Thursday, July 28, 2005

Late Embryo Farming for Cells or Organs

In Will Saletan's fourth installment in Slate, he demonstrates further how embryonic stem cell research is not going to remain in the Petri dish. Now, some apparently have decided to draw the line that cannot be crossed (yea, right) at the transition point from embryo to fetus, meaning 8 weeks or so. That would permit cloning, implantation, and harvesting or drug testing of late stage embryos. I don't know if Saletan approves or disapproves. This isn't the point. What he has done ably is reveal a mindset that, by a process of continual redefinition of terms and stretching of moral boundaries, will steadily move cloning through implantation, organ harvesting, birth, and into genetic engineering. The goal is unfettered research. Coming next, by the way, the claim that there is a constitutional right to do scientific research, which if imposed by the courts, would mark the end of any meaningful societal controls over science.

6 Comments:

At July 28, 2005 , Blogger Robert B said...

He's right - there's not much except "continuum" between implantation at 2 weeks and a "fetus" (heart beat / brain waves?) at 8 weeks. But so what?
Either you ban altogether or you, arbitrarily say that up to a point it's just a mass of cells.

If you get to the fetus, why the squeamishness? We abort long into fetus-hood, in fact, do most women take baby tests and get results and go to a clinic before 6-8 weeks?

I know YOU draw the line at total ban on commodification and experimentation since "choice" / viability is not an issue per se on unimplanted embryos. But all bets are off. They'll go for continuing experiments with implanted embryos in a real womb until they can perfect an artificial one.

So I'd like to pin you down on your opinion of abortion. Whether abortion, ESCR, SCNT, or fetal farming, a) when is the fertilized being a human life? b) who should be able to interfere with that life? c) who or what endows us and that life with the status of human?

 
At July 28, 2005 , Blogger Wesley J. Smith said...

This is why cloning needs to be banned. Because once you start down that road, once science ceases to present objective information but twists itself to rationalize research, well, in the end, work hard enough and nearly anything can be justified.

Abortion is factually irrelevant to these issues. Whether one agrees or disagrees, the law has granted a right to abortion because it is not going to force a woman to do with her body that which she does not wish to do. With cloning, no woman is being forced to do anything with her body.

The politics of abortion have been dragged in. This is unfortunate. These issues should be decided on their own merits. Moreover, plenty of people who support abortion rights oppose therapeutic cloning for any reason. Examples: Judy Norsigian, of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Jeremy Rifkin, and Sen. Mary Landrieu.

 
At July 28, 2005 , Blogger Robert B said...

I respect your opinion but respectfully disagree. As I noted with the BIID syndrome, I believe that there is a connection between a culture willing to indulge a sick person's wish to cut off his arm, a disappointed woman willing to cut off a new life beginning (probably because the "gentleman" in her life can't stand up to be a man), a desperate mother, as you've noted in one of your books willing to take tissue from wherever, whatever, and the eugenics freaks looking for the genomes over the rainbow.

 
At July 28, 2005 , Blogger Wesley J. Smith said...

We don't disagree. These discrete issues are symptoms, not causes. The true core of the problem, as I see it, lies very deep and involves the very essence of our being. All I seem capable of accomplishing at this point, assuming I accomplish anything, is applying a band aid here and giving an aspirin there. Sometimes I think that and six bits will buy you a cup of coffee. But I am not in the best of moods tonight. Thanks for your input.

 
At July 29, 2005 , Blogger Robert B said...

You must not go to Starbucks.

Hey, today's a new day, but I don't see the 5th Slate article.

Do you see the Medra ad at the bottom advertising embryonic stem cell treatment in the Dominican republic? I googled a bit and found -- http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/stemcell.html

 
At July 29, 2005 , Blogger Robert B said...

You should also check out Slate's other article this week "Is Gene Patent Good for the Jews?"

 

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