Single Cell Mind At Work

i've got my doubts about calling it "murder"
part of the wonder of human life is completing development with any kind of success whatsoever.


image credit to http://zoology.okstate.edu/zoo_lrc/zool413...nt%20Slides.htm
they've got a nice page of images of early embryonic development.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 19 2006, 04:47 PM) [snapback]288918[/snapback]</div>

There is always a way to as they say "when life deals you lemons - you can make lemonade". The bill should be modified to specify the use of Iraqi, Afghan, US Army, US Navy and Marine Corps stem cells. Dubya couldn't possibly object to that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 19 2006, 04:47 PM) [snapback]288918[/snapback]</div>

And what do you call the dead Israeli's whose country left southern lebanon and gaza in return for the guarantee of peace and got war instead? when given the chance to build schools, farm the land, make a better tomorrow for their children they choose war and they choose war time and time again - WHY? They had two thirds of what they wanted - and Israel was going to give them 95% of the west bank if they could only live in peace with Israel after they had given them southern lebanon and gaza. Do you support their efforts to violate Israel's borders and murder its soldiers and kidnap its citizens? Do you wonder why they choose war over peace?

If Israel wanted to "butcher civilians in lebanon" or gaza or the west bank they could easily wipe them out in a matter of hours. MAYBE IT IS THE ARAB TERRORISTS OR FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, FREEDOM FIGHTERS, WHO FIGHT FROM BEHIND THE SKIRTS OF WOMEN AND LITTLE CHILDREN WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR INJURIES? If they wanted to fight like men they would. If their leaders were not such pu**ies they would come out from the deep dark holes they are existing in and fight. If they want to conduct war via suicide/homocide bombers who detonate in public buses and pizzarias - why dont they do it themselves? These are the animals you support - who see no value to life and you accuse Israel of "butchery".

Tell me - which of these two cultures values each and every life, has a free press, allows women to show skin and go to school and have basic human rights? If you had to move to one of the two cultures which would you choose - that might be a tough one for you. If your daughter had to live in one of these two cultures which one would you choose?

Butchers? the only butcher here is you - you butcher the obvious truths - and I wonder why - not really? Who are you rooting for - free societies or fear societies? or is this a different issue for you???

I am glad in a way that north korea's missile can reach CA - there are parts of it I would love to see live under that threat. I bet you were against SDI too - you know Star Wars technology that those nasty evil conservatives under Reagan pursued - that same technology that currently is protecting your butt - that same technology that would not be around if it were up to you. so maybe you should step up and be a man - since you did not support it tell them not to protect your house?? or are you willing to admit your mistake there - or were you for SDI back then - now that it works - kind of like your opinion on the Afghanistan war - changes based on the tides of performance.

Butcher - what do you call those American bombers that relentlessly bombed german and japanese cities whose aim was civilians and not military installations. you like truman and his decision to nuke japan TWICE?

Israeli butchers? What should Israel do - in your opinion?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 19 2006, 05:57 PM) [snapback]288961[/snapback]</div>

You do know that the bombing of Germany (by American and British bombers) happened only after a long build up of both sides bombing each other. ANd both sides, at first, tried to limit their bombing to only military targets.

And I feel Israel has every right to defend herself. While in the past they've crossed some lines I wish they hadn't (USS Liberty anyone), they're fully justified in this.

I don't feel they're justified in bombing the sh-- out of Beruit tho. For all the talk of supporting the legitimate Lebanese government, bombing their capital doesn't really help them at all. Confine the attacks to the south where Hezbollah operates. I haven't heard of any missiles being launched from downtown Beruit after all...

 

Quick. Anyone have the death row execution stats for the time Bush was Gov. of TX?

 

Kudo's to Bush...

His only veto in 2 terms couldn't have been for a more important bill.

Congratulations to the USA for having such a GREAT president.

GO Dubya!!!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Jul 19 2006, 06:28 PM) [snapback]288979[/snapback]</div>

Liberty was a pure shame. Israel did do what it could to make things right. A real shame though.

