stem-cell research Options

[smile4me]

do you support stem-cell researching? why or why not?
should federal funding be given to these researchers?
do you support embryonic or adult stem cells (or both)?

[sammi rules you]

i don't think anyone has the right to decide what is morally acceptable for other people to do. each and every person has their own set of morals, different from anyone else's and people have the right to make their own choices. not everyone is going to bow down to one person's set of morals. if a person thinks it's morally acceptable for them to use a lab to create a kid because they want their DNA to be in their child, then so be it. you may not like it, and wouldn't do it yourself, and that's fine. but you don't have the right to tell them it's not right and to stop the couple from doing so.

[gotblog4me?]

i don't think anyone has the right to decide what is morally acceptable for other people to do. each and every person has their own set of morals, different from anyone else's and people have the right to make their own choices. not everyone is going to bow down to one person's set of morals. if a person thinks it's morally acceptable for them to use a lab to create a kid because they want their DNA to be in their child, then so be it. you may not like it, and wouldn't do it yourself, and that's fine. but you don't have the right to tell them it's not right and to stop the couple from doing so.

O.K, for that up there^^ thats true, we can;t make ppl choose the right thing to do, but that doesnt change thew fact that it is bad, and if every1 had their own set of morals to live by, that means that one person can think its "moral" to commit murder, so you can't tell him he's wrong b/c he has his own set of morals now doesnt he? hence, there has to be some sort of moral order, it isn't moral to kill someone with no just cause. Don't you see how your reasoning would bring the world into complete chaos!?

Ah, my other favorite debate tactic--when you can't make a legitimate point, put words in someone else's mouth to make it look like he is unable to make a point.

I do not agree that all eleven are "alive," nor did I ever say that--certainly not less than "10 sentances [sic]" above. You misunderstood my point about nurturing, so let me clarify for you. I do not consider a fertilized egg to be a "person." A person is a human who has been born, who has been introduced into an environment outside a womb and is nurtured in some way with the goal of turning that person into an adult.

A fertilized egg is not "alive." It cannot exist outside of a womb. It is not living.

as for that, don;t you see, he's not saying you deliberately said you considered those life, but that you end up contradicting yourself when first you say, these embryos have no potential to live (they are not alive, they cannot live, etc, anyway you want to put it) but in saying that "So one fertilized egg is implanted into the woman's uterus to develop into a baby" you disprove your your first statement, by showing that the embryo does have the potential to live! and henceforth is alive.

Just because something cannot survive, outside of a certain environment, doesnt mean it isn't living... that's like saying, "oh, there's a baby crying in a trash can, it cant survive there, so it must not be living anymore"

and by the statement "do not consider a fertilized egg to be a "person." A person is a human who has been born, who has been introduced into an environment outside a womb and is nurtured in some way with the goal of turning that person into an adult." that a 8 month year old baby, still in a mother's womb, who can feel and react to pain, and has all the characteristics of a normal human being, is not a person? as i said before, you cannot decide when someone gets a soul, or becomes a person.

Oh, and by the way, for that same person with the smiley big mouthed face avatar (no offense, this is a friendly debate of course) for your information, any possible theory for evolution has been proven wrong, and I'm not saying i don't believe that we evolved, I actually do, however I also believe in something called an "ultimate designer" (a.k.a: God) so saying we are just more advanced forms of life, and the fact that we are smarter than other animals by chance, is completely bogus.

[*mipadi*]

as for that, don;t you see, he's not saying you deliberately said you considered those life, but that you end up contradicting yourself when first you say, these embryos have no potential to live (they are not alive, they cannot live, etc, anyway you want to put it) but in saying that "So one fertilized egg is implanted into the woman's uterus to develop into a baby" you disprove your your first statement, by showing that the embryo does have the potential to live! and henceforth is alive.

No, no; just because you say I contradict myself, does not mean I did. Potential to be something, and being something, is completely different. Say I hold up a bowling ball. It has the potential to be in motion--indeed, a bowling ball has a lot of kinetic energy. Is that to say the bowling ball is in motion? No. It would take some action--in this case, dropping it--to make it so. Being something, and potentially being something, are different. Very different.

