554: Moral Hypocrisy
Can you believe I've now seen "hypocrisy" misspelled so many times that I had to look up the correct spelling to make sure? =/
I meant to talk about this commentary, but I put it off because I didn't want to jam up a whole bunch of BIG TOPICS in the same day, particularly given that most of you skim them as it is 9_9 but the jist of it goes that the controversy over stem cell research isn't as big as people make it out to be... at least, not when compared to fertility clinics.
"Stem cell research doesn't respect the rights of embryos!" you say. Ah, but neither do fertility clinics, which fertilize many more eggs than necessary in the hopes that one will survive--"or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will not survive." So, if you declare that a three-day-old embryo has the same rights as you or I, fully developed and active in the world, what's the difference between killing embryos to hopefully have one live and killing embryos to find medical cures that will benefit millions of people, possibly including the aforementioned test-tube baby?
"Well, uh... fertility clinics actually produce babies. Stem cell research benefits are vague." That's kind of a weak argument, though. The results of space exploration have been pretty vague, too, but that doesn't stop people from believing in it. I'd say more, but I'm pretty much just reflecting the column, at this point.
Almost relatedly, there was another blurb I'd meant to note, regarding a comatose man whose brain rewired itself after 19 years. This puts a new spin on the Terri Schiavo case, that, "Hey, if she had only been allowed to remain a total vegetable for another four years, she MIGHT have been able to become barely conscious again!"
I still believe waking up from that long of a coma would be horrific, to say the least. It's something like buying a new car and waking up one day to suddenly find another 200,000 miles on it you didn't drive it. Of course, most people would think, "Well, this is the only car I'll ever have, so I'm still going to use it to its fullest."
Then they eat McDonald's [Supersized] every day and drive an SUV to go three blocks.
"Define cynical."
I forgot what I was going to do today. Prolly nothing, if SOP holds.
I meant to talk about this commentary, but I put it off because I didn't want to jam up a whole bunch of BIG TOPICS in the same day, particularly given that most of you skim them as it is 9_9 but the jist of it goes that the controversy over stem cell research isn't as big as people make it out to be... at least, not when compared to fertility clinics.
"Stem cell research doesn't respect the rights of embryos!" you say. Ah, but neither do fertility clinics, which fertilize many more eggs than necessary in the hopes that one will survive--"or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will not survive." So, if you declare that a three-day-old embryo has the same rights as you or I, fully developed and active in the world, what's the difference between killing embryos to hopefully have one live and killing embryos to find medical cures that will benefit millions of people, possibly including the aforementioned test-tube baby?
"Well, uh... fertility clinics actually produce babies. Stem cell research benefits are vague." That's kind of a weak argument, though. The results of space exploration have been pretty vague, too, but that doesn't stop people from believing in it. I'd say more, but I'm pretty much just reflecting the column, at this point.
Almost relatedly, there was another blurb I'd meant to note, regarding a comatose man whose brain rewired itself after 19 years. This puts a new spin on the Terri Schiavo case, that, "Hey, if she had only been allowed to remain a total vegetable for another four years, she MIGHT have been able to become barely conscious again!"
I still believe waking up from that long of a coma would be horrific, to say the least. It's something like buying a new car and waking up one day to suddenly find another 200,000 miles on it you didn't drive it. Of course, most people would think, "Well, this is the only car I'll ever have, so I'm still going to use it to its fullest."
Then they eat McDonald's [Supersized] every day and drive an SUV to go three blocks.
"Define cynical."
I forgot what I was going to do today. Prolly nothing, if SOP holds.