Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Couples Cull Embryos to Halt Heritage of Cancer
NY Times ^ | 09.03.06 | AMY HARMON

Posted on 09/03/2006 1:55:46 PM PDT by Coleus

As Chad Kingsbury watches his daughter playing in the sandbox behind their suburban Chicago house, the thought that has flashed through his mind a million times in her two years of life comes again: Chloe will never be sick.

Not, at least, with the inherited form of colon cancer that has devastated his family, killing his mother, her father and her two brothers, and that he too may face because of a genetic mutation that makes him unusually susceptible.

By subjecting Chloe to a genetic test when she was an eight-cell embryo in a petri dish, Mr. Kingsbury and his wife, Colby, were able to determine that she did not harbor the defective gene. That was the reason they selected her, from among the other embryos they had conceived through elective in vitro fertilization, to implant in her mother’s uterus.

Prospective parents have been using the procedure, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., for more than a decade to screen for genes certain to cause childhood diseases that are severe and largely untreatable.

Now a growing number of couples like the Kingsburys are crossing a new threshold for parental intervention in the genetic makeup of their offspring: They are using P.G.D. to detect a predisposition to cancers that may or may not develop later in life, and are often treatable if they do.

For most parents who have used preimplantation diagnosis, the burden of playing God has been trumped by the near certainty that diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia will afflict the children who carry the genetic mutation that causes them.


(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; babies; babyfarms; babykillers; cafeteriacatholic; cancer; dna; embryo; embryos; geneticdefects; genetics; ivf; moralrelativism; murder; nytreasontimes; pickandchoose; playinggod; selectivereduction; selfcentered; selfishness; slipperyslope; treasonmedia
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 281-300301-320321-340 ... 441-460 next last
To: syriacus
I wonder from a theological point of view what various various churches which believe a soul attaches to an ovum at conception might suggest has happened to the "extra" soul. The existance of such human chimeras strongly suggests that human souls are not attached at conception (or alternatively that some people have two souls).

I am not interested in counting souls.

Yes, it is very hard to get an answer to this question, since it raises very troubling questions about when a soul attaches during fetal development.

Here's another way to look at the situation.

You would not feel free to destroy a building if you knew a small child was inside.

Would you feel more free to destroy that building if you thought 2 or more children might possibly be inside the building, instead of only one child?

Likewise, it doesn't really matter how many humans are in the blastula.

What really matters is that at least one human is present.

Here's an alternative way to look at it. There is a blueprint of a building on a table in your yard. Someone's cigarette ignites the blueprint. The police arrest the smoker for arson for the destruction of the building.

It is a big stretch to suggest that a blastosphere "contains" a small child. It is proper to suggest that it might develop into a child, but there is no miniature child inside the blastosphere, so your analogy of an actual child inside a building is not apt.

jas3
301 posted on 09/04/2006 5:17:26 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 285 | View Replies]

To: jas3

*Idiot*? OK

*dear*, *ace*, *tough guy*? /roll eyes


302 posted on 09/04/2006 5:22:24 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 298 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
Wonder Warthog wrote:

Post 255: Neither self-defense nor capital punishment qualify as "murder". Abortion does.

Post 278: Since capital punishment is, by definition, lawfully done, it is not murder.

Warthog, how do you explain the contradictory positions in your two posts. In the first post you state that abortion is murder. In the second you state that capital punishment is not murder because it is legally done. By your logic abortion which is "lawfully done" is not murder.

jas3
303 posted on 09/04/2006 5:26:13 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 278 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
Your "source" is grossly out of date.