Just because something cannot survive, outside of a certain environment, doesnt mean it isn't living... that's like saying, "oh, there's a baby crying in a trash can, it cant survive there, so it must not be living anymore"

I believe this is an over-generalization of a concept applied to a specific case.

and by the statement "do not consider a fertilized egg to be a "person." A person is a human who has been born, who has been introduced into an environment outside a womb and is nurtured in some way with the goal of turning that person into an adult." that a 8 month year old baby, still in a mother's womb, who can feel and react to pain, and has all the characteristics of a normal human being, is not a person? as i said before, you cannot decide when someone gets a soul, or becomes a person.

Nor can you. A baby in a womb is arguably a person, yes, but we're getting way, way off the subject of stem cells here. A baby and a fertilized egg in a petri dish are completely different things. You can't make a connection to a baby in the womb, and a person, and expect the leap from fertilized egg to person to come naturally. You're bringing up issues with abortion, which is a concept far removed from that of stem cell research.

Oh, and by the way, for that same person with the smiley big mouthed face avatar (no offense, this is a friendly debate of course) for your information, any possible theory for evolution has been proven wrong, and I'm not saying i don't believe that we evolved, I actually do, however I also believe in something called an "ultimate designer" (a.k.a: God) so saying we are just more advanced forms of life, and the fact that we are smarter than other animals by chance, is completely bogus.

Wondeful! Can you show me some evidence that evolution has been completely debunked, because I missed the headlines on that report.

so just b/c you don't want the baby, it is ok to cut it to peices while it's halfway out, such as in partial birth abortion??? or to be cut to pieces 2 month's earlier when it has the full apperance of a human, all the fingers and toes, and could survive outside the mother's womb?, with the help of prenadle care tht is.... it has happened many times before. Therefore, unless the mother wants it, the baby is not alive yet..... hmmmm aren't we posing our moraity on someone else in the this situation too??? how about the baby??? aren't we posing our morality on the baby by deciding that it is ok to kill it just b/c we dont want it??? The fetus get's it's food and waterthrought the womb, it gets what it need to continue growing (and living) in that environment. You need air, water, food..... If we took away what you needed to survive you would die too..... you cannot therefore say that if we take what it needs to survive away from it and it dies, it is not human....

I am not talking about abortion. I am not talking about a person. I am not talking about a baby. I am not talking about a fetus. I am not talking about anything that has been implanted in the womb. I am talking about an embryo in a petri dish. If you have to bring issues of fetuses, babies, and partial-birth abortion into this debate, than your argument is clearly much weaker than you thought. Points about abortion, fetuses, and babies are non-sequiturs, and are politically-charged topics that deviate from the real issue at hand: the use of stem cells to help cure various diseases. We're not talking about abortion, or harvesting fetuses. That is just ridiculous.

[ghetosmurph]

Potential to be something, and being something, is completely different. Say I hold up a bowling ball. It has the potential to be in motion--indeed, a bowling ball has a lot of kinetic energy. Is that to say the bowling ball is in motion? No. It would take some action--in this case, dropping it--to make it so. Being something, and potentially being something, are different. Very different.

which is only proving my main point 2 posts ago, the ASC research is doing actual good for actual people, actually, right now!!!! ESC research is no longer needed, you can achieve everything you wanted from ESC research with ASC research!!!! Please go back and read it!!!

A baby in a womb is arguably a person, yes,

Thank you, but now i am not saying you contridicted yourself, i proved it

but we're getting way, way off the subject of stem cells here. A baby and a fertilized egg in a petri dish are completely different things. You can't make a connection to a baby in the womb, and a person, and expect the leap from fertilized egg to person to come naturally.

