SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
Posted on 10/20/2004 10:42:20 AM PDT by MisterRepublican
Michael J. Fox is a famous TV and movie star. He is witty. He is charming. A few years ago, we learned he has Parkinson's disease.
PD is a slowly progressive neurological disorder, characterized by tremors, shuffling gait, a masklike facial expression, "pill rolling" of the fingers, drooling, intolerance to heat, oily skin, emotional instability and defective judgment (although intelligence is rarely impaired).
PD is currently incurable, although there are several methods to slow its advancement, including drug therapy and surgery.
PD is tragic, particularly in Fox's case, because it rarely afflicts persons under 60 years old.
Yet everyone faces tragedy at one time or another, in one form or another. A person's moral fiber is revealed in tragedy.
So we learned through Fox's affliction that he has either extremely poor judgment or a diabolical character flaw. He supports human embryonic stem-cell experimentation, thus contending that some humans are subhuman and expendable for others' personal gain.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
He hasn't lived in Canada since he was a child.
"A person's moral fiber is revealed in tragedy."
One of life's truisms.
> 'Parting' people out makes as much sense as killing them out of convenience.
Indeed so. Clearly, organ donation is a Commie conspiracy.
> Once human life gets devalued to a certain point, all sorts of rationale can be ginned up for committing homicide.
Yup. Just *look* at all those people being kidnapped off our streets and chopped up for their hearts and kidneys.
No, only the stem cells, with a side of onion rings.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
Yup.
I think that he means to use it in the context of: To Cannibalize.
You know, funny you should ask this question, because I was just thinking about it today. I'm quite pro life, and have believed for a while now that if one takes even a fertilized egg (much less an embryo) and "experiments" on it, it's murder. Just today however, I began to examine this issue in detail and the only possible "grey area" I could think of would be IVF, or in vitro fertilization.
I realized one could argue the following: Ok, you say it's murder to kill a fertilized egg or embryo in the womb, but what about something done simply in a petri dish? Why would that be murder, since it was something completely done outside the body? In other words, what makes something like THAT a "human being"?
After pondering that question for a while, I came to the following conclusion: Sexual intercourse is something humans "do", and sometimes results in fertilization, therefore, if one believes that a developing fertilized egg (and later an embryo) inside a woman's womb is a baby, then why not the same "thing" made outside a womb? Both are done by humans to fertilize an egg, the only difference is that one of the processes is more fun than the other. ;) Also, simply because it's "outside a womb" doesn't mean it's any less a human being than the fertilized egg inside the womb, just like a premature baby isn't any less a baby simply because it's not in the womb anymore.
This "argument" is, of course, only going to be valid for someone who believes that life begins at conception already, so that has to be taken into consideration, but I think for someone who is adamantly pro life (like me) it's helpful.
Also, this does not necessarily preclude using IVF as a tool to help a couple get pregnant. If there is a couple that is adamantly pro life, and yet wants to use IVF then it's still perfectly acceptable to do so, as long as they ensure that only one of the woman's eggs are used at a time, thus ensuring that there aren't any "left behind" embryos. I must admit, I'm not entirely familiar with the IVF process, thus I'm not sure if any fertility doctors practice such a technique, but from a medical/scientific standpoint, it wouldn't be very difficult to separate the eggs, I wouldn't think.
Briefly, as for the "donating eggs and sperm" question, eggs and sperm aren't human beings by any stretch of the imagination, so anything done with them is perfectly morally acceptable, imo. Just as long as they aren't allowed to "join" to produce massive quantities of embryos with no wombs to house them, that is.
The embryos used in research are not suffering in the slightest, but that doesn't seem to make any difference to the anti-stem cell research extremists.
Sorry about your Dad, but...
Oh, yes, I am going to add the Kerryesque but...
How much he or you or anybody else suffered is simply not relevant to the question.
To come to a rational decision on the question of Embryonic Stem Cell research, you only need to answer the question of whether or not the embryos are to be valued as human life.
If the answer is no, if human embryos are too primitive or too unlike born human beings to merit protection, then the rational position is that they should be used for everything or anything. For lifesaving therapy, cutting edge research or as a salad garnish, it matters not. Motive doen't matter because it is being set against something that has no value.
If, on the other hand, the answer is yes, that human embryos are human life and merit protection, then to say they should be utilized for very important research or to alleve great suffering is no more valid than proposing to use toddlers for the same purpose. It is a utilitarian argument about human life that says some lives are worth more than others, or that it is worth it to sacrifice some human life for great gain. This type of argument should, even must, be an anathma to any civilized human being.
"Indeed so. Clearly, organ donation is a Commie conspiracy."
As a matter of fact it is in China, where they shoot people exactly for that purpose. That's a subtle yet meaningful distinction you might have missed.
Whoa! This is way over the line. Shame.
Fertilizing just one egg from an IVF cycle is certainly technically possible, but would be preposterously expensive due to the low success rate per embryo. Even in natural conception in perfectly healthy women with no fertility problems, most fertilized eggs will never develop into a baby. Per-embryo success rates are actually higher with IVF, due to control over what day the embryo lands in the uterus, as well as quite a lot of control over the woman's hormone levels at the time of the transfer; but much of the success lies in fertilizing a large number of eggs, and then waiting to see which ones survive long enough to be transferred back into the woman. Even those that make it to that stage have less than a 50% chance of turning into a baby; and the ones that didn't last that long had no chance at all if they had been transferred earlier.
The cost of a cycle would be the same if only one egg were fertilized after whatever number were retrieved (since the same amount of drugs would be used, and the same procedures). Telling a couple they can only fertilize one would result in the need for around 10 times as many cycles, putting the cost of actually having a baby this way out of the reach of all but the wealthiest couples (since obviously no insurance company going to finance this approach).
Embryos at this stage cannot rationally be considered "babies", for the simple reasons that 1) very few would ever have become real babies under any circumstances, and 2) they are still at a stage where they can be split into two or more developing embryos, or can merge into one developing embryo (these processes can happen naturally or artificially, though artificial splitting is not currently legal).
China does it...need a kindey a heart a liver a lung you name it they got it...
Parts is Parts
Cannibalize an engine for parts...cannibalize a human bean...just gotta dehumanize them a little
first..for the public relations part...its too bad you gotta smooze the rubes...but hey
Its just business..
I understand where you're coming from. Adult stem cell research I don't have a problem with. It's the embryonic I've got a problem with. BTW, my father is suffering from lung cancer. He was diagnosed with it on July 26, a day after I took both parents on vacation. There really isn't any cure for lung cancer yet. My oldest sibling died from lung cancer in 1999 and it's not easy watching my dad suffer from it either.
Here let me fix that for you: The embryos infants used in research are not suffering in the slightest, but that doesn't seem to make any difference to the anti-stem cell research extremists. To change the name to make something more palatable is very common, to desensitize people to what is actually taking place.
They also shoot people for complaining about their government. So I take it you'll councel against people who dislike Supreme Court rulings?
Just because the Commies go overboard with something doesn't mean we will. Harvesting medically useful bits and pieces - be they cells or organs - from the dead, be they embryos or adults, is not inheirently bad, nor is there necessarily a "slippery slope." The dead are dead, and not using their bodies won;t make them any less dead.
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.