First Veto...

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@Gnarff: In other words, no matter what the FACTS of the matter are, you're going to twist things about and apply a series of "ifs" until you've turned this into a debate on abortion. OK, knock yourself out - I'm outta here.

 

Happy to see that people have noticed the same problem as I have, although it would be so much better if there was no problem at all. This kind of one-way discussion just strenghten the fact that some people cannot be reasoned with and have to be overruled, democracy be damned. Anyway... Just my perception and .

 

But what is the difference between tossing out an unwanted embryo and aborting an unwanted pregnancy? It's destroying a potential life for the gain of another. This is why people object to this research. It was suggested earlier that the same research could be conducted from the usually discarded umbilical cords, then why can't they just do that rather than sacrifice potential human life for this cause?

 

The difference is that the pregnancy WILL live if the mother performs her usual daily chores except eating alot more and eventually giving birth. The embryo has no chance of becoming born unless some woman manages to insert it in her womb (basically).

There is _no_ sacrifice. These embryos will be disguarded anyway, they were used in an attempt at pregnancy and due to the low probability of success they had to use many embryos. The ones left over are used for scientific purposes rather than just be destroyed. You're objecting to wanting to use somebody's garbage to save lives.

 

And as I said earlier, miscarriages happen all the time. If you have any objections about that then you can blame nature for it, or a higher power, if you will. The embryos used for harvesting stem cells don't even have to be aborted by a medical procedure. This is what happens when in-vitro fertiliztion fails. The percentages for success aren't that high, and it's wasting perfectly good material for saving human lives to throw those failed in-vitro embryos away.

 

This is not the abortion debate. It is not a murder debate. It's a simple question. Do we want to destroy this "potential life" (that has about a 1 in 20 chance of being successfully implanted and carried to term) needlessly by throwing it into a dumpster or do we want to glean valuable research from the "waste of life". That is the current choice. Unless regulations are passed to ban the implementation of embryos in fertility clinics, those are our choices.

Preserving them so they can be implanted into someone else doesn't work for multiple reasons, but what it comes down to is numbers. Nowhere near enough people are going to spend the money to have another persons (possibly) viable embryo implanted in them when they can make one themselves or just adopt to even come close to making a dent in the shear number of embryo's awaiting implantation. Expecting such to happen is unrealistic.

 

Abomination is on the right track, but only half right about one thing: invitro clinics don't consider these pre-embryos trash. This is an extremely profitable business. There are hundreds of thousands of couples who can't conceive naturally who are desperate to, and this is their only chance of having a child "of their own." There are often long waiting lists for these clinics. A single attempt can cost $12,000 or more. For most people, that's a huge investment.

Bearing this in mind, consider the fact that these clinics consider every single pre-embryo as a potential life. They aren't exactly easy to come by, so of course they will try everything they can to increase the probability of fertilization with each and every one of them. And since it can take a dozen or more attempts before success is achieved, every single pre-embryo counts.

Bottom line - these pre-embryos are considered precious commodities to these clinics. If the pre-embryo cannot be used, that means it does not meet the delicate conditions for successful fertilization. Translation: it will never grow into a human, and has no potential to create life beyond it's current state. Period.

THESE are the specimens that are used for stem-cell research. Pre-embryos are not created en masse just so that clinics can have tons of leftovers to be carelessly used and thrown out on a whim. They are indeed precious. If they can't be used for their intended purpose, they have two fates alone: beneficial research or wasteful destruction.

As for asking about embellical cords: I don't know much about that side of the science, but it doesn't take a scientist to see why they aren't the solution. Think about it - if it were that simple to just use embillical cords, we wouldn't even be discussing this. Evidently they don't work, at least not nearly as well. Plus, I don't think scientists anywhere would have any trouble aquiring discarded embellical cords. Why would they go to all the trouble of creating pre-embryos, which is an extremely expensive process, when discarded embillical cords cost nothing and one is created every time a child is born?

 

Stem cell research is relatively new (at least in the current scope of research). The reason we do not see much research in cord stem cells or adult stem cell is because they are not as mutagenic as the embryonic stem cells. That does not mean they cannot be used, only that it is more difficult (I do not believe enough data is present to discard either as a source for stem cell research).

The pressure to publish in the academic community is tremendous. Universities in other parts of the world are able to use embryonic stem cells and, as such, have an easier research path (and quicker success). Very few professors are willing to just follow other researchers, there is no money in doing so. The country needs to put it's money where it's mouth is -- extensively fund research using stem cells from other sources or allow the researchers to work on a level playing field.

 

So this is a question of the value of potential human life. If these embryos have the potential to develop into human life, then preforming experiments which would result in their destruction would equate to destroying an unborn.