Unfortunately we can, the connection between the fertilized egg and the baby was made earlier, you have 12 fertlilized eggs, you stick one in the mother and it becomes a baby. all 12 others are known by the doctors to have that exacy same potential (if given the environment and nourishment which they get in the mothers womb) to live.... wait potential isn't the right word..... it will ACUTALLY become a baby if you let it... therefor by the law of transitive properties (a=b and b=c therfore a=c) we can expect you to make the "leap"

You're bringing up issues with abortion, which is a concept far removed from that of stem cell research.
I am not talking about abortion. I am not talking about a person. I am not talking about a baby. I am not talking about a fetus. I am not talking about anything that has been implanted in the womb. I am talking about an embryo in a petri dish. If you have to bring issues of fetuses, babies, and partial-birth abortion into this debate, than your argument is clearly much weaker than you thought. Points about abortion, fetuses, and babies are non-sequiturs, and are politically-charged topics that deviate from the real issue at hand: the use of stem cells to help cure various diseases. We're not talking about abortion, or harvesting fetuses. That is just ridiculous.

Abortion and stem Cell research go hand and hand, seeing as stem cell research is being fuled by the acceptance of the concept of abortion!!!!!!!! The concept that it is morally acceptable to kill a person, as you said earlier, befor they are fully developed. the concept that is is ok to kill a child while it is halfway out the mother. The concept that you can fertlize egges in a petri dish and then thak the other living parts which ar given no chance for survival and throw them away or cut them up to experiment with!!!!! It is all part of the same concept that deals with the same argument, on different levels...... and yes they are politically charged topics and so is this!!!! Tis is the deviation from the real issue at hand. You cant kill a weed by snipping off the top, you havee to go for the roots, and the root of this matter is te moral acceptance of abrtion, contreception, birth controll nd everything else!!!! My argument is clearly much stonger than you believe it is, not vise versa. Whether a fetus is a baby is a huge abortion argument that would determine the morality of abortion, and also the morality of stem cell research. if it is immoral to abot a baby b/c a fetus is seen as a human, than it would be immoral to cut apart a fetus for scientific purposes..... One issue is in direct varitation to the other...

[*mipadi*]

which is only proving my main point 2 posts ago, the ASC research is doing actual good for actual people, actually, right now!!!! ESC research is no longer needed, you can achieve everything you wanted from ESC research with ASC research!!!! Please go back and read it!!!

That doesn't prove your main point at all. It's not even related to the different between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells--it's an analogy to physics that shows the different between life and the potential for life. I'm not even sure how you are using that as evidence to make your point about the differences between adult stem cells and embyronic stem cells, aside from the fact that you hoped you could say that, and that no one would notice that your statement makes no sense.

Secondly, as someone else noted, your "facts" are hard to swallow, primarily because you have not provided evidence of one of your core claims: that adult stem cells are more useful in research than embryonic stem cells. Provide evidence to support that claim, and I'll listen. Unless you are an authority in the field, you can't make a claim such as that without at least linking to relevant evidence.

Thank you, but now i am not saying you contridicted yourself, i proved it

How have you proven it? You can't simply claim you have proven something; you have to show how. What you did is take a statement out of context and hope that, once again, no one would read up a bit and see the point I was making. Let me put it out there simply for you: A baby in the womb could arguably be a person. A fertilized egg is not a baby. Therefore, you cannot use those two statements to support your claim that a fertilized egg is a person. You are, once again, not making any sense, and merely claiming to have made a point. I do not follow at all your argument here.

Unfortunately we can, the connection between the fertilized egg and the baby was made earlier, you have 12 fertlilized eggs, you stick one in the mother and it becomes a baby. all 12 others are known by the doctors to have that exacy same potential (if given the environment and nourishment which they get in the mothers womb) to live.... wait potential isn't the right word..... it will ACUTALLY become a baby if you let it... therefor by the law of transitive properties (a=b and b=c therfore a=c)  we can expect you to make the "leap"

I am, once again, not following you. If you wish to use the transitive property and express this in mathematical terms, we can do so; unfortunately, I fail to see what a, b, and c are equal to. I see that a = a fertilized egg; I presume b = a baby. I'm not sure what c equals; perhaps a person? Even if I fill that in for you, it still doesn't go to say that a = b and b = c, so therefore a = c, because you have not yet shown that a = b. That is, of course, if I correctly judged a, b, and c to be what you intended.

