPPED them in half. What was he given for the pain? Nothing. He was told to go buy Advil. So, I am not sure I could agree that this doctor was seeing the autistic woman's pain any different.

As far as the differences on life, it really depends on what you think qualifies as 'life.' God wants us to slaughter animals, but not make use out of leftover stem cells from invetro fertilization?

I guess my question would be to everyone posting here: what is your definition of life?

 

[Jacob4Jesus]

no its not. God put animals here for human use. our biological similarities are 1/1000000 of our spiritual and emotional differences.

Do cows feel pain? To qoute Shylock "'if you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us do we not die? ... " The same is true for animals. Life is Life. It's hypocritical to say that all life is precious, don't use stem cells, pass me a Big Mac.

If you only value human life, how does that make you any different from the people who don't value the life of an embryo? Life is Life.

 

[Ave Maria]

I never said they're not life. They are definitely alive. The difference is that embryos are not persons. A person feels pain and has emotions. Embryos don't.

This post is intended for Christians. I do not plan on getting into a needless debate with non-Christians.

The elderly and mentally retarded are alive...yet to an extent, they are treated as subhuman. I've been working in healthcare for 10 years and have seen it over and over.

Let me give you an example. I work at a home for the developmentally disabled. A couple of months ago, one of our autistic ladies fell and her neck slid down a door frame. When the nurse assessed her wound, he could see her jugular vein. Thankfully, it was not nicked. We sent her to the hospital where the ER doc stapled it up. Guess what he sent her home with for pain? Motrin. If that would have been you or I we would have gotten at the very least Darvocet and possibly Lortab. But, since she is mentally retarded, I guess she can't feel pain like we can.

Here's another. I've seen a circumcision done. Docs like to say that the babies feel no pain...yet, the child that I saw it done on sure screamed his head off from the time the scalpel started cutting.

And, finally, I made myself watch an abortion on the internet once. The fetus was CLEARLY trying to get out of the way of the abortionist's devices. Yet, they can't feel, can they?

What's my point? The point is you have to draw the line somewhere. Since people have differing views on life...why not draw that line at the earliest point? The littlest humans that can not defend themselves should be that line.

Draw that line and take a stand for life like God wants you to do. There are other ways that those studies can be done.

I hope you're not trying to imply that I am not a Christian (which is against the rules by the way) because I am the one who made that quote.

 

[_Orion]

But this would only be satisfactory if it was the same couple who wanted the future transfer. Maybe it would also be satisfactory if some future couple didn't care that they were getting the embryo from a different couple but I'd be willing to bet that most of them would want to have their own child. Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't invitro fertilization simply involve taking the sperm and the egg from each partner and then implanting it into the woman's womb?

There are ways to adopt frozen embryos... Its a good fit for some people. The IVF process is very hard and very expensive.

The IVF procedure harvests eggs from the female and fertilizes the "good" eggs with the males sperm. Sometimes a procedure known as ICSI is used to physically insert the sperm inside the egg...it's quite amazing.

There is a grading process that occurs that rates the quality of the resulting embryos. There can be as many as 8 or 12 good viable embryos from one IVF (drugs make more eggs available for harvest). Most clinics only transfer up to four viable embryos at a time for obvious reasons... The cases where more than that are transferred is crazy IMO.

There are cases when a couple has more than 4 viable embryos and the extra ones can be frozen for future transfer.

The benefit of freezing them is that the next time the want to try and get pregnant they don't have the same gigantic expense as starting from scratch... Also, the numerous injections and ultrasounds etc. require a lot of time and perseverance -- mostly for the female. IVF is not easy.

 

[Burning Bush]

Adopting fertilized embryos seems like the dumbest idea I've ever heard, I'm sorry to say. It makes absolutely no sense as to the reason why people choose in vitro fertilization. People choose this technique bevause they want to have their own children. Why would you adopt an embryo when you can just adopt a regular child, this idea makes no sense.

And let's say we do have adoption, the rates of adopting embryos would be so small that you would be still discarding unused embryos. You can't freeze embryos indefinitely, there is a time limit on keeping cells in cryostasis. I have worked with cells that have been stored cryogenically and you freezing them for extended periods of time will not yield could cell lines. The "adoption" of fertilized ova makes no sense.

 

[Ave Maria]

There are ways to adopt frozen embryos... Its a good fit for some people. The IVF process is very hard and very expensive.

The IVF procedure harvests eggs from the female and fertilizes the "good" eggs with the males sperm. Sometimes a procedure known as ICSI is used to physically insert the sperm inside the egg...it's quite amazing.