Warthog, I wonder if you consider the age of a work to be the defining characteristic of its value. Works like "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire" are far older that the book I suggested you read. Would you discount them solely because of their age?

jas3
304 posted on 09/04/2006 5:27:59 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 279 | View Replies]

To: metmom
You know, that's what this whole discussion about when a fertilized egg becomes human is all about. If it's not human, it's not murder. Then people can *dispose* of it with a clear conscience. They can try to deny the guilt because, after all, it wasn't human. I see no other reason in the world why there would be any need to even qestion the humanity of that fertilized egg, unless it's so that one can do to it as one pleases with out fear of moral, ethical or legal consequences or judgment

That seems to be a big part of it for most people. Some people think that the question has to do with whether the blastosphere has a soul or not. But if the blastosphere is a human, then why is not an egg a human? I can see arguments for both sides, but in the end, it seems an arbitrary decision.

jas3
305 posted on 09/04/2006 5:31:55 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 292 | View Replies]

To: jas3

The unfertilized egg will not grow and divide in the same manner as the fertilized one. The egg does not have a full compliment of DNA to make it a seperate and distinct human being.


306 posted on 09/04/2006 5:35:51 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 305 | View Replies]

To: syriacus
You wanted me to accept your comparison of acorns and blastospheres, so I did.

Now you tell me your acorns are only seeds and haven't germinated, the way that blastospheres have.

Which is it?

Do you want to compare acorns to blastospheres, or not?

No Warthog, you've misrepresented my analogy. I have always maintained that an acorn is not a tree and that it does not have a tree "inside" it. I also did not tell you that "acorns are only seeds and haven't germinated the way blastospheres have".

The blastospheres that are the subject of the article atop this post have divided thrice. Show me an acorn that has been through only three cell divisions, and then attempt to sell it as a TREE. It is not even close to being a tree at that point. The definition of a tree is not a seed that has undergone a single cell division or two divisions or three divisions. Were you to attempt to use that definition in commerce you would be sued for fraud. Claiming in this post that an acorn *IS* a tree is intellectual fraud.

jas3
307 posted on 09/04/2006 5:38:01 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 293 | View Replies]

To: syriacus
You could potentially argue that a seed deserves the same moral or legal protection as a tree.

Why would I want to?

For the same reason that some people argue that a fertilized human egg deserves the same moral and legal protection as an adult.

jas3
308 posted on 09/04/2006 5:40:05 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 296 | View Replies]

To: metmom
You know, that's what this whole discussion about when a fertilized egg becomes human is all about. If it's not human, it's not murder. Then people can *dispose* of it with a clear conscience. They can try to deny the guilt because, after all, it wasn't human. I see no other reason in the world why there would be any need to even qestion the humanity of that fertilized egg, unless it's so that one can do to it as one pleases with out fear of moral, ethical or legal consequences or judgment.

That's it in a nutshell.

309 posted on 09/04/2006 5:41:58 PM PDT by little jeremiah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 292 | View Replies]

To: jas3
Post 31: madprof98 called Hildy an idiot. ....

Oh esxcuse me -- I was here for a while before I realized this ISN'T a Crevo thread ;)

But I don't see the problem with 'Ace' and 'Dear' ;)

310 posted on 09/04/2006 5:42:48 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (the war on poverty should include health club memberships for the morbidly poor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 298 | View Replies]

To: little jeremiah; metmom
I see no other reason in the world why there would be any need to even qestion the humanity of that fertilized egg, unless it's so that one can do to it as one pleases with out fear of moral, ethical or legal consequences or judgment.

That's it in a nutshell.

So if all fertilized eggs are viable humans, then they must all be allowed (forced) to be complete the cycle into becoming a human?

311 posted on 09/04/2006 5:45:33 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (the war on poverty should include health club memberships for the morbidly poor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 309 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog
"How much time does he spend on the Dark Ages?"

A VERY large part. In fact, that time frame is where most of the NEW research has changed points of view.

So of the 48 pages, I might find as many as 30 pages which are supposed to overturn centuries of scholarship and tens of thousands of pages of evidence documenting the Catholic Church's hostility to science? I will read this book, but I doubt it will have any lasting impact on either my views or the history of the church.

I was reading just last week about the Archimedes palimsest. Of course Archimedes' most important work was destroyed by the church to make a prayer book. This is from a church that supposedly promotes or values science?

jas3
312 posted on 09/04/2006 5:46:11 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 299 | View Replies]

To: metmom
The unfertilized egg will not grow and divide in the same manner as the fertilized one. The egg does not have a full compliment of DNA to make it a seperate and distinct human being.