They are not destroying Beirut - lots of it still stands. is is hezbollah that intentionally place their assets in beirut - they are the ones at fault for this. you will find numerous missile launchers and supplies in beirut - you found the silkworm missile that hit the Israeli warship there too - remember. in fact it used ground based radar from beirut to guide it towards the warship. you can not confine your attacks to anywhere. this is a war that will only end if there is a true victor - meaning chase them wherever they run or hide - kill them dead. if you allow them an area of refuge they will only return another day - the same way we chased the germans and japanese down.

no refuge, no holds barred - death to them wherever they are. they opened this can of whoopa** .

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 19 2006, 06:39 PM) [snapback]288987[/snapback]</div>

far fewer than the number of contracts clinton signed with halliburton

again, why do you insist on being so negative?

btw, my original answer was going to be - not enough :blink: probably related to why they had one of the lowest capital murder rates in the country. i wonder if wash d.c. is thinking about using it as a deterrent.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Jul 19 2006, 03:28 PM) [snapback]288979[/snapback]</div>

Intel noted a large bunker in downtown Beirut; Hezbollah calls it a mosque under construction.

Your choice on who is credible..

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 19 2006, 09:18 PM) [snapback]289088[/snapback]</div>

It'd be nice if Israel would finally own up to the Liberty incident... there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that it was intentional.

Any attacks on Beirut are counterproductive. The government there needs to be supported and Hezbollah needs to be destroyed both in a material sense and in the minds of the people.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 19 2006, 09:18 PM) [snapback]289088[/snapback]</div>

Mind if I ask you to back up that statement? I remember reading something recently that indicated that the bible belt had a higher than average crime rate, and it amused me. It's possible it's not true for murder...

 

The ethical argument for whether or not we use frozen embryos for research should NOT be made on political grounds. If you really care about this argument, you wouldn't frame it this way. The dripping, irrational hatred of Bush from the far left alienates the very people that need to be given a reasonable rationale for allowing research on the embryos. Instead, the issue is framed not as being important in and of itself, but rather just another arrow in the quiver of the Bush haters. That could lead people to believe that this is a partisan issue, and that you have no sympathy or concern for the very people this research could do the most to help.

It also doesn't answer the ethical questions of taking a life or potential life, trade in human life for money and cannibalism that is at the core of the argument against using frozen embryos for medical research.

So, as a conservative Christian who is pro-life, and who cares deeply about the people this could actually help, here is my ethical argument for allowing federal funding to be used for embryonic stem cell research (which can be used to gather support for pro-life legislators to over-ride the President's veto):

On the issue of taking a human life or potential life:
Unlike a living embryo in a woman's womb, the frozen embryos will never have any chance to develop into a human. Because we, as a society, allow in-vitro fertilization techniques, which usually include harvesting and fertilizing numerous eggs from the woman, implanting some and freezing the others for "possible future pregnancies", we have a large number of frozen embryos ... over 300,000+ ... that are destined for destruction. You may know people who have a child because of these techniques.

The embryos exist, and will simply be incinerated as biological waste in the future. We may not like that, but its a fact. They exist, and will never live. It is not possible to find a human womb and adoptive parents for all 300,000+ frozen embryos. And that number is growing daily. We are faced with a horrible choice, to simply incinerate them, or allow some of them, as directed by their parents, to be used for medical research. It is a moral and ethical, though difficult, choice to allow the parents to donate them for the greater good.

On the issue of trading in human life for profit:
It is proper for the Legistlature to listen to the ethics panels and formulate laws governing the use of the human embryos. It does not have to be a "slippery slope" to human bondage. We can certainly limit the frozen embryos provided to research facilities the same way we limit organ donations: only the people owning the embryos can donate them, and no payment can be made for them. That prevents the spector of human bondage we see in "selling" potential children for medical research.