Why is my life more important than the thousands that will be denied that opportunity to improve my life?

That is why King George vetoed the bill.

 

Holy sh*t - Gnarff, can you even read?

Read my last post, please. The pre-embryos eligable for experimentation become so because THEY WILL NEVER BE FERTILIZED. They've LOST THEIR POTENTIAL to develop into human life. I've said it, Rally said it, Drew said it, Aldeth said it...is it ever going to sink in with you? Or are you going to keep twisting it around so you can compare it to abortion ad nauseum?

Ugh!

 

They're NOT DENIED AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LIFE!!!

Most likely these embryos wouldn't be capable to produce a fetus! It happens naturally. That's why in-vitro pregnancies don't have a high success rate. That's why normally occurring pregnancies don't have that big success rate either.

What these embryos that won't grow up to be babies do have is good stem cells to be used for medical purposes. To save lives. It is a matter of life and death in many cases, and lessening human suffering in most. This is weighed against using these embryos to NO purpose at all!

These embryos will never be alive human beings! It's not because we don't want them to, and not because they're aborted! It's because they are uncapable of doing so!

 

I get the feeling that many religious right people are screaming right to life and calling it abortion yet when somebody assumes an opposing stance and tries to explain the science behild how it's not abortion the religious folk shove thier fingers in their ears and chant "Lalalala! I can't hear you!"

- never has a smilie expressed the opinions of the scientific community so clearly.

 

If they aren't fertilized, then they don't have that potential, so where's the problem? I thought the embryo had to develop to produce these stem cells or something. There has to be more to the arguement to that for this to have such opposition...

 

As I understand it, they are fertilized, but can never be implanted. So while they can produce the stem cells, there is no chance of them growing into living beings.

You'd think so, but no. Some people are just fanatics.

 

That is correct. They absolutely are fertilized. If unfertilized, all you have is an egg cell, which doesn't even have the full compliment of 46 chromosomoes, never mind the ability to differentiate into other cells. An unfertilized egg cell, is just that - an egg cell. Prior to fertilization it has no chance of ever producing stem cells.

However, I do see one line of arguement against the use of embryos for stem cells that is at least logical. While some of the embryos are not viable enough to sustain a pregnancy, other embryos are, but because of a law that prevents the sale or transfer of an embryo from one couple to another, it effectively prevents these potentially viable embryos from even being implanted. Now, if you want to argue against that as a dumb law, I'm guessing you could make a decent case.

One more thing on viability - there is no such thing as a 100% viable embryo. Even embryos that look like perfect canidates for implantation fail with regularity. It is because of this really low success rate that embryos which already appear to have some defect aren't frequently used. If you already have a low chance of success, you aren't going to lower it further by using embryos that aren't good to begin with. I see no reason why anyone would have a problem with the use of THESE embryos at all.

 

If they aren't viable as potential human life, they should be fair game (assuming they can produce these stem cells), but if they have reasonable odds to become human life, then they should be available for that purpose. I do think laws forbidding transfer of such embryos are in fact stupid.

 

I actually find the reasoning behind the law stupid. Specifically, the reason why this law was originally enacted was to prevent the black market sale of human organs. It makes it illegal to transfer or sell any human body, whether in part or in full. Later the law was expanded to prevent the black market sale of human embryos. They didn't want people creating embryos and then selling them off to the highest bidder. I guess it never occurred to them that this law also prevents them from donating them for free. As such, regardless of whether or not you consider the embryo to be alive or not (as long as you acknowledge that it is human tissue, and I really can't see how you can argue against that) it falls under the law.

EDIT: As an aside, Gnarff, what is your opinion of people using fertility clinics to get pregnant in the first place? Even those people who are successful usually have several fertilized eggs fail to implant (which subsequently die of course) before they have a successful pregnancy.

 

God said Go fortrh, be fruitful and Multiply. This is one way of doing that. I just think the rules put in place may not be the best for that purpose. Some couples without that kind of money would gladly accept someone else's embryo if it gives them a chance to have a child of their own...

 

Uh, Gnarff, most of the cost lies in implanting the thing. Customers "without that kind of money" won't be able to afford someone else's embryo either. The hard truth about this debate is that, even in normal human development, more fertilized pre-embryos are rejected by the body then are carried to term. A lot more (most spontaneous abortions occur during the first few days of pregnancy and the women who have them have no idea they occured). Unless we want to start administering hyper sensitive pregnancy tests at regular intervals after every sexual encounter a woman has at the time she can potentially concieve, and hold funerals or grieve in some way every time a fertilized pre-embryo fails to latch on or is rejected by the body due to some sort of defect, this controversy about using fertilized pre-embryos for medical research is just silly. Even when pproducing life the old fashioned way, most pre-embryos are rejected by the mother's body.