The unfertilized egg will not grow and divide at all unless it is fertilized. The fertilized egg will not grow and divide at all unless it is implanted. Why not draw the line at implantation? An unimplanted blastosphere will not survive.

jas3
313 posted on 09/04/2006 5:49:51 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 306 | View Replies]

To: metmom
*Idiot*? OK

*dear*, *ace*, *tough guy*? /roll eyes


It's not a bit deal, but it is a matter of common courtesy, which I only mentioned it passing. It also does tend to undermine the presumption of good faith by one's readers and has a deleterious effect on the tone of the thread.

jas3
314 posted on 09/04/2006 6:02:13 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 302 | View Replies]

To: freedumb2003
So if all fertilized eggs are viable humans, then they must all be allowed (forced) to be complete the cycle into becoming a human?

That is the position of many of the posters on this thread.

jas3
315 posted on 09/04/2006 6:03:13 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 311 | View Replies]

To: jas3
So if all fertilized eggs are viable humans, then they must all be allowed (forced) to be complete the cycle into becoming a human? That is the position of many of the posters on this thread.

I wasn't sure -- they seem to sidle up to it.

Wow, so close down the reproduction clinics, right? Or force women to have centuplicates?

316 posted on 09/04/2006 6:07:11 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (the war on poverty should include health club memberships for the morbidly poor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 315 | View Replies]

To: freedumb2003
So if all fertilized eggs are viable humans, then they must all be allowed (forced) to be complete the cycle into becoming a human?

Allowing does not equal forcing. And just how would you propose to do that anyway?

317 posted on 09/04/2006 6:10:20 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 311 | View Replies]

To: freedumb2003
I wasn't sure -- they seem to sidle up to it.

Wow, so close down the reproduction clinics, right? Or force women to have centuplicates?


Well more consequential is the notion that potential parents who currently screen embryos to find one without a specific terminal genetic problem would be prohibited from doing so under the moral framework proposed by many posters, as the blastosphere *IS* morally (and should be legally) equivalent to an adult human under their moral theories.

My tentative conclusion is that an embryo deserves protection at implantation, not before, and it is not morally equivalent to an adult until it successfully implants. Prior to implantation, the blastosphere is not a child, has no soul (probably), is not conscious, and meets no other ethical or moral tests other than an arbitrary definition of defining life as starting at fertilization rather than before or after.

jas3
318 posted on 09/04/2006 6:16:29 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 316 | View Replies]

To: metmom
So if all fertilized eggs are viable humans, then they must all be allowed (forced) to be complete the cycle into becoming a human?

Allowing does not equal forcing. And just how would you propose to do that anyway?

He's not proposing that they must all be allowed to complete the cycle. He's exploring the position of the posters who suggest that all fertilized eggs are equivalent to adult humans and the natural consequence of that position which is that they must therefore be implanted if fertilized. Otherwise any alternative course would be equivalent to 1st degree murder.

jas3
319 posted on 09/04/2006 6:20:10 PM PDT by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 317 | View Replies]

To: jas3
Well more consequential is the notion that potential parents who currently screen embryos to find one without a specific terminal genetic problem would be prohibited from doing so under the moral framework proposed by many posters, as the blastosphere *IS* morally (and should be legally) equivalent to an adult human under their moral theories.

Again, then by those definitions the blastosphere MUST be brought to term. To do otherwise is to deny "life."

My tentative conclusion is that an embryo deserves protection at implantation, not before, and it is not morally equivalent to an adult until it successfully implants. Prior to implantation, the blastosphere is not a child, has no soul (probably), is not conscious, and meets no other ethical or moral tests other than an arbitrary definition of defining life as starting at fertilization rather than before or after.

If that isn't the proper position, there can be no reproduction clinics of any kind. I suspect the ending of reproductive science is the real (if futile) agenda.

320 posted on 09/04/2006 6:22:58 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (the war on poverty should include health club memberships for the morbidly poor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 318 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 281-300301-320321-340 ... 441-460 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson