Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Other People's Body Parts

Let's go get 'em ping.

BTTT

I agree with both claims.

We must realize and admit that there were scientists back then who had no qualms with creating and discarding embryonic human individuals, and their values guided the careful manipulation of public understanding, causing the people to tacitly accept the values of the scientists without weighing those values against our founding values ... our tacit accpetance led to the values of the scientists becoming the expressed values of this nation! Will we also allow cannibalism to be the expressed value of this nation? MHGinTN

But I would ~~move~~ INCLUDE the ~~focus~~ ~~off of scientists~~ ~~and~~ ~~onto the~~ true movers and shakers. RightWhale

Evidence for MHGinTNs' claim.

Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity In addition to the ascendancy of biological determinism, an important step in legitimizing the killing of the weak, the infirm, the terminally ill, and the incompetent was the shift in ethos among medical doctors and psychiatrists several decades prior to WWII. Historian Robert Proctor has argued persuasively that the Nazi experiment was rooted in pre-1933 thinking about the essence of personhood, racial hygienics and survival economics and that physicians were instrumental both in pioneering research and in carrying out this program. In fact, Proctor is adamant that scientists and physicians were pioneers and not pawns in this process. By 1933, however, when political power was consolidated by National Socialists, resistance within the medical community was too late. Proctor notes, for example, that most of the fifteen-odd journals devoted to racial hygienics were established long before the rise of National Socialism.

Rebecca Messall -- The Evolution of Genocide My greatest mistake as a pro-life person was in thinking Roe v. Wade arrived by itself. I didn't want to link abortion to other controversial subjects, which scared or confused me, detracting from the obvious atrocity of butchering a living, unborn child. Because of my narrow focus, I ignored the horrific world-view and the socio-political-financial machinery fueling abortion.

I realized that evolution by natural selection has been the fundamental pro-life issue since Darwin himself. His argument that biologically inferior people threaten to deprive intellectually superior people of food and resources established a scientific-sounding rationale for genocide, which is used today by the abortion-based population control and family planning establishments, as well as others bent to this day on improving the race by laboratory methods.

The "Baby Doctor," Benjamin Spock, On Darwin And MoralityDr. Spock concluded that this moral blindness that produced many of our modern social problems was the direct result of modern secular teachings resulting from Darwinism, Freudianism, and other humanistic philosophies. In Spock's own words, the major reason for our most serious social problems was the weakening of the influence of religion that resulted especially from the influence of Darwinism and our increasingly secular society:

How Does the World View of the Scientist & the Clinician Influence Their Work? Does the world view of the scientist influence his work as an investigator conducting research and as a clinician treating patients? Many scholars in the history of science would answer that question with a resounding "Yes." Some, like Thomas Kuhn in his widely quoted "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," have argued that the scientific process is less than an objective critical empirical investigation of the facts. They claim the work of scientists is greatly influenced by their culture, by social and psychological environment, by what Kuhn calls the "paradigm"--that is to say, the preferred or prevailing theories, methods and studies of that particular discipline, and above all by their world view--their specific beliefs about "the order of nature." Kuhn writes that two scientists with different views of the "order of nature" . . . see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction . . . they see different things and they see them in different relations to each other." And we might add that they tend to see and to accept those data that conform to or make sense in light of their world view. So evidence exists that the world view of scientists and the presuppositions that view implies may influence not only the problems scientists choose to investigate but also what they actually observe and fail to observe.

Gallup Poll Special Reports - Public Opinion About Abortion -- An ... The sharp difference between religious and non-religious Americans is even more apparent when their support for abortion is collapsed into the two summary categories: those who favor abortion in all or most cases and those who favor it in only a few cases or no cases. Two thirds of very religious Americans (68%) think abortion should be legal in few or no cases, almost exactly the same as the percentage of non-religious Americans who think abortion should be legal in all or most cases (71%).

