Couples Cull Embryos to Halt Heritage of Cancer

NY Times ^ | 09.03.06 | AMY HARMON

[Coleus]

As Chad Kingsbury watches his daughter playing in the sandbox behind their suburban Chicago house, the thought that has flashed through his mind a million times in her two years of life comes again: Chloe will never be sick.

Not, at least, with the inherited form of colon cancer that has devastated his family, killing his mother, her father and her two brothers, and that he too may face because of a genetic mutation that makes him unusually susceptible.

By subjecting Chloe to a genetic test when she was an eight-cell embryo in a petri dish, Mr. Kingsbury and his wife, Colby, were able to determine that she did not harbor the defective gene. That was the reason they selected her, from among the other embryos they had conceived through elective in vitro fertilization, to implant in her mother’s uterus.

Prospective parents have been using the procedure, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., for more than a decade to screen for genes certain to cause childhood diseases that are severe and largely untreatable.

Now a growing number of couples like the Kingsburys are crossing a new threshold for parental intervention in the genetic makeup of their offspring: They are using P.G.D. to detect a predisposition to cancers that may or may not develop later in life, and are often treatable if they do.

For most parents who have used preimplantation diagnosis, the burden of playing God has been trumped by the near certainty that diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia will afflict the children who carry the genetic mutation that causes them.

[orionblamblam]

It amuses *me* that you failed to answer the question.

What "natural process" brings a test-tube-baby to term? Seems to me there'd be some artificiality involved. But tell us... what's the "natural" process?

[jwalsh07]

Believe as you wish.

OK, thanks for the permission.

[orionblamblam]

> Only to loons ...

I'm still waiting for some sort of cogent arguement from you. One that doesn't contain childish attempts at put-downs.

[jwalsh07]

The natural process is called.....

Drum roll.....

Pregnancy.

Unless you think a Doctor implanting an embryo in the uterine wall is a supernatural process you are once again digging ever deeper. Dig away Sir Techno!

[jwalsh07]

I'm still waiting for some sort of cogent arguement from you.

This from the dandruff re-animator? LOL. Perhaps it's time for you take a break. You're not doing to well here against an average guy. If somebody sharp shows up who recognizes the garbage you are selling you could be in big trouble.

[syriacus]

Because all [non-human] forms of life are "lower".

Bingo!!

The essent�ial question is

Why do some embryonic stem cell researchers want to tinker with human embryos specifically?

The answer is: Because they know that human embryos grow to be bigger humans, rather than bigger cats or dogs or cows .

Human embryos are not merely potentially human.

Human embryos are essentially human.

If someone traded non-human embryos for human embryos in an ESCR lab, the researchers would become very agitated. !!

If the non-human embryos were equivalent to the human embryos, the researchers would not care.

As you so aptly pointed out...human embryos are different than other embryos.

They are a treasure that should not be destroyed.

[syriacus]

Stating that an embryo contains a small child is not an analogy. It is a falsehood.

Of course it's a falsehood. Anyone knows that.

[syriacus]

few people aruge that cat embryos deserve moral or legal protection.

Exactly. That's my point.

[syriacus]

Human embryos

So precious that researchers demand hundreds of them

Human embryos

Not precious enough to deserve to live

[jas3]

I was not a kangaroo nor an ostrich nor a human, nor were you

LOL. What can one say to this scientific pronouncement? I'm speechless but still curious, just what the hell species did you belong to?

I may have "belonged to" a specific species without being a member of it. For example, a human kidney belongs to the human species without being a human. A cadaver belongs to the human species without being a human. And a blastosphere belongs to the human species without being a human.

jas3

[jas3]

few people aruge that cat embryos deserve moral or legal protection.

Exactly. That's my point.

It is my point too, but for a different reason.

jas3

[orionblamblam]

> Unless you think a Doctor implanting an embryo in the uterine wall is a supernatural process

It's an *artificial* process. It's not any more natural than using the DNA from a skin cell to clone the original organism.

But apparently you think that pregnancy naturally involves cells leaping through the air under their own power from test tubes to Fallopian tubes. Rather remarkable.

Thanks for playing.

[jas3]

Human embryos
So precious that researchers demand hundreds of them

The measure of "precious-ness" is not whether or not researchers demand hundreds of them or not. Researchers demand trillians of molecules of hydrogcarbons, but they are not precious. Generally "precious-ness" is inversely correlated with supply.

jas3

[orionblamblam]

> And a blastosphere belongs to the human species without being a human.

Don't confuse the poor lad. He thinks that cells being mixed in a test tube and surgically implanted are a "natural" part of pregnancy. Understanding the difference between a blastosphere and a human... well, that's asking too much.

[jwalsh07]

Bzzzzt! Try again. A kidney isn't an organism. An embryo is an organism belonging to the human species. An embryo isn't dead, a cadaver is dead. Stop practicing alchemy. Your arguments are humorous but tiresome. They are neither scientific nor factual though the lengths you go to in order to deny the humanness of human embryo's can be very amusing.

[jas3]

Is that why so few scientists are opposed to IVF and to destroying fertilized embryos?

Not really. One can take an honest position, acknowledge that embryo's are nascent human life and still advocate killing them for utilitarian purposes. I don't agree with that postition morally but at least it is a scientifically honest one. The crap you and the other clown are selling is simply dishonest bs.

You see the difference?

Actually you'll be pleased to hear that I am not selling anything. The question which I came to this thread to help answer for myself was "does a blastosphere" deserve moral or legal protection and why? The answer which I've resolved for myself is that I don't consider a colletion of 7 cells to be a human. But I would attach legal protection to those cells at implantation.

A blastosphere is not a human. Do YOU see the difference between a blastosphere and an infant? I think not.

jas3

[jas3]

Do you know what alchemy means?

jas3

[syriacus]

The Darker Side of Slogans

I'm glad I'm not an embryo, growing on a plate.
I was treated better in the past, than humans are of late.
"Life enhancement",
"Man's advancement"
Can elevate...

...or just sedate.

[jwalsh07]

LOL, you're a clown. There are no artificial embryo's extant that I'm aware of. Did you make a breakthrough in the field of alchemy? Synonyms for artificial are words like synthetic and simulated.

So is the ensuing pregancy synthetic or simulated?

Thanks for playing? LOL, you're not even in the game pal.

[jas3]

They are a treasure that should not be destroyed.

Or, an alternative view is that they might develop into a treasure that should not be destroyed, but until they do, they are not yet worthy of moral or legal protection.

jas3