There will always be gray area. Deal with it.
Children get diseases and need treatment. Until a treatment or medication has been tried on some of them, we'll never know if it works. Some conditions only exist in childhood (or even only in utero), since the conditions kill their victims at an early age, so the only opportunity to experiment with treatments is on children. Should we never try an experimental treatment on a child with a deadly condition, because the child is incapable of consent? Should good faith efforts to try to find a cure or improvement for a condition leave doctors and researchers subject to prison time and/or multi-million dollar liability judgements?
Gee, the last time I heard a response like that, Clinton was in the White House, and I was conversing with one of his minions.
"Should we never try an experimental treatment on a child with a deadly condition, because the child is incapable of consent?"
It depends.
It depends on what the "experimental treatment" is.
This thread is a thread about the use of embryonioc stem cells as a means of conducting research into possible new cures for diseases such as Parkinsons.
In order to harvest embryonic stem cells, human embryos must be killed.
I would never support research that involved the intentional destruction of human life in order for it to be conducted.
You, on the other hand, seem to support exactly that.
You have said, for instance, that parents of born human children who are "profoundly retarded" should have the legal right to allow those children to be killed in the name of medical research.
I find that barbaric.
I note that your screenname has to do with shrinking Government. I am all in favor of shrinking Government, too.
However, along with the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I believe that all humans are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, among them Life. And that Governments are institutted among men to secure those rights.
I would hate to see the day when Government failed to protect Life -- mine, yours, or even the profoundly retarded.