Effect of Darwinism on Morality and ChristianityHistorians have documented meticulously the fact that Darwinism has had a devastating impact, not only on Christianity, but also on theism. Many scientists also have admitted that the acceptance of Darwinism has convinced large numbers of people that the Genesis account of creation is erroneous, and that this has caused the whole house of theistic cards to tumble:

If the Bible was wrong in the very first chapter of Genesis, then the veracity of the entire enterprise was called into question. Evolution was not just a scientific idea, it was a bombshell . . . welcomed by atheists, feared by theists

Is this pessimistic, antitheistic, and nihilistic view of humans widespread? One researcher claimed that "ninety-nine percent of the scientists whom I met in my career . . . support the view expressed by Dawkins [that anyone] . . . who denies evolution is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked" (Rörsch, p. F3). This oft'made claim is totally false: an estimated 10,000 scientists in the USA and about 100,000 creation scientists in the world reject Darwinism, and hold instead to a creation worldview (Bergman).

Darwin and the Descent of Morality Quite aside from Darwinism as science, which it is not, Darwinism itself leads directly and inevitably to Social Darwinism, an extremely destructive philosophy with suitably destructive social impacts -- impacts that have become increasingly apparent in our culture in recent decades with the rising dominance of Darwinism in our public schools.

It is a costly pity that we as a culture have not achieved the clarity of thought and found th courage to say to Darwinism, simply, "Show me", and if it cannot, "Get out of the classroom!" It hasn't (shown us), it won't and it cannot, Folks. When do we give this scientific quackery a decent burial? 1 posted on 11/28/2001 10:21 PM CST by Phaedrus

What's Wrong With the Science Establishment? The American Eugenics Society outlasted the other eugenics groups and, in late 1972, decided to change its name to Society for the Study of Social Biology (SSSB).* This group still exists; it is an affiliate of one of the key science groups; and many of its members still pursue traditional eugenics areas such as population control and genetics. Yet the Society's current president recently claimed that "the whole concept of eugenics is as foreign and distasteful to us as it is to anyone else."4 He and other Society leaders declare that the group now has nothing to do with eugenics. To call such statements puzzling would be a vast understatement.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science ("the Association" or AAAS) is the prestigious group that in 1975 accepted the Society for the Study of Social Biology as an affiliate.

Established in the 1840s, when science in the United States was a tiny enterprise, the Association now has a staff of 300, includes nearly 300 scientific and engineering societies as affiliates, and claims about 140,000 individual members. One need not be a laboratory scientist, or an engineer, in order to join; the group also accepts "science educators, policymakers, and interested citizens." Perhaps more "interested citizens" should join and keep an eye on what this powerful group does. It is deeply involved in science education, as Rebecca Messall noted, and it also has substantial influence on Congress. Its large headquarters is conveniently based in Washington, D.C. Besides its lobbying operation, AAAS has eight fellowship programs that place scientists and engineers on congressional staffs and in governmental agencies such as the State Department.5

Alan Guttmacher, the physician who led Planned Parenthood and had been vice president of the American Eugenics Society, certainly agreed. Advocating "the wisdom of carrying out safe non-discriminatory abortion," he said it would lead to "a rather dramatic drop in birth rate," and declared that: "We must become pragmatists. In order to meet the population problem, we have to overcome some of our squeamish ethical concepts."

THE HUMAN LIFE REVIEW The Posthumous Application of Negative Eugenics

Ironically, it was Donohue’s Stanford University and Levitt’s University of Chicago (along with Harvard, the institution that published their peer-reviewed study), that first gave birth to the eugenics movement in the United States.21 It began with the formation in 1906 of a blue ribbon Committee on Eugenics of the agricultural American Breeders’ Association. Members included the Chancellor of Stanford University, a University of Chicago sociologist and expert on crime, a Stanford biologist, and a Harvard geneticist.22 The purpose of the committee was to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race" and "to emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood."23 A few years later a sub-committee on criminality was created which included Charles R. Henderson, a University of Chicago sociologist.24 The most prominent leader on the Eugenics committee was Charles B. Davenport (previously an instructor at Harvard University and the University of Chicago), who would become a central figure in the eugenics movement. A movement advocating a hierarchy of humanity, eugenic research was spearheaded by academics at these, and other, Ivy League institutions.

The inevitable conclusion of the Donohue-Levitt study is that abortion is a legal choice and a necessary evil.

