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If people weren't messing with genetics and fertilizing eggs outside the womb, then the whole implantation issue wouldn't be one.

That fertilized egg is a separate, distinct human being from all the rest on the planet. It has the full set of human chromosomes in a unique combination. Whether or not it implants does not change that.

How does implantation determine humanness if genetics don't? If they implanted a fertilized sheep egg in a cow, you still have a sheep. It doesn't become a cow upon implantation. What is is is due to it's genetic makeup not whether it makes it past a certain stage of growth.

I'm wondering how you would feel if the embryos in question were not destroyed but were also not implanted.

The same way I would feel about someone who saw someone else dying and walked away to let them die instead of doing something to help them. I'd consider that murder. It may not be considered that in a court of law but that still makes it wrong. Why deliberately create life knowing you intend to end some of it? And how is it dofferent if you cctively destroy it or let it go through callous neglect?

I'm wondering how you would feel if the embryos in question were not destroyed but were also not implanted.

The same way I would feel about someone who saw someone else dying and walked away to let them die instead of doing something to help them. I'd consider that murder. It may not be considered that in a court of law but that still makes it wrong. Why deliberately create life knowing you intend to end some of it? And how is it dofferent if you cctively destroy it or let it go through callous neglect?

But these cells are not dying anymore than a child is dying when he ages and dies of old age. These cells may eventually die of old age, but they like all other cells will have lived a full life. Nobody is murdering them any more than a person who dies of old age is murdered by his parents, since they brought him into this world. Cells live and age and die. If these cells live and age and die, why is that murder?

jas3

Excellent points.

Another point I haven't seen address here is this:

What exactly IS a "superior" human being? One with good looks? One without genetic diseases? Well, suppose one is free from inherited diseases, but still contracts a fatal or chronic communicable disease? Is a genius "better" than a person of average or inferior intellect?

Or is a superior human being one who loves others? One who tries to do good to others? One who embodies the virtues of kindness, honesty, responsibility, self control, courage? Can those and other personal virtues be detected by scientific analysis? Can such personal virtues be developed by good breeding?

I think the answers are self-evident.