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.

[ghetosmurph]

Yes they discovered to have the same potential but potential means just that... a chance. Embryonic stem cells are easier to identify and isolate than adult stem cells, that significantly increases the chance of finding a cure. Time is a HUGE factor. To use adult stem cells from a patient's own body for treatment of a disorder could take to long to grow an efficient quantity of cells, that risk you are taking is many lives that could have likely been saved. Adult stem cells may contain more DNA abnormalities and expected errors made in DNA replication during the course of a lifetime.

Yes time is a huge factor.... and adult stem cells are already being used and effectivly treating many diseases... The lives are being saved, right now, and ASC research is getting very little funding. ASC research is so much further than ESC it isn't funny, if funded correctly ASC research would eclipse ESC 10 times over.... Adult stem cells may have more DNA replication erreors however, if you look into it, in the trials they have done with ESCs on animals, ESCs have a much higher rejection rate than ASC's..... The body recieves the ASCs much better, one of the reasons ASC research is so far ahead, and now that ESC has lost any advantage it had b/c of the ability to transform ASCs the reseach should be done on how to get the transformed ASCs to start fixing these problems. The ASC's have a much lower rejection rate meaning that once they harness the potential powers of stem cells ASCs would be better and safer for using on patients. People are already being cured by stem cells and ASC research is showing that it dosen't have to be done with the use of embyos..... ASC's could take too long to grow an efficeint quantity if cells but people deserve the chance to live.... With ESC reasearch at where it is, would you sacrafice the lives of people that we have the power to help now in order to do a to of research on something else that has the same potential, higher rejection rate, and is nowhere near clinical use???? Use the Funding somewhere where it is helping people now, seeing as there are no really major advantages that ESC research has over ASC anymore.... Just because the general public believes that ESC's are going to be the salvation and cure for a plethera of human diseases, legislators are putting the money there, taking it away from people that it is actually helping

Oh and on the morality issue......

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.

Ok then you believe everybody has the right to decide what is morally acceptable for him or her and noone should have another's morals pushed upon him correct?? OK then answer me this question: Was it morally acceptable for the Alqueda people to fly the 747's into the twin towers??? They believed that according to thier sacred laws they were commiting the highest act of giving one's life for religion.... they believed they were doing the will of Allah, therefore, do we have her right to try to stop them??? According to your statement, we don't. Why should they bow to our set of morals, they should have the right to decide for themselves..... if they want to kill innocent lives we don't have the right to tell them it's not right and keep them from doing it..... You may not like it, and wouldn't do it yourself and that's fine....... They should be able to make thier own set of choices...... right??? There has to be a point where we draw the line and say, under no religion can that be considered morally acceptable. And if you pick where innocent lives are killed as that line, such as we did in the 9/11 attacks, you must realize that abortion contreception, birth controll, ESC research, all falls under that category. They are the same thing, the only difference is that mass murder isn't socially acceptable and abortion is.....

[Spirited Away]

I just wanted to address a couple of things in this thread that caught my fancy.

Oh and on the morality issue......
Ok then you believe everybody has the right to decide what is morally acceptable for him or her and noone should have another's morals pushed upon him correct?? OK then answer me this question: Was it morally acceptable for the Alqueda people to fly the 747's into the twin towers??? They believed that according to thier sacred laws they were commiting the highest act of giving one's life for religion.... they believed they were doing the will of Allah, therefore, do we have her right to try to stop them??? According to your statement, we don't.

On morality, while the sacred text may state that it is honnorable to die for one's religion, I doubt it says it's acceptable to kill innocents the name of one's religion. In fact, the very same sacred text says "it is forbidden to attack noncombattants, even if they belong to the attacking countries". Those who did the evil deed twisted the words of the Prophet Muhammad who said 'a criminal will be punished only for his own deeds'. What crime did those in the towers commit? The hijackers were not following the morality of their religion, they were following an evil. If they believe evil to be moral, then we, as a moral society, must find ways to destroy them else more evil will befall us. And so, to answer your question, we very much have a right to stop them.

Why should they bow to our set of morals, they should have the right to decide for themselves..... if they want to kill innocent lives we don't have the right to tell them it's not right and keep them from doing it..... You may not like it, and wouldn't do it yourself and that's fine....... They should be able to make thier own set of choices...... right???

They have a right to decide for themselves, but they were also deciding to end the lives of those who wished to live. In that, they obviously committed the very crime they accuse innocents of. Which makes them... hypocrites. Cowardly hypocrites who can't even face the opponent but harm the innocent bystanders. Is that moral? Maybe to them, but to those of us who are sane, we know better... I hope.

I believe that it is acceptable to impose our way of life upon another IF AND ONLY IF we are sanctioned by love and the hope that our ways can improve lives, not destroy them.

On the subject of stem-cell research, my stand is pro. I wouldn't want to carry 11 babies. If I could put them to a better use than being thrown away, in this case to help advance science for the betterment of mankind, I will do so.

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"

Having the potential to live doesn't mean something is alive. The two are different. Having the potential means there could be a chance it could live, and being alive means it's already living. The potential to live doesn't equate life.

If a baby is crying in a trash can, he/she is alive and needs to be saved. Though they baby cannot live in that environment he/she IS already living.

However, saying that something is alive because it has the potential to live is ridiculous. In your words, "that's like saying" a boiled egg had the potential to live so it's living. Hopefully, you and I could agree that it is not.