Four Models of Western Religious Thought

	Secular Humanism	Marxism- Leninism	Cosmic Humanism	Biblical Christianity
Source	Humanist Manifesto I & II	Writings of Marx and Lenin	Writings of Spangler, Ferguson, etc	Bible
Theology	Atheism	Atheism	Pantheism	Theism
Philosophy	Naturalism	Dialectical Materialism	Non-Naturalism	Supernaturalism
Ethics	Ethical Relativism	Proletariat Morality	Ethical Relativism	Ethical Absolutes
Biology	Darwinian Evolution	Darwinian/ Punctuated Evolution	Darwinian/ Punctuated Evolution	Creation/ Intelligent Design
Psychology	Monistic Self-Actualization	Monistic Pavlovian Behaviorism	Collective Consciousness	Dualism
Sociology	Non-Traditional World State Ethical Society	Abolition of home, Church and State	Non-Traditional home, Church and State	home, Church, State
Law	Positive Law	Positive Law	Self-Law	Biblical/ Natural Law
Politics	World Government (Globalism)	New World Order	New Age Order	Justice, Freedom, Order
Economics	Socialism	Socialism/ Communism	Universal Enlightened Production	Stewardship of Property
History	Historical Evolution	Historical Materialism	Evolutionary Godhood	Historical Resurrection

Ron Paul evidently voted against the ban.

Sometimes I wonder whether everyone has a 'fatal flaw." Paul's seems to be that he sees everything through the lens of his political and economic libertarianism, so much so that it distorts the over-riding ethics of inalienable right to life.

Is it any wonder that ordinary citizens who are worrying about paying the bills and getting along with their neighbors are confused, if even a fairly logical man like Ron Paul is distracted?

>>>Ron Paul evidently voted against the ban.

Sometimes I wonder whether everyone has a 'fatal flaw." Paul's seems to be that he sees everything through the lens of his political and economic libertarianism, so much so that it distorts the over-riding ethics of inalienable right to life.

Is it any wonder that ordinary citizens who are worrying about paying the bills and getting along with their neighbors are confused, if even a fairly logical man like Ron Paul is distracted?<<<

I agree:

Cloning technology has outpaced necessary ethical discussion. Planes, trains, and automobiles design includes 'fail-safe' features for obvious reasons. Cloning needed a 'fail-safe' ban.

It appears Paul was opposed to the federal gov't ban and not opposed to state gov'ts ban. [Statement - On Human Embryos and Stem Cell Research... The laws of a number of states–including Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Utah–specifically protect embryonic human beings outside the womb. Most of these provisions prohibit experiments on embryos outside the womb.]

The ethics of liberty were left to the slavery states and resulted in deprivation of liberty. Would the ethics of inalienable right to life result in deprivation of life in some states? [ [O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. Source: Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, 1840), Vol. X, p. 297, April 17, 1787.]

Washington, DC: Congressman Ron Paul today introduced legislation that prohibits federal funding for cloning and cloning research. The "Human Cloning Prevention Act of 2001" effectively ends taxpayer subsidies for private companies and other organizations involved in human cloning experiments.

"Thomas Jefferson admonished against forcing citizens to pay for practices they abhor," Paul stated. "Many Americans strongly oppose cloning on moral grounds, and they should never be forced to pay taxes to subsidize such contentious and divisive research."

"Much of the cloning research to date has been at least partially paid for by taxpayers," Paul continued. "Cloning would not be the pressing issue it is today if the federal government had not funded it. The practical benefits of cloning are very hard to predict, so companies have difficulty finding sufficient private funding for their research. I don't want those companies soaking the taxpayers when the private market won't support their activities."

"The existing ban on federal funding gives taxpayers insufficient protection," Paul concluded. "Under current law, organizations involved in cloning still can still receive tax dollars for other research. Since money is fungible, every federal dollar given to such organizations frees up another dollar for cloning research. This legislation will end all taxpayer funding for any company that engages in cloning."

July 31, 2001 : Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning EXCERPTS

As an obstetrician gynecologist with 30 years of experience with strong pro-life convictions I find this debate regarding stem cell research and human cloning off-track, dangerous, and missing some very important points.

This debate is one of the most profound ethical issues of all times. It has moral, religious, legal, and ethical overtones.

