Human Cloning

FreeRepublic ^ | 4/24/2003 | Marvin Galloway

[RS]

"The embryo is genetically human and alive or it's not. "

... and since YOUR definition of alive appears to be that of an egg that now has the potential to divide ( vs. an egg that does not ) your circular logic works well.

[RS]

Just a thought-

"On the genetic level, although the chimpanzee genome has not yet been decoded, scientists have long known from sampling bits of it that chimp DNA is 98.7 percent identical with human DNA. If just the genes are compared, the similarity increases to 99.2 percent. "

So it's just fine to work on something that is .8% "less human" ?
Wonder what happens if you change a different .8% ?
Maybe the human has different physical characteristics ?
Is it OK to work on that person ?

[MHGinTN]

If/when the 'egg' divides, it is no longer an egg ... but you knew that, you're just trying to obfuscate, trying to create a 'reasonable doubt' that an individual human embryo is in fact an individual human being at that individual's earliest age along the continuum that is its lifetime as it expresses its individuality, its uniqueness. Science tells us that there is no 'reasonable doubt'. The tests devised by scientists, in which they test the amniotic fluids of the individual (not the mother, the individual that built the placenta and filled the sac), those tests work as predicters for the individual because the tests are dealing with an already alive, self-expressing individual human being at the age of embryo, or fetus.

[snowstorm12]

If skin cells really were the same as humans, we'd all have little humans growing off of our bodies.

If embryos were really the same as humans, we'd all have little humans growing out of petri dishes. If an embryo was really a human it would not need a growth incubator. An embryo, sperm, egg, somatic cell will never give rise to a human unless all conditions are met.

I never claimed a somatic cell was a little human. I'm claiming all are not human beings are merely potential human beings. An embryo is further along in that potential, but not much. It is my opinion that both are almost identically morally equivalent.

[MD_Willington_1976]

Not to scare you or your family but...

A few years back I read an article either online or in a medical magazine, in the article there were some physicians who were looking for people who had growth hormone treatment done in the 70's. The reason being is that there was a possibility that the hormones derived from the cadavers could possibly be carrying the disease that is similar to "Mad Cow" disease for humans called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an invariably fatal brain diseases with unusually long incubation periods measured in years. The article also mentioned that the CJD was discovered in growth hormone treatments with lot #'s that originated in Germany.

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/bse/cjdqa.htm

[snowstorm12]

An embryo is human and it is alive, but it isn't a human being.

let me ask you this question.
if it was possible, and someone took cells from your liver and they just began differentiating into a new liver, would you call it an organ or potential organ?

[MHGinTN]

I never claimed a somatic cell was a little human. I'm claiming all are not human beings are merely potential human beings. An embryo is further along in that potential, but not much. It is my opinion that both are almost identically morally equivalent. Ahh, so the crib-bound infant is merely a 'potential' for a full human being since that infant must have further conditions to reach puberty, for instance.

[MHGinTN]

...if it was possible, and someone took cells from your liver and they just began differentiating into a new liver ... That's 'magic thinking', very antithetical to science. If someone figures out how to manipulate the liver cells into producing a liver organ, that is science; if the liver cell just starts differentiating, that is magic.

[syriacus]

An embryo is further along in that potential, but not much

• If you implant an embryo in a womb you get a human.
• If you implant a skin cell in a womb you don't get a human.

The difference in outcomes tells us a lot.

[MHGinTN]

Thank you very much for mentioning that. Before my son and his lovely wife got pregnant, they wanted to know the likelihood of their child inheriting CJD, so my son was tested and found to not have CJD lurking. we went through that scare more than six years ago. I have a most beautiful and wonderful granddaughter named Jenny Alexis.

[syriacus]

So it's just fine to work on something that is .8% "less human" ?

I think it is morally okay to work (in certain ways) on something that is not human. Do you think it is okay?

[syriacus]

Maybe the human has different physical characteristics ? Is it OK to work on that person ?

Have they found any humans who are different enough that they don't have human cells?

Shouldn't a capable scientist, who examines the cells from a human, and compares them to the cells from a chimpanzee, be able to tell the difference? Isn't it true that all humans are more like each other than they are like the chimps?

Of course the scientist could save himself some trouble by just looking at the full scale human and the chimp, because they look different at that level, too.

So we are left with the thought that, to biologists, humans and chimps are different at the submicroscopic level and the full-scale level.

Mother nature even knows the difference. Which is the reason that human-chimp hybrids aren't too common. (Until scientists succeed in creating such hybrids, anyway.)

[RS]

"If/when the 'egg' divides, it is no longer an egg"

OK.. we have your opinion at least quantified - an egg that has been fertilized, but not yet accomplished it's first division, is to you still an egg.

( which allows the use of the "morning after pill")

... and an egg that has been convinced to divide via chemical means is an example of the creation of life by non-living material.

interesting

[RS]

"I think it is morally okay to work (in certain ways) on something that is not human. Do you think it is okay?"

Fine by me - I don't even care what others do with their own body parts, including embryos.

[MHGinTN]

You're so full of sh!t, it's amazing! An ovum is alive as a cell. Only God derives life from the lifeless. What a Maroon you're proving yourself to be ...

[RS]

Ahh ...the personal attack... the sign of an enlightened mind...

So the ovum is human life ?
I thought human life did not start until it is fertilized and splits.

[MHGinTN]

Interesting, you admit you've been mistaken. There is hope, perhaps.

[RS]

"Interesting, you admit you've been mistaken. There is hope, perhaps."

I plead to being misinformed ... by you ... in post 103

So does that mean the morning after pill is OK or not OK ?
.. since the egg has not split -

[MHGinTN]

Do you really know so little about the subject? Are you really unaware that the first cell divides within hours and the zygote may contain as many as a couple hundred cells by the time it reaches the uterine environ? Didn't you know the 'morning after' pills is actually several, in some cases, and that the action is designed to cause the uterine lining to become 'unsupportive' to the zygote when it arrives, alive, to try and implant itself in the uterine lining? Nice try though ...

[RS]

So your answer is no ? .. but it would be perfectly fine if it acted before the first split.

Kind of wondering why you use the technical terms instead of simply using "unborn child"
Zogote, embryo, fetus, bioclast and all the rest are kind of de-humanizing since every animal goes through these stages, don't you think ?