Currently, under our law, a parent has the right to cede the body of a child to help others through medical research or organ transplantation. You may know a child who is alive today because a tragic death of another child has provided him with a heart, liver or kidney. You may know an older person who has a corneal transplant that has restored sight (which is certainly not a necessity, but we marvel at the miracle of modern medicine anyway). The parents of the frozen embryos should have the right to donate their embryos to medical science, or to dictate that they be disposed of another way.

On the issue of human cannibalism:
The use of humans for medical testing has been held as ethical if certain conditions are met, and has never been considered cannibalism. However, it is interesting that cannibalism itself, the actual eating of human flesh, is considered an unfortunate but forgiveable act "en extremis" by most churches. In other words, if there is no alternative, the eating of a person already dead to prolong the life of others is an acceptable moral choice.

In the frozen embryo case, we are faced with a decision just as difficult as that faced by those poor souls "en extremis" ... we can let them be disposed of and "wasted", or we can allow their use in the hope that it will help others.

For the religious conservatives, consider the parable of the talents, and the investment of the talents by the favored servant in seeming contradiction to the order given by the master. In many ways, you can consider the frozen embryos to be the thing of great value, the command in the parable to protect the talents as analogous to our command to hold life precious, and the use of the frozen embryos to further medical science an investment in increasing that command. 20 years from now, a frozen embryo will still be frozen (or simply no longer exist). Or 20 years from now a medical advance from using that frozen embryo may prolong thousands of lives. What appears on the surface to be in violation of our ethical standards is, after reflection, actually a better fulfillment of our mission.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 19 2006, 10:00 PM) [snapback]289115[/snapback]</div>

Waiting for you to respond to the post above.

Also, you should put your thoughts of Airbus domination in the trashbin too. do a little due diligence and then face the facts that they are in real trouble - heck, just look at their stock price.

And the US is still doing stem stell research on over 1,000 different cell lines. I am against the Presidents veto but dont believe it stops all research. There are billions of $'s being spent on it - think of capitalism and realize the power of our system. Also, tons of "foreign" research being done here. Society should never rely on the government to determine in toto anything including R&D.

 

It's too bad that people can't see this in simpler terms... Here's how I look at the whole thing:

It's "murder" (or whatever you want to call it), when the baby is at a stage where it can be supported by it's parents without the involvement of any extra medical equipment (ie: technology). What I basically mean is that once the baby can live by nursing off it's mother, it's only at that point that it stands a chance of progressing into a full adult.

Cells (particularly those that are extracted for various scientific fertalization techniques) are not capable of surviving without technology, and therefore it's not "killing" them. Without the technology, they'd die anyway - there's absolutely ZERO chance of them ever becoming a person without lots of equipment and medical procedures.

This isn't rocket science...

Onto the topic of Bush... I actually "feel" myself getting stupider if I watch him on TV. It's like my mind is being drained-out of my body. Only viewing through "The Daily Show", or "The Colbert Repor-t" provides the necessary content filtering to protect my most valuable mental synapses.

And on an aside, did you see when he tried to give the Chancellor of Germany a neck-rub the other day? She looked like she had been touched by someone contaminated by plutonium or something (I was going to say "leper", but I wouldn't want to insult anyone with a real disease out there). Most amusing.

Dave

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 19 2006, 10:00 PM) [snapback]289115[/snapback]</div>

But there is only a narrow majority of support in the EU parliment of EU funding of stem cell research. And Germany is trying to tip the balance and ban EU funding of stem cell research.

Germany seeks EU ban on stem-cell research funding

 

Junior has neurons? I thought they were morons...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Jul 20 2006, 01:23 PM) [snapback]289556[/snapback]</div>

I think a lot of Germany and possibly Europe still thinks in terms of eugenics and Mengele when it comes to goovernment funding in this realm.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 19 2006, 01:47 PM) [snapback]288918[/snapback]</div>

If only GWB was an aborted stem cell we'd all be happy. Or, if mom had just spoken with Monica Lewisnki before and allowed the use of her dress.

 

Move back to the '67 border and share palistine. IMHO