Abortion and stem Cell research go hand and hand, seeing as stem cell research is being fuled by the acceptance of the concept of abortion!!!!!!!! The concept that it is morally acceptable to kill a person, as you said earlier, befor they are fully developed. the concept that is is ok to kill a child while it is halfway out the mother. The concept that you can fertlize egges in a petri dish and then thak the other living parts which ar given no chance for survival and throw them away or cut them up to experiment with!!!!! It is all part of the same concept that deals with the same argument, on different levels...... and yes they are politically charged topics and so is this!!!! Tis is the deviation from the real issue at hand. You cant kill a weed by snipping off the top, you havee to go for the roots, and the root of this matter is te moral acceptance of abrtion, contreception, birth controll nd everything else!!!! My argument is clearly much stonger than you believe it is, not vise versa. Whether a fetus is a baby is a huge abortion argument that would determine the morality of abortion, and also the morality of stem cell research. if it is immoral to abot a baby b/c a fetus is seen as a human, than it would be immoral to cut apart a fetus for scientific purposes..... One issue is in direct varitation to the other...

No, no, no. You are, once again, trying to use politically-charged innuendo to deviate from the point of this debate. Let me address several points you bring up:

1. "Stem cell research is being fuled [sic] by the acceptance of the concept of abortion." No, no. There is a wide gap between abortion and stem cell research. This is, again, an attempt to bring emotion into a debate by using politically-charged vocabulary. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?
2. "The concept that it is morally acceptable to kill a person, as you said earlier, befor [sic] they are fully developed. the concept that is is ok to kill a child while it is halfway out the mother." Whoa whoa whoa! Do not put words into my mouth. I did not bring abortion into this; you did. Because this is a debate about stem cell research, not abortion (a point you seem to have failed to note) I have steered clear of the abortion issue. You cannot accuse me of saying things in regard to abortion, because I have not yet stated a stance on abortion. I'm discussing the topic at hand--stem cell research. As such, I have no need to start bringing up politically-charged concepts that do not belong in this debate, such as abortion.
3. "if it is immoral to [abort] a baby b/c a fetus is seen as a human, than [sic] it would be immoral to cut apart a fetus for scientific purposes....." Many people have pointed this out, including myself, but since you seem to ignore them, I am going to put it out for you in as simplest and obvious a way as possible: stem cells are not obtained by cutting apart fetuses that have been implanted into a womb. They come from fertilized eggs, not fetuses. They come from genetic material that is never, ever going to develop into a human being, a baby, a fetus, or anything else.

[ghetosmurph]

That doesn't prove your main point at all. It's not even related to the different between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells--it's an analogy to physics that shows the different between life and the potential for life. I'm not even sure how you are using that as evidence to make your point about the differences between adult stem cells and embyronic stem cells, aside from the fact that you hoped you could say that, and that no one would notice that your statement makes no sense.

I am using it as an example between Actual and potential life. ASC research is currently saving actual lives. it has been used in actual clinical trials, on actual people. ESC research hype is all about it's potential to slove this and that disease, but that is all it is potential. ASC research has figuredout how to tranform ASCs giving ASC and ESC the same potential.... now ESC uses the result of an immoral activity to continue it's research, this activity namely being the creation and starvation of human life. The Fertility Clinic, creates the life and by only putting 1 embryo back in, only giving 1 embryo the chance to live, and the rest of the embryos are left to die b/c they are not put in the conditions they need. you put 12 ppl in a container, take 1 out, and seal the container air tight leaving the rest inside. Same concept 1 is given the chace to live, the others are not and die, but for a time they are still alive. This means that innocent lives are being killed through this process and ESC reasearch is using that to futher thier causes all b/c of the potential of the research. Why support it when ASC research has the exact same potential and it is actually currently helping ppl?!

How have you proven it? You can't simply claim you have proven something; you have to show how. What you did is take a statement out of context and hope that, once again, no one would read up a bit and see the point I was making. Let me put it out there simply for you: A baby in the womb could arguably be a person. A fertilized egg is not a baby. Therefore, you cannot use those two statements to support your claim that a fertilized egg is a person. You are, once again, not making any sense, and merely claiming to have made a point. I do not follow at all your argument here.

