Posted on 06/10/2004 2:21:32 AM PDT by MadIvan
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:39:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The nation should honor President Reagan by committing itself to finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, Rep. Chris Smith said yesterday, but not by using embryos for stem cell research.
Smith, R-Washington Township, who was first elected with Reagan in 1980, yesterday blasted those who have used Reagan's death on Saturday after a decade-long bout with Alzheimer's to advocate embryonic stem cell research.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Some people are right. It depends on the experiment. One group at our University uses cells harvested from 14 - 20 week old fetuses, obtained from a local abortionist.
That human beings not be used as a means to an end is not a religious principle; it happens to be Kant's second categorical imperative. One's objections to embryonic stem cell research need not be religious; mine aren't.
(Besides, so far the research has been a medical flop, anyway. )
Embryos are not human beings, they're just human embryos. In order for something to qualify for human being status one must posess a body and many other qualifiers. Their use for research should be unquestioned. The researchers who have outstanding scientific knowledge know embryos hold no more moral significance than sperm. If there were any question they wouldn't even consider it. This whole thing is beyond common sense and I can't believe any of these "beliefs" are being taken seriously by any Americans.
Tell the truth with graphic language is not clever, though lying and dissembling appears to suit those defending this cannibalism, as if lying and deceiving is clever. Abortionists ARE serial killers, didn't you knnow? That's not clever, Long cut, just fact.
Cloning is very much in the sights of those scientists now pushing for embryonic stem cell exploitation, and they are now so confident that people like you have embraced their first steps along the slope that they no longer even try to deny their interests in 'therapeutic cloning for stem cells'.
Feel free to download the manuscript at this link, or I'll send to you a diskette (even paying the mailing charges) of the manuscript. You can read the articles cited that reveal the facts of what these researchers are planning.
"Embryos are not human beings, they're just human embryos." Clever bit of dissembling there snowy. In point of fact, you lived through your embryo age in order to reach the age you are now. When in the embryo age, you were a complete alive human ORGANISM. Did you have a brain then? No, not at the earliest ages you lived through, but your DNA instruction map functioned as a brain, sort of, until you built your brain (and you added onto that initial brain even well into infancy). You built for your survival the placenta you used, the umbilicus you received life support through, and the body of organs and tissues you exited the womb in. In fact, you, as an alive individual organism, built your parts before they took on function, yet it was the individual you were conceived as that did the work to sustain you in the water world of your Mother's womb and then to sustain you in the air world you enjoy today.
C'mon, TN, you know perfectly well that the term "serial killer" refers to one who murders other humans in the acting out of a psycho-sexual fantasy. It certainly does not cover either abortion doctors or their motives, unless, of course, one is trying to inflame passions OR "encourage" those who take it upon themselves to shoot them.
This, and the "cannibalism" nonsense, are simply your and some other zealots' attempt at hype. However, your comment about lying and decieving are well taken, just perhaps more ironically than you'd like.
Nice post Prof.
You quipped (cleverly, you thought), "Quit reading so much sci-fi."
What is disappointing, you know what I asserted is definitely not sci-fi and is already the working goal of some research programs, yet you chose to infer that truth of these research programs is but a figment of my imagination. Why are you so deceptive as to play hyperbole while chiding others for what you want to call hyperbole? Why do you purposely try to mislead readers? Finally, you already knew I call abortion doctors, 'serial killers', and I've explained why on several occasions, but you tried to appear clever, as if divining in a flash that I call them by their function? Why so deceptive?
The problem is that the so-called "slippery slope" to which you refer can be taken to some pretty fantastical extremes by people with an agenda they wish to hype or with potential constituents they wish to terrify. Thing is, a few scientists no more represent ALL of them than a few Christians represent ALL of them.
Why don't we deal with the discussion as is, instead of creating scenarios for the next remake of Twilight Zone, okay?
Like the WD40 slide from Roes 1st trimester abortion in 1973 to partially delivering full term babies and sucking their brains out in 2004?
Oh, maybe because you're so condescending that it seems appropriate? Because, even though you KNOW your word usage is incorrect and is meant to "dissemble" as you put it, that it seemed appropriate to use that to point out your duplicity?
You're smarter than this, TN. I just wish you'd respect the intelligence of your audience as much.
If your cause is just, you shouldn't need to use such hype to move them.
Or, is it just too much trouble to argue against medical research which holds promise?
Again a try at hyperbole with 'Twilight Zone'. The truth is a twilight zone in your perception? The work to perfect an artifical womb is progressing on several fronts, with one Japanese researcher gaining international fame because his particular machine has sustained a goat fetus to birth, for seventeen weeks! Another well publicized research program has cultivated living uterine lining tissue and conceived embryos to implant in this tissue and terminated the experiment afte a few days. These aren't 'Twilight Zone' speculations, they are factual realities and clear indications of where and what is being done and contemplated down the slippery slope.
I believe fertilization outside the body (in-vitro fertilization, or IVF) is gravely immoral, --
Believe what you like, but I would suggest that for your own emotional health, you should realize that your beliefs are not shared in any way by a great many of your peers..
-- And, -- that your efforts to codify your moral beliefs into law is ~very~ divisive to our rule of constitutional law.
It's the old "noble suffering" thing again. These people should be denied all drugs (including pain killers) and medical treatment. Let them remain true to their "noble suffering" mantra. Broke your leg? Well, endure the pain, let it set wrong and be hobbled for life. You'll be "repaid in the next life."
Abortionists kill alive individual human beings, serially, one right after the next. That's serial killing. I'll use the terms I choose without being herded into convenient boxes by your chiding. But that was a nice try to be condescending ... interesting that you brought that term 'condescending' forward in this discussion, first.
Only secular moral belief are codified into law? Or "you can't legislate morality"?
All legislation has a moral component Paine. Eliminating seamoles belief system is a tad authoritarian if you get my drift.
You're floundering around in the deep end of the pool again without a fin.
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