Posted on 06/10/2004 2:21:32 AM PDT by MadIvan
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:39:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The nation should honor President Reagan by committing itself to finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, Rep. Chris Smith said yesterday, but not by using embryos for stem cell research.
Smith, R-Washington Township, who was first elected with Reagan in 1980, yesterday blasted those who have used Reagan's death on Saturday after a decade-long bout with Alzheimer's to advocate embryonic stem cell research.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
There is no distinction in the Declaration of Independence between men who are persons and those who are not - or those who have the right not to be killed and those who do not. And, as I've shown, the DOI is incorporporated in our Constitution as law. The Constitution did not specifically name only those which men are persons, it only named which persons are citizens. There is only a bias toward the rights of citizenship for those who are born or naturalized, not a discrimination between who has the right to live.
The heirarchy or pre-eminence of rights has always been life, liberty, and property - in that order. As long as there is life there is a possibility of liberty, etc., but there cannot be liberty without life. (Back to that discussion of necessary and sufficient)
It's too bad that you can't discriminate between the law concerning an unborn child in the womb of a woman and the unborn child in a laboratory, because the law obviously and currently does.
A dead man cannot benefit from liberty, tpaine. Only the living can.
Therefore, LIFE is the preeminent right, the single most basic right from which all other human rights justly flow.
I think this is what our Constitution says. Which is why I love and honor and try to uphold it.
Well said. It is beyond my ability to grasp why otherwise smart people can not wrap their arms around that undeniable fact.
With due respect, your position advocating the manufacture and harvesting of human life is obscene.
Is an acorn, or an appleseen, or any other type of seed generally considered to be "alive", in common terminology, before it germinates? Prior to germination, it's possible, in the right environment, for a seed to exist without changing or growing for a substantial length of time. Once a seed has germinated, however, it must from thenceforth either grow or perish.
I would liken a plant seed to a gasoline engine with a fuel pump, magneto-based ignition, a weak battery, and no alternator. As built, the motor contains everything necessary for operation except fuel; if fuel is present soon enough after the starter is activated, the motor will be run for a long time. If fuel is not supplied soon enough after starting, or if the fuel supply is ever discontinued, the motor will die and not be restartable. As shipped from the factory, the motor's static state contains everything necessary to allow the motor to operate once given fuel and activated. Once the motor is started, however, the kinetic energy of various parts of the motor becomes an essential part of its operation. If that kinetic energy is removed, even if no physical part of the motor is damaged, the motor will become useless. I would posit that a human zygote/embryo is somewhat similar. Initially upon fertilization, the static state of the embryo holds everything necessary to 'start it up'. Even if one removes the dynamic aspects of its state by freezing it in liquid nitrogen, the static aspects of its state will allow it to restart when it's thawed. Once the embryo has implanted, however, then the dynamic aspects of its state become critical and if they are ever lost, the embryo will die.
A newly-fertilized zygote or embryo contains everything necessary for growth in its 'static state'. It can be frozen in liquid N2 and remain so indefinitely, and yet later be thawed out and implanted, and develop into a birthable baby. The zygote/embryo at that stage contains everything necessary to start up all the life processes that will be required for full development, so even if essential processes are frozen the embryo can remain viable.
By the time the embryo has finished implanting, the 'static state' is no longer sufficient for life. Its dynamic state becomes critical. Once everything is in motion, it must remain so; some processes can be restarted if they stop briefly, but others cannot.
By what definition is an embryo sitting in a tube of liquid N2 "alive"? It does not grow, nor change, nor metabolize anything, nor reproduce itself. If it is thawed out, it will have the ability to do these things, but for the duration that it is frozen it will do none of them.
I would posit that the difficulty is with the notion that everything must be "alive" or "dead". I would posit that it is possible for something to be "viable" and yet not fully alive yet.
The seed may appear to be innert, but it's not. The embryo is carrying on a very slow metabolism within the seed. Eventually, if not planted in the proper environment, it will die.
The animal, including human, embryo, draws nutrients from the environment. The human embryo is never dormant - germination is immediate, from fertilization. If he or she is not in the proper environment, he or she will die, as we all would. The environment doesn't make the species.
Your analogy fails on the fact that the technicians who carry out IVF purposefully create the environment to enhance the growth of the embryo - at least for as long as they desire, in practical terms for at least 5 days. The limit is the wrong:
The responsibility of the ones who bring the oocyte and spermatocyte together in order to cause fertilization is to ensure the best conditions and environment possible for the nascent human being, without a limit, and certainly without a planned death.
Compassionate?! How anyone can speak of compassion and the killing of defenseless humans in the same breath confounds me.
What reason is there to expect better results from embryonic stem cells than those which are being obtained from umbilical stem cells or others derived from non-embryonic sources?
Which is easier to carve a sculpture out of: newly-mixed Jello@reg, or Jello® that's had a chance to set? The newly-mixed Jello@reg; is far more adaptable to fit any desired shape, but is so inclined to adapt by itself that it's impossible to carve. The Jello® that has set is still highly conformable, but is much more workable because it's more prone to hold its shape.
