If it's not being limited to one germ layer, I doubt that all of these cells are still totipotent.
Posted on 05/25/2005 11:57:15 PM PDT by neverdem
President Bush seems determined to thwart any loosening of the restrictions he has imposed on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research, despite rising sentiment in Congress and the nation at large for greater federal support of this fast-emerging field. His actions are based on strong religious beliefs on the part of some conservative Christians, and presumably the president himself. Such convictions deserve respect, but it is wrong to impose them on this pluralistic nation.
Mr. Bush threatened this week to veto a modest research-expansion bill that was approved by the House and is likely to be passed by the Senate. The reason, he said, is that the measure would "take us across a critical ethical line" by encouraging the destruction of embryos from which the stem cells are extracted. Never mind that this particular ethical line looms large only for a narrow segment of the population. It is not deemed all that critical by most Americans or by most religious perspectives. Rather, the president's intransigence provided powerful proof of the dangers of letting one group's religious views dictate national policy.
The president's policy is based on the belief that all embryos, even the days-old, microscopic form used to derive stem cells in a laboratory dish, should be treated as emerging human life and protected from harm. This seems an extreme way to view tiny laboratory entities that are no larger than the period at the end of this sentence and are routinely flushed from the body by Mother Nature when created naturally.
These blastocysts, as they are called, bear none of the attributes we associate with humanity and, sitting outside the womb, have no chance of developing into babies. Some people consider them clumps of cells no different than other biological research materials. Others would grant them special respect...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Slimes indeed.
These blastocysts, as they are called, bear none of the attributes we associate with humanity...
...EXCEPT UNIQUE HUMAN DNA and THE PROPENSITY TO DEVELOP INTO AN ADULT HUMAN PERSON IF NOT MAIMED OR KILLED.
This is what is so sad about the whole fertility clinic industry.
Except for the part of not having attributes we associate with humanity, a baby at 20 weeks gestation would not have any chance outside it's mother's womb, if there were not human intervention.
They NYT has been trying to dehumanize unborn children since before Roe v Wade. I guess they'd hoped they wouldn't have to do this again, and are pretty pi$$ed at President Bush for making them have to work so hard at it again.
And we can rely on the N.Y. Slimes to tell us what is right or wrong? Since when do we need their misguided opinions and who are they to sit in judgment of our nation's traditional values?
If it's not being limited to one germ layer, I doubt that all of these cells are still totipotent.
It seems like the ghouls are everywhere these days, neverdem. I'm sickened by it all.
Given their druthers the NYT crowd would use discarded embryos as caviar with their champagne breakfasts.
Dehumanization ping.
Kind of like New York Times reporters.
Rather than forcing employees to donate to United Way the Slimes can force their employees to donate human embryos.
What the New York Times studiously fails to recognize is that Roe vs. Wade did not make any utilitarian judgement on the value of human life. That decision was all about the right to privacy. We may not agree with the logic, but at least it has a basis in something that is not ghoulish.
This business about havesting embryos, however, is all about utility. "They are just going to be thrown away, after all, and the potential is so great" goes the argument. They are worth so much more dead than alive.
But that can be said about a lot of folks, can't it? The President is rightly holding the line against applying any utilitarian valuation of human life. He is right to do this, even if 90% of the people in the Coliseum give the embryo the old "thumbs down". We just don't decide matters of life and death that way in this country.
Only two bold-faced lies in this sentence. The Times must be slipping.
Theraputic cloning is when a genetic copy of an individual is created in order to provide stem cells or spare parts for the diseased individual. So, say, if Teddy Kennedy needs a new liver, doctors can grow a little Teddy foetus and kill it, extract the liver cells, and grow Teddy a new one. Of course, the question becomes one of how long the foetus is permitted to grow before transplantation. Three months? Up to gestational maturity? Until the child learns to express himself (as some so-called ethicists have proposed)? Where does one draw the line?
This is the House of Horrors that lies before us if we take this path, and the New York Times can hardly wait...
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