". They can say that humans whose skins are black are subhuman, and fit only for slavery ."
We'll leave aside the obvious straw man here, and just say that those laws WERE changed; as their injustice was obvious to all, save a few. No such injustice exists here, in the minds of a vast majority.
"They can say that humans of Jewish extraction are subhuman, and fit only for slave labor, followed by gassing ... and have."
Ahh, the tired-but-expected "Nazi" reference, without which NO thread, on ANY topic, would be complete. It is so worn now as to be useless, but in any case, that was Germany, not the U.S., and to compare the Holocaust to a search for remedies to disease, using embryonic cells (as opposed to humans) is worlds apart.
"And they can say that it's peachy to conceive a human embryo and kill it for spare parts."
Nice hyperbole, but the issue is quite a bit more complex than this slogan. It is less emotional, too. First, there is no chance of the embryo being born, or becoming human. None. Thus, it is not being "killed", "murdered", or any OTHER loaded word. Second, the concept is quite "peachy" to those whose lives would be lengthened or improved by the knowledge gained. Just who decides the priority here?
"All the laws in the world can't make something that is wrong into something that is right. Until we recognize that, we are only going to find ourselves in more and more serious trouble, as a nation, and as a culture"
As the title says, spare me the sermon. I do not and will not believe this is the threat you paint it as.
You don't, so you'll not be convinced. Some of us who do, see a grave danger of the harvesting of embryos (read: human beings) for experimentation.
You either believe it, or you don't.
If you don't, there's a gap we'll never be able to bridge.
What if it is my daughters "eggs" that are someday deemed worthy of harvest?
What if it is yours? Will they have the right to decide whethor or not they wish to "donate"?
Organs are currently being purchased from desparate poverty stricken people in South America by wealthy people in need of a kidney transplant.In China, they are just taken.
Adult stem cells and discarded placenta provide all the tools for research needed at this point.We do not yet even have a morally or medically ethical distribution system for available donor organ transplants.
Ethics need not be tied to religion to be morally vallid.It is not required that ethics entirely ignore religion, or spirituality, to be vallid.
That some of the finest minds in the world struggle over the ethics of stem cell research, should send a few flags up to the general public, that ethics relating to potential and existing human life, the science of medicine, and what is actually possible and ethical, as opposed to what is theoretical and unexplored ethically,is not a yes/no vote, at this point.
It is not as if the "cure" is currently available,but denied the public by power or wealth seeking individuals or groups.Ethical research alternatives exist today, and there is no need to ignore those resources at this point in the research phase.
Wrong. Every embryo is human. What else could they be? Spinach? Sponges?
These embryos are dead babies -- nothing more, nothing less. They should be given Christian burial, not hacked to bits to provide spare parts for other people.
Better a long, lingering painful death from some horrible disease than one minute of extra life at the price of human blood. There are worse things that can happen to a man than disease and dying.