Bush vetoes Stem Cell Research

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Animals far superior to embryos in size, complexity, intelligence, etc. are raised for the sole purpose of being killed and then eaten.

I don't understand why people find the lives of infants so important when they're willing to kill and eat farm animals who are superior to infants in terms of size and intelligence. If humanity had any sense at all, we would leave the farm animals alone and use children to make smokestacks, Dismal's Paradox be damned...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismal's_Paradox

WTF?

[Drake Tungsten]

BTW, Question for BK, if ensoulment occurs at conception then do identical twins share a single soul?

No. They each have half a soul; that's why one twin cannot be completely killed while his counterpart still lives. Duh...

WTF?

Sorry man. It's complicated economic stuff.

[Kuciwalker]

Ecthy: just google it.

[Dinner]

I'm surprised no one is talking about Blair's recent trip to California. In addition to California's new agreement with the UK on global warming cooperation and technology sharing Blair & Arnold also agreed to seek greater cooperation in stem cell research. British and Californian universities and companies are supposed to help each other do research and bring products to market. Hopefully something will come out of this.

Stem Cell cooperation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5229456.stm

Climate Change cooperation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5233466.stm

[Ecthy]

Looked it up, seems to make sense. The "original story" behind it is fake though.

[Drake Tungsten]

The "original story" behind it is fake though.

Really? How so?

[Ecthy]

AFAIK there never was a guy called Dismal, economics were labeled dismal science by some other guy.

The idea sounds like a spin-off of the Modest Proposal by Swift.

[Drake Tungsten]

No, there definitely was a Sir Eustice Dismal. There's a river named after him in Nebraska in addition to Eustis, the Sausage Capitol of Nebraska.

[Ecthy]

This site says otherwise, at least as far as the origin of "dismal science" is concerned...

[Ecthy]

Bog off, you're telling lies!

[Drake Tungsten]

This site says otherwise, at least as far as the origin of "dismal science" is concerned...

Interesting. I guess the naming of the "dismal science" after Sir Eustis must be an urban legend. Understandable though, given that he was such a prominent early economist.

[Ben Kenobi]

If the Far Right actually cared about thier rhetoric they would ban IVF because the unused embryos are distroyed.

First off, the only thing required to be consistant is to say that clinics would be regulated to use all the embryos they create.

Secondly, there are folks on the 'far right' who are opposed to IVF clinics. Some of them happen to be Catholics who see things like IVF as an abuse of technology rather then a method of improving fertility. If such a thing makes them 'insane' by all means call them that Odin.

[Ben Kenobi]

This article makes it explicitly clear that rats with just adult stem cells and without embryonic stem cells WERE TESTED, and the results were not even close to what they were with embryonic stem cells involved. While you apparently need all elements of the treatment to get the regrowth to work, the embryonic stem cells are a key component to get the treatment to work and you can't simply leave them out.

So why isn't the headline:

Adult cells required for successful treatment?

We both know why that is.

[Ben Kenobi]

Mind you, I realize that if they took the time to actually figure it out first, a lot of people would die or at least suffer in the interval. And getting that kind of understanding would occur a lot more quickly with access to embryonic cells for comparison, so from a pro-life perspective it's pretty near moot.

With respect to trying adult cells? I don't see the evidence that we would expect people to die in such experiments to any greater degree then with embryonic cells.

First off, from the prolife perspective, embryonic stem cell research ALWAYS results in the death of a person since you cannot extract the cells without killing the embryo.

Secondly, you have this little problem of the cells forming pretty much anything they want, including cancerous tumours.

But just dashing in by trial and error is likely to cause significant complications itself. A tool as powerful as stem cells is bound to have unexpected effects.

True. Which is why we do the research that has proven to be both safer and more effective. All other things being equal.

[Ben Kenobi]

If religious-right types were genuinely interested in the fate of unused embryos, they would focus their energies on regulating the IVF industry instead of forcing unused embryos to be destroyed rather than be used for research (which will be the outcome of Bush's ban on federal money for stem-cell research).

Uh, not sure why they are forcing the destruction of embryos when they are trying to support the adoption of said embryo. That would seem to show the desire to preserve the life of the embryo rather then killing them in medical experimentation, as is always the result of stem cells.

Is it really more ethical to kill someone for medical research and harvest their organs? This is essentially what we do with embryonic stem cell research.

I agree that regulation of IVF is needed, but first we need to cut off the motivation for creating embryos that are not intended for the use of the patients.

In a typical IVF case, 10-12 eggs are fertilized but only 3-4 are implanted. The remaining embryos go in the freezer, which immediately destroys two-thirds of them as only one-third will survive a freezing and thawing cycle. The embryos stay in the freezer until the clinic runs out of storage space and then the oldest ones are flushed to make room for the new ones.

True. Which is why it is essential to also reform the clinics so that they don't end up freezing the embryos in the first place.

The reason for embryo adoption is not as a solution for the embryos to be created, but as a solution for those already created.

Why? 1) demand for embryos to adopt is much smaller than available supply and 2) many parents of unused embryos don't like the idea of somebody else raising their genetic child, so they don't make their embryos available for adoption.

1 is not true. Demand is higher then the supply.

2. is very true. Which is why if the parents are unwilling to raise the child, they should have to make the decision of either having the child themselves, or giving the child up for adoption. Tossing the embryo in the garbage should not be an option. They do not own their embryonic children any more then they own their toddlers.

In Italy, for example, the IVF process is regulated. Only three eggs can be fertilized at a time, and all three must be implanted. Therefore, Italy doesn't have hundreds of thousands of leftover embryos sitting in freezers. So why is it that you never hear the religious right mention this? (I have my own theory, but I would be interested in hearing what other critics of the religious right think about this.)

Hmm.

Italy has the Vatican.

Next point about the religious right please?