The notion that one person, i.e., the President, by issuing a Presidential order can instantly stop or start major research is frightening. Likewise, the U.S. Congress is no more likely to do the right thing than the President by rushing to pass a new federal law.

There are some medical questions not yet resolved and careless legislation may impede legitimate research and use of fetal tissue. For instance, should a spontaneously aborted fetus, non-viable, not be used for stem cell research or organ transplant? Should a live fetus from an ectopic pregnancy removed and generally discarded not be used in research? How is a spontaneous abortion of an embryo or fetus different from an embryo conceived in a dish?

For a free society to function, the moral standards of the people are crucial. Personal morality, local laws, and medical ethics should prevail in dealing with a subject such as this. This law, the government, the bureaucrats, the politicians can't make the people more moral in making these judgments.

Laws inevitably reflect the morality or immorality of the people. The Supreme Court did not usher in the 60s revolution that undermined the respect for all human life and liberty. Instead, the people's attitude of the 60s led to the Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade ruling in 1973 and contributed to a steady erosion of personal liberty.

The government cannot instill morality in the people. An apathetic and immoral society inspires

Second, the President should issue no Executive Order because under the Constitution he does not have the authority either to promote or stop any particular research nor does the Congress. And third, there should be no sacrifice of life. Local law officials are responsible for protecting life or should not participate in its destruction.

We should continue the ethical debate and hope that the medical leaders would voluntarily do the self-policing that is required in a moral society. Local laws, under the Constitution, could be written and the reasonable ones could then set the standard for the rest of the nation.

This problem regarding cloning and stem cell research has been made much worse by the federal government involved, both by the pro and con forces in dealing with the federal government's involvement in embryonic research. The problem may be that a moral society does not exist, rather than a lack of federal laws or federal police.

If the problem is that our society lacks moral standards and governments can't impose moral standards, hardly will this effort to write more laws solve this perplexing and intriguing question regarding the cloning of a human being and stem cell research.

I can't decide who is more naive, me or Dr. Paul.
Why would he assume what has proven not to be a fact (that doctors and scientists will self-police in favor of the right to life) in contrast to what has been proven a fact (humans will die from cloning of embryos that is designed for the intention of creating and killing those embryos)?

I'm in a bad mood, so I'm not going to talk about Ron Paul anymore, because I'm afraid I'll say something I'm ashamed of.
(I'm going to go out and plant roses in the rain, instead) (maybe it is me?)

There are some medical questions not yet resolved and careless legislation may impede legitimate research and use of fetal tissue. Using fetal tissue to produce vaccines (for instance, because that is occurring already) is a form of cannibalism, cannibalizing the fetuses, no matter how they came to be dead for harvesting. Abortion is legal in our twisted nation. The exploitation of that which will be tossed out otherwise is already driving some research and developments. For instance, should a spontaneously aborted fetus, non-viable, not be used for stem cell research or organ transplant? Should a live fetus from an ectopic pregnancy removed and generally discarded not be used in research? How is a spontaneous abortion of an embryo or fetus different from an embryo conceived in a dish?
For a free society to function, the moral standards of the people are crucial. Personal morality, local laws, and medical ethics should prevail in dealing with a subject such as this. This law, the government, the bureaucrats, the politicians can't make the people more moral in making these judgments.
Laws inevitably reflect the morality or immorality of the people. Do you think it will help that I've been characterizing the issues of embryonic stem cell exploitation and therapeutic cloning as CANNIBALISM?... It is cannibalism, as surely as if you were directed to eat the embryos for the treatment.

Has our society lost the ability to reject cannibalism? Some seek to use our tacit acceptance of abortion on demand, to entice 'by default' acceptance of cannibalism. Will our society reject that effort if they see it for what it is, CANNIBALISM?... It frightens me that I can see our society accepting cannibalism 'for the greater good'. Intelligent fellow freepers already approach these issues from that standpoint, the 'greater good'. When cannibalism is accepted in the name of 'greater good' is it really a greater good that is achieved, or a further degeneration of the moral and ethical fabric of a once great nation?