There is a grading process that occurs that rates the quality of the resulting embryos. There can be as many as 8 or 12 good viable embryos from one IVF (drugs make more eggs available for harvest). Most clinics only transfer up to four viable embryos at a time for obvious reasons... The cases where more than that are transferred is crazy IMO.

There are cases when a couple has more than 4 viable embryos and the extra ones can be frozen for future transfer.

The benefit of freezing them is that the next time the want to try and get pregnant they don't have the same gigantic expense as starting from scratch... Also, the numerous injections and ultrasounds etc. require a lot of time and perseverance -- mostly for the female. IVF is not easy.

Oh ok. Now I understand about the invitro thing. I was pretty sure that is what it was before but I wasn't totally sure. Anyway, not everyone is going to want to have more than one child and not everyone is going to want to essentially give birth to someone else's baby either. What I mean is that not everyone is going to want to "adopt" an embryo because basically, it's someone else's baby, not theirs. Surely not all of the extra embryos get adopted. So what do they do with the ones that aren't adopted? Discard them? If so, I think a much better use of them would be to allow them to be used for stem cell research.

 

[Nathan Poe]

no its not. God put animals here for human use. our biological similarities are 1/1000000 of our spiritual and emotional differences.

So only human life is worth protecting... says you.

Does the word "ecosystem" mean anything to you?

 

[Kelly]

But these embryos are only days or a week or two old. They don't feel pain and they're basically just a bunch of cells clumped together. You can't compare that to the Nazis. Those were live human beings that do feel pain and do have emotions!

Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you

 

[_Orion]

Oh ok. Now I understand about the invitro thing. I was pretty sure that is what it was before but I wasn't totally sure. Anyway, not everyone is going to want to have more than one child and not everyone is going to want to essentially give birth to someone else's baby either. What I mean is that not everyone is going to want to "adopt" an embryo because basically, it's someone else's baby, not theirs. Surely not all of the extra embryos get adopted. So what do they do with the ones that aren't adopted? Discard them? If so, I think a much better use of them would be to allow them to be used for stem cell research.

I agree...most frozen embryos will *not* be adopted. It is an option though. Research is a better alternative than destruction...I agree again

 

[_Orion]

Adopting fertilized embryos seems like the dumbest idea I've ever heard, I'm sorry to say.

I disagree, but you're entitled to you opinion.

It makes absolutely no sense as to the reason why people choose in vitro fertilization. People choose this technique bevause they want to have their own children. Why would you adopt an embryo when you can just adopt a regular child, this idea makes no sense.

Some couples or a woman *wants* to go through pregnancy and child birth. That doesn't seem so strange to me...

And let's say we do have adoption, the rates of adopting embryos would be so small that you would be still discarding unused embryos.

or using them for research...

You can't freeze embryos indefinitely, there is a time limit on keeping cells in cryostasis. I have worked with cells that have been stored cryogenically and you freezing them for extended periods of time will not yield could cell lines. The "adoption" of fertilized ova makes no sense.

They don't last forever...never said that. How does that pertain to whether or not adoption makes sense? It makes sense for *some* people.

Fair enough?

 

[Firscherscherling]

There are ways to adopt frozen embryos... Its a good fit for some people. The IVF process is very hard and very expensive.

The IVF procedure harvests eggs from the female and fertilizes the "good" eggs with the males sperm. Sometimes a procedure known as ICSI is used to physically insert the sperm inside the egg...it's quite amazing.

There is a grading process that occurs that rates the quality of the resulting embryos. There can be as many as 8 or 12 good viable embryos from one IVF (drugs make more eggs available for harvest). Most clinics only transfer up to four viable embryos at a time for obvious reasons... The cases where more than that are transferred is crazy IMO.

There are cases when a couple has more than 4 viable embryos and the extra ones can be frozen for future transfer.

The benefit of freezing them is that the next time the want to try and get pregnant they don't have the same gigantic expense as starting from scratch... Also, the numerous injections and ultrasounds etc. require a lot of time and perseverance -- mostly for the female. IVF is not easy.

Hmm. can see a whole thread dedicated to whether it is ethical to freeze a defenseless baby, trapping its soul in a block of ice..

 

[Ampmonster]

Does the word "ecosystem" mean anything to you?

first it was eggs and leather. NOW its ecosystem OOOOOOOOOOOK.
huge difference. lets talk about one thing at a time, crow

 

[Firscherscherling]

Amp, I'm still wondering if you are anti invetro or not?

 

[_Orion]

Hmm. can see a whole thread dedicated to whether it is ethical to freeze a defenseless baby, trapping its soul in a block of ice..

Yep...always reverts back to the threshold issue... when is it a baby?

Nobody would knowingly and willingly freeze a "baby" would they?