Finally a Veto for all the wrong reasons?!?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jul 30 2006, 12:14 AM) [snapback]294504[/snapback]</div>

Only about 8000 of the 300,000 of these frozen embryos are on tap for medical destruction if ya'll were to get your law passed. The rest belong to people who are not willing to donate them to the cause.

Yes, I'm all for organ donation. In fact, I think we could easily find some people who could use all of your major organs. In fact, we could probably save 5 or 6 people if we sacrifice you and get your organs. Great idea, are you going to volunteer, or should we pass a law to force your death? Do we need to ask you if it's ok, or do we just need to convince your parents it's ok for you to donate your organs this afternoon? Does killing one to save another sound as good now as it did before?

The parents are responsible for these embryos. They should donate them for adoption, keep them, use them, or be the ones that are required to dispose of them personally. The parents of them need to be responsible for them.

 

Interesting article/summation:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/30/time.stemcell.tm/index.html

"Stem Cells: Hope and hype"

"It's hard to tell who's being straight about politically charged topic"

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wstander @ Jul 30 2006, 02:26 PM) [snapback]294679[/snapback]</div>

Actually a very good article, sums up the basics, offers the current hopes and dreams of the technology. Amazingly unbiased - not terribly in depth, but it doesn't really need to be. Probably plays up the hopes a little much, as all the new technologies they've mentioned are nowhere near being replicable, but they're real avenues to follow, and that's important. Thanks for posting it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jul 30 2006, 06:29 AM) [snapback]294573[/snapback]</div>

Where on earth do you get the 8,000 number? The RAND study is considered the most authoritative, and it's survey of in-vitro clinics showed in excess of 300,000 embryos in frozen storage. As the parents move out of child bearing years or acheive a successful birth, nearly all of these will be slated for destruction. There are dozens to hundreds per couple because of the way in-vitro works (a process you should understand to make an informed decision about this issue).

Since you obviously did not understand my reference to organ donation, I'll explain it further and simply ignore your wish to have me murdered (a funny wish for a pro-lifer, don't you think? Even in debate, I never advocate murder.)

When a child is in a horrible accident, and is declared brain dead, he can still be kept "alive" by machines. The parents can choose to have him kept alive, or allow the machines to be turned off. They can donate his organs. What is your position on this?

And no fair telling me you would like to see the plug pulled on me, either. I'm not brain dead, even though you may wish fervently for that outcome.

I wish you the best, by the way. Even if we disagree on social issues, my hope and prayer for you and yours is a healthy, happy life.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jul 30 2006, 09:46 PM) [snapback]294846[/snapback]</div>

I'm not sure you got my point yet, but you're close. When you say I'm advocating your murder, I agree with you. Passing some law to have your organs donated later today would be killing you, and the fact that it saves 5 other people who are waiting for those organs does not make it right, and does not remove the label "murder" from killing you. I suggest the same consideration for the embryos, yet this discussion hinges on their classification as a person, or not as a person. I defend them as a person, yet many defend them as something less. The child in my avatar is what is now being called a 'snowflake' child, and was one of those embryos. Should this child rather have been a medical experiment?

I was curious if your viewpoint on this whole "killing one person to save others" was any different if it were you who was chosen to be sacrificed for "others to live"? The embryos are primarily not able to speak for themselves, so some people (myself included) speak up in their defense. You clearly are able to speak for yourself, so I was wondering what your choice is when presented with the opportunity to donate your organs if you could save 5 others by doing so. Or, perhaps it's not donating your organs to save the 5, but just donate yourself to be killed in an experiment at USC for the betterment of science that one day a cure for Muscular Distrophy or Cancer could be found for all of society.. Why not ask this quesiton of all of us who can answer it. If it's not right for us, then maybe it's not ok to do the same to the embryo size people.





<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jul 30 2006, 09:46 PM) [snapback]294846[/snapback]</div>

Yes, donate the organs to save the other kids. This decision, and when to pull the plug is for the parents only after considering advice to do so by the doctors.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jul 30 2006, 09:46 PM) [snapback]294846[/snapback]</div>

I wish you a long happy life also. I wish life for embryos which are in frozen storage. I wish life for the child in my avatar that was one of these "so called embryos that will never be a baby or a person".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jul 30 2006, 08:11 PM) [snapback]294858[/snapback]</div>

Well, you are applying a standard that simply doesn't exist. Our current law recognizes the embryos not as life, but as the property of the parents. It is property that they can give away, donate to medical science, or destroy. Any new law would probably not apply to the frozen embryos under the prohibition against ex post facto laws.

There is no standard in American law that recognizes a frozen embryo as life. You and I may agree that an implanted embryo is life ... its seems illogical to say it isn't ... but the "law is an nice person" and we are a nation of laws. Our law does not state when life begins ... and the Supreme Court has said our legislature could write such a law, but hasn't ... and so even that implanted embryo isn't recognized as life.

I understand the desire for a perfect world, but we must live in the real world. We are not given the choice of having all the frozen embryos adopted or kept in frozen suspension forever. We are given the choice of having them destroyed or put to some use. There is no conciousness, no "breath of life", no ensoulment of the frozen embryo yet.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jul 30 2006, 08:11 PM) [snapback]294858[/snapback]</div>

It is an offensive and specious argument, and is not worthy of you. It cheapens your argument, because instead of logic, you personalize the argument in an attempt for shock value.

But I'll answer it. If I was chosen to be "sacrificed" without my consent, it would be murder. While you may play fast and loose with the term, it is a legal definition that is well understood. President Bush is not a "murderer" because of criminals executed while he was governor, and Laura Bush is not a "murderer" because she caused the death of a man in an auto accident. We have legal definitions for the various ways life is taken, and the murderer who is executed by the state is not "murdered", but rightfully executed. The man Laura Bush killed was not murdered, but was the victim of a horrible accident, and the DA decided not to press charges for manslaughter against Laura. The attacker killed by the citizen armed with a gun is not murdered, but is killed in self defense.

The frozen embryo's fate is not protected in any way by any law. It is not recognized by law as a person, a potential person, or anything other than property. And like any other property, the frozen embryo will be discarded by its owners.

So the ethical question is do we just allow them to be discarded, or can they be donated to medical science, just like any other dead flesh?


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jul 30 2006, 08:11 PM) [snapback]294858[/snapback]</div>

There are a few that will be adopted. But very few. And even that child is only alive because dozens of eggs were taken from her mother and fertilized in a dish with her father's sperm, and most of her brothers and sisters were destroyed or frozen. Her presence is a wonderful thing, for her, but not for the dozens and dozens of sister and brother embryos who had to die for her to have life.

Perhaps you're comfortable with that, but I am not. I would rather see in-vitro outlawed, personally, as I don't see having a child as important enough to cause the wholesale destruction of embryos.