>>>proven not to be a fact (self-police)<<<

I agree again:

The Interface Between Science and Ethics: Probing the Deeper Questions Why Do Many Scientists View Human Embryo Research As Ethically Permissible?

Paul seems more commited to Federalism than the over-riding ethics of inalienable right to life.

The following concerning "Body Parts" was extracted from a recent release in England:

Dr. Puck explained that the new process first requires the acquisition of “superfluous” human fetuses". He stated that the most desirable “incubators” for producing these are girls in their very earliest years of puberty with the ideal age being twelve or thirteen. He emphasized that “the conception, pregnancy, and abortion segment” of the process using these youngsters “will not interrupt or penalize their school life or social development in any way” as government expansion of the publicly acclaimed “Sex and Maternity” program for children had already been unanimously approved by Parliament and had proved a stunning success.

It was reported that fetuses, called “excret”, are harvested from these girls at the sixth month of their pregnancy and then immediately rushed into revolutionary “placenta replicator- incubators” which permit them to continue development to full term. This is accomplished by a technique which provides an environment similar to that from which they were removed. According to Dr. Puck, “vast quantities of oxygen and hormones along with nerve stimulation exercises” are applied to these growing organic masses, each of which in separate crystal enclosures clearly has an outward appearance of the human form.

Commenting further, Dr. Puck said that after reaching full term at nine months, the excret are “painlessly terminated by quick freeze” with brain and nerve matter removed and then rapidly distilled in a process which bonds the residuals with other treated and reconstituted body components including extracted heart tissue and complete sexual organs.

This amazing process culminates in an innocuous clear tablet that is designed for the oral ingestion of the elderly. These tablets, along with various descriptive process charts, were presented for display at the Academy luncheon. Dr. Faust confirmed that startling results have been verified with “the rapid restoration of sexual vigor and vitality in eighty year old men and women who were able to cavort joyously like teenagers.” The demand for these pills is expected to be tremendous.

A “social welfare” department head, who insisted on anonymity, later claimed that she is already besieged by youngsters hoping to be mechanically impregnated in the government supervised program. The entire process is free of pain for the girls, she explained. Quite the contrary. She said that each girl experiences “a tremendous surge of technically induced pleasure and euphoria” throughout the entire conception procedure as well as during the abortion process six months later. In addition, she also explained happily that a four thousand pound stipend is granted to each youngster after the abortion is completed.

It was disclosed that women impregnated in the historically “normal” manner and who suddenly face horrific personal problems causing undue anguish ,such as being jilted by paramours, upset by dress size increases caused by pregnancy, or who might be falling behind in monthly car payments, will have first priority for these special abortions under pending regulations. This “should help keep a kettle top on the population growth of the financially and intellectually challenged” Dr. Faust laughingly offered.

Dr. Faust commented that necessary prioritizing of female incubators to favor those having personal problems will “unfortunately limit” the number of pubescent girls who will be accepted to the program, possibly disappointing their own birth mothers who stand to also share by law in the financial bonanza. However, he said that a minimum percentage of youngsters supplying excret is essential and that this minimum “will be maintained for both technical as well as social development reasons for the young.”

Dr. Puck, commenting during the luncheon following , reported that many other new and promising developments “may very well come from this process.” As an example, he indicated that experimentation had already begun on the birthing and factory raising of excrets with the purpose of utilizing them as living organic entities to be used for “dangerous, tedious, or other difficult labors not truly suitable for humans.”

The British Government has allocated the considerable sum of forty million pounds for continued work by Dr. Puck’s group on these new applications.

>>>Has our society lost the ability to reject cannibalism?<<<

Some have, including those more commited to Federalism than the over-riding ethics of inalienable right to life.

The following concerning :body parts was recently extracted from a publication:

Continuing on, Dr. Puck explained that the new process first requires the acquisition of “superfluous” human fetuses. He stated that the most desirable “incubators” for producing these are girls in their very earliest years of puberty with the ideal age being twelve or thirteen. He emphasized that “the conception, pregnancy, and abortion segment” of the process using these youngsters “will not interrupt or penalize their school life or social development in any way” as government expansion of the publicly acclaimed “Sex and Maternity” program for children had already been unanimously approved by Parliament and had proved a stunning success.