Posted on 04/24/2003 12:24:35 PM PDT by J. Neil Schulman
It is the first time scientists have used a technique called parthenogenesis on human cells.Parthenogenesis is a form of reproduction in which the egg develops without fertilisation. The phenomenon occurs naturally in many insects, while artificial parthenogenesis has been achieved in almost all groups of animals, although it usually results in abnormal development.
No successful experiments with human parthenogenesis have previously been reported. But researchers from Stemron report in the journal Stem Cells that they have successfully used artificial parthenogenesis in humans and that the cells taken from one of the embryos survived for a number of days.
From The Rainbow Cadenza by J. Neil Schulman, Simon & Schuster, 1983:
Jaeger looked back and forth between Eleanor and Vera. “Excuse an old man for staring, but I can’t help studying your remarkable resemblance to your mother. We don’t have very many clones in the habitats. Different eugenic goals, you know.”Vera concealed her annoyance; she knew the word “clone” was used less precisely in the colonies—the “habitats,” she must remember to say around Jaeger, if she didn’t want to provoke war. “I’m my mother’s twin,” she told Jaeger, “by parthenogenesis. The process doesn’t produce the various inadequacies that clones suffer from.”
“Forgive me my error,” Jaeger said. “I didn’t mean to insult you. But I must say it was rather my impression that such ‘inadequacies’ resulted from nurture rather than nature.”
“Hear, hear,” Wendell said.
Vera flushed deeply but avoided looking at Wendell. “Some people,” she told Jaeger, “reject any scientific conclusion that doesn’t happen to support their convictions.”
“Some people do indeed,” Wendell said.
“Maestro,” said Stanton, “you’ve just walked into the middle of one of the most hotly debated political issues on the planet.”
I love being a science fiction writer.
*sigh*
Writers co-opt every word they use for their own purposes. I'm a writer and I do that. But I'm not a liberal, therefore I'm not co-opting words for liberal purposes.
You can buy or not buy any argument you want, but ad hominem argument isn't going to impress anyone else.
Now you know something useful. Arrogant asses have their place in society, too. :-)
I agree that there's nothing holy about killing preborn babies. But if the soul enters the body at birth and the preborn lack souls, there may not be anything unholy about terminating a pregnancy, either. That is a theological question which has two wellworn sides, and I need to point out to you that the Old Testament view is that the soul enters with a baby's first breath -- a view also propounded by many Christian church fathers throughout history.
Which is beside the point since at no point in my article did I suggest experimenting on human embryos.
I did suggest that cloning technology might protect the holiness of a marriage from adulteration by outsiders -- fertilization from sperm other than the husband's, donated ova, or even an adopted embryo -- and while cloning procedures enabling the keeping of reproduction within a marriage might be a new thought for you, I think my point is valid and my use of the term "holy" is not mere rhetoric without substance.
One more general point. I don't concern myself with who might be offended by my writing, whether they're religious or not. God is holy; religion, being a human handicraft, isn't.
Funny, and I think futile, argument. In the first sentence, try substituting the words "adopted by" with "born to". In the second, replace "adopts" with "produces", and "a child from a non-musical family" with "a non-musical child".
Mother Nature is funny this way, and these things happen far more often than you probably think. This particular excerpt hit me rather personally. I am a musician, and have worked over the decades playing in orchestras which have included many musician couples. Sometimes, a child of such unions follows in the parental footsteps, but more often not. Of two couples I can think of who had 5 and 6 children respectively, not one of the 11 had more than a dabbling interest in music, let alone pursuing it as a career. Of all the offspring I can think of from some 25-odd couples I've known where both parents were musicians, only about three that I'm aware of are still actively musicians today, and a small handful of others stuck with music lessons beyond high school and sometimes still play at an amateur level. A wide range of occupations and diverse talents are represented by the rest. Two other musician couples I knew, incidentally, gave birth to deaf children.
I would bet that with musicians of as reknowned stature as Joshua Bell, a similar, seemingly random pattern is evident.
Oh yes, my "altered" version of your first sentence, by the way, describes me to a tee. My parents saw no value in music lessons for me at age four, because I had no exposure to any musical instrument till age eight, at school. But when that happened, there was absolutely no turning back. I brought music home and "introduced" it to my tin-ear parents, who were left wondering whose kid could have got switched with theirs at the hospital. (I look too much like them for that to be a possibility, though!)
You wrote, "The psalmist says that God knew me before I was born"
That sounds to me that God knew your soul before your soul entered flesh, and that interpretation is compatible with your statement that God wasn't referring to knowing "a clump of cells." We're now back to asking when the soul enters flesh, before the first breath or with it.
You wrote, "Thou shall not kill."
Mistranslation from the King James. The original Hebrew is translated: "You shall not murder." Hebrew has different words for "kill" and "murder" and the word for "murder" is used here, and nowhere in the Old Testament is "murder" used to refer to causing a woman to lose an unborn child. Nor is the word "kill" for that matter.
You continued,"The fetus is a human, and it is alive. If you kill it, you have broken God's commandment."
Citation, please, where the Old Testament uses either "murder" or "kill" with respect to the unborn.
Where you really destroy your argument is citing Exodus 21:22-24, which punishes a fight causing a woman to miscarry with a fine, but applies further penalties "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" only for harm done to her.
I note that none of your further citations are from the four Gospels, so I'll leave it that Jesus didn't find abortion worth commenting on directly.
Okay, why don't you just stop beating around the bush and come out and say that you don't like any of this research and you think all of it should be banned out right? With this definition, you've ruled out any multiplication of any human cells at all, including adult stem cells, adult organ cells, and the cells from underneath your toenails - any experiment that involves replicating any human cells in any sort of artificial way is rendered out of bounds by your sweepingly broad definition here....
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