One thing I've sometimes wondered: if one were to put some sort of physical (not genetically reproduceable) marker on the chromosomes of a mouse zygote, where would those chromosomes end up? It seems to be that early gestational development serves to build a 'scaffold' within which the 'real' organism will develop. Although the scaffolding shares the same genetic code as the developing organism within, they are separate and distinct entities which separate from each other at birth.
Suppose a lab technician takes an embryo with one healthy X chromosome and one defective one, and the lab technician removes the defective chromosome and adds a healthy Y chromosome. Has any human being been created or destroyed?
Would it make any difference if the original genetic defect was such as to render the original embryo completely non-viable (except via such genetic repair)?
What if the original genetic defect was such that the original embryo could not be born naturally but could be prenatally operated upon so as to be viable?
Yep, and the best environment is one of liberty. one in which a person has a right to live their life free of unwarranted government control over there most precious property, their own body. In such a land, if they were to abort, a jury of peers would be required in order to find them guilty of murder. --- Sound familiar? -- Its the american way.
The heirarchy or pre-eminence of rights has always been life, liberty, and property - in that order.
Sorry, but you made that one up. There is no "hierarchy".
As long as there is life there is a possibility of liberty, etc., but there cannot be liberty without life. (Back to that discussion of necessary and sufficient).
And, imo, there can be no life without liberty, -- either.
You and Betty were discussing pre-eminence. The pre-eminence or heirarchy is a logic experiment, I'll admit. However, it is obvious that there can be life - although an enslaved life - without liberty. Those who are enslaved are obviously alive and those who have been enslaved and then freed would probably agree that their life was necessary for their freedom to mean anything.
My impression was that embryos have been frozen for years and later thawed and found to be viable. Yes, the environment is artificial, but I don't think an embryo frozen in liquid N2 is going to be metabolizing much of anything.
BTW, if I might use an analogy which will severely date me and very few people will understand, does the code stored in the $B600 ROM or on the sector of the first track on an Apple ][+ floppy constitute part of the operating system?
On startup, a normally-configured Apple ][+ will execute code at $C600; this code will create a data translation table in RAM, move the drive head to track 0, and read the first sector of the floppy into address $800-$8FF. The code in this sector will in turn read in code from the next few sectors (the boot-ROM code is so tight there's no room to even include a sector loop; the first-sector code can take advantage of the fact that the boot ROM set up the data transation tables and homed the drive head, so it can afford the loop to read the rest of the code.
Once the Apple ][+ has loaded the first sector, the code at $C600 will never be used again until the system is rebooted. Once the OS as a whole is loaded, the first-sector code will not be executed again until the system is rebooted. So do these bits of code constitute part of the "operating system" of a running system?
I would posit that the multi-step process of gestation is in some ways like the multi-step OS load on the Apple. A "bootstrapper" is prepared (roughly equivalent to the amniotic sac and placenta), then the bootstrapper prepares the rest of the OS, sharing memory with it (roughly equivalent to the way the amniotic sac and placenta protect and feed the developing fetus with which they share the womb), and finally the bootstrapper is discarded (as are the placenta and amniotic sac after birth).
Therefore, LIFE is the preeminent right, the single most basic right from which all other human rights justly flow.
Very well said, betty boop! I agree!
Actually, my friend, the individual conceived builds the first organ that sustains his or her life through gestation, the placenta. The organ is discarded at birth, but it is an organ of the individual conceived.
I was speaking of seeds of plants, not of the embryo of humans, and definitely not speaking about the artificial state of stasis due to freezing. I'll admit that I don't know or understand the computer code analogy, but I do understand stasis as in the frozen embryos and the function of the placenta and umbilical cord.
The embryo in stasis is alive, otherwise we would truly be creating life on thawing him. Instead, the living processes -both generative and degenerative - are halted by freezing. But, this is not a natural process, it's an intervention by humans, and those who act to interfere in such a way must do everything in their power to return the embryo to safety. Some would say that the act of freezing the embryo is in itself an act of aggression that is not allowed because of the danger to the life in the freezing and thawing processes.
The placenta and umbilical cord are specialized tissues that are used for a given time and sloughed off. The spleen functions in one way in the fetus and infant and another way later. The appendix is apparently always useless in humans. None of these facts have any thing at all to do with the right not to be killed that all humans possess.
If anything, the placenta is more analogous to the mouth, lungs, and kidneys of the child after birth. The "program" is in the DNA of all the cells, from the zygote to the placenta and body of the infant, and to the somatic cells of the adult. At any given time, some cells have some of the program "booted" and others are dormant, while other cells will have different configurations. The same cells will boot different sections of the program at different times as well. None of the program is discarded by design.
It is at least interference in the LIBERTY of the embryo, is it not? What right does someone have to halt the living processes of someone else by freezing him, without his consent, and without any due process?
Cordially,
Exactly.
The Libertarians for Life Library covers the aggression against the unborn very well in several of the essays.
http://www.l4l.org/library/index.html
The child is not self-creating, in other words, he or she did not aggress against his mother, even in nature and especially in the case of cloning and IVF. However, anyone - mother or decanting technician - who acts in such a way as to put the child in harm's way is aggressing against him or her. If there is a move to infringe on his/her right not to be killed, that should be treated in the same way that any other act is treated: to protect the life of the one threatened using as little force as necessary. In other words, "First, do no harm."
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