I am, once again, not following you. If you wish to use the transitive property and express this in mathematical terms, we can do so; unfortunately, I fail to see what a, b, and c are equal to. I see that a = a fertilized egg; I presume b = a baby. I'm not sure what c equals; perhaps a person? Even if I fill that in for you, it still doesn't go to say that a = b and b = c, so therefore a = c, because you have not yet shown that a = b. That is, of course, if I correctly judged a, b, and c to be what you intended.

embryos cannot be dead. embryos cannot be killed. things have to first be living to be dead or killed. the embryos used in stem cell research have not been in a womb, therefore, only have one living characteristic, therefore, are not, have not, and will never live.

a fertilized egg is a baby in it's 1st stages, it develops like a baby, it later looks like a baby, and later is a baby... just becayse it cannot survive outside the womb that dosen't mean that it is for a time or was a life. It can be dead. If you ferilize the eggs in a petri dish, it is only for a certain amount of time that you can put the eggs back into the woman, that is whay they throw them away, It is during that amount of time that if you put the fertilied egg back into the woman
it will develop into a baby. The other fertilized eggs will do the exact same thing for tht certain amount of time before they basically become inactive and wont develop if put back into the mother's womb. I that sense the period where it will still develop is the period where it is alive, the period where it will not, it is for all intensive purposes dead. So as a review a fertilized egg is a baby in it's 1st stages and without what it needs to develop it becomes inactive, and in my words dead.

No, no, no. You are, once again, trying to use politically-charged innuendo to deviate from the point of this debate. Let me address several points you bring up:

1. "Stem cell research is being fuled [sic] by the acceptance of the concept of abortion." No, no. There is a wide gap between abortion and stem cell research. This is, again, an attempt to bring emotion into a debate by using politically-charged vocabulary. Let's stick to the facts, shall we?
   
   
   
2. "The concept that it is morally acceptable to kill a person, as you said earlier, befor [sic] they are fully developed. the concept that is is ok to kill a child while it is halfway out the mother." Whoa whoa whoa! Do not put words into my mouth. I did not bring abortion into this; you did. Because this is a debate about stem cell research, not abortion (a point you seem to have failed to note) I have steered clear of the abortion issue. You cannot accuse me of saying things in regard to abortion, because I have not yet stated a stance on abortion. I'm discussing the topic at hand--stem cell research. As such, I have no need to start bringing up politically-charged concepts that do not belong in this debate, such as abortion.
   
   
   
3. "if it is immoral to [abort] a baby b/c a fetus is seen as a human, than [sic] it would be immoral to cut apart a fetus for scientific purposes....." Many people have pointed this out, including myself, but since you seem to ignore them, I am going to put it out for you in as simplest and obvious a way as possible: stem cells are not obtained by cutting apart fetuses that have been implanted into a womb. They come from fertilized eggs, not fetuses. They come from genetic material that is never, ever going to develop into a human being, a baby, a fetus, or anything else.

I am sorry if think i am attempting to use politics to further my argument, i am not, I believe that the acceptance of the concept of abortion in our society goes hand in hand with the acceptance of the concept that embryos arent living. The argument that embyos aren't living is the main argument used by abortion lobbyists, and is the same argment being used by others here.however, for the sake of the fact that this is a stem cell topic i will try to evade any further refrences to abortion or any thing else that could appear as a politically charged innuendo


The womb dose not magically give life to the fetus, the fetus has life, the womb gives it the nourishment, and protective environment it needs to grow, without that environment, the fetus cannot grow and eventually becomes inactive. The embryonic stem cells are what is first inside the fetus, they are not a specific type of cell, yet. They have the ability to become 1 of any 3 of the germ layers of cells, which was it's advantage. ASCs are primarly already 1 type or another. ESC research uses the inactive fetus left from petri dish mixings to harvest the embryonic stem cells and in an attempt to find a way for them to cure diseases and rebuild tissue. ASC research dose the same thing however ASC did not have the ability to change from 1 form to the other until IRA blck discovered how to transform them. ASCs are alreay being use on people and helping them, ESCs are still in the research stage. ESC lost thier advantage over ASC. ASC has the potential now do everything ESC has had the potential to do and is much futher along in development. Why would you needlessly support ESC research? It has no advantage anymore!!!

editt//** The fertilized egg is a stage of the fetus which is a stage of a baby