fine, this is to appease crystal... the non-ninja.

[smackymc]

ok, so hows about this

Comments

Breeding Babies

[dberge1088]

I see that your one step ahead of me today. I watched abc nightly news today and they had a bit pertaining to this. So what are your thoughts on this... (try as I might to find an article on it I can't so I will summarize.

A couple has had a female child, the child has a genetic defect and needs and injection of compatable stem cells. Thus the parents go to a clinic where they make several 'embrios' (just to a multicellular stage) and choose the one that will be compatable with their other daughter implant the embrio (intot he mom) and then when the child is born (naturally) they take some of the cells from the umbillical cord inject them into the other daughter and she gets better.

This has happened five times in the US and 2 of the couples even had to come from europe where it is not legal to do this. What are your views on this topic?

I'll comment on your post tomorrow, I just didn't want to forget to post this to you so I did it now. And by the way, I am so proud of you, you posted.

Re: Breeding Babies

[dberge1088]

I can't say that I think this is wrong. They want to have another child, they don't plan on giving it up for adoption. Even if they didn't want another untilt hey found out it could save their daughter, is that such a bad reason to have another child? They will still love them both, they will still raise them like children.

If this technology of 'picking children' wouldn't they have just tried and tried until their other child died or they found a match in one of their new offspring.

I don't think that we should ever allow Gatica to happen, choosing for a smarter baby or a taller baby but is this so wrong? Is it so wrong for a parent to want to save their child with the help of a new baby. The baby looses nothing, if the baby lost something then perhaps we would have something to debate about but as this is taken from the umbilical cord, why is this a debate?

Your thoughts?

Re: Breeding Babies

[smackymc]

in these specific instances, it is not such a bad thing. because they want the baby for the baby, not just for the cells. if they only wanted the baby for the cells and then were gonna get rid of it, thats bad. but in this case, its different...

[dberge1088]

Well first off in order to actually obtain stem cells you must stop development before the 'embrio' becomes more than a tiney ball of cells. If they are allowed to continue to develope then they turn its a little ball of developed cells and theya re not good. This is persay to get traditional stem cells. Stems cells can also be obtained from things like umbilical cords and such but they are not as 'pure' they are still undefined cells but they will have certain attributes to them that early development stem cells won't have

[smackymc]

yeah, i dont relly know what is needed for stem cell research. i knew it was stuff that is considered pre fetus, but i didnt know how much... and i consider myself as informed as the rest of the public, at least... and yet the public supposedly outcries the stem cell research. it's like usual, uninformed people making decisions before they should

[dberge1088]

Thats what I was saying, you I consider even more informed than the average Joe (your young, stay current and are in a learning enviornment) in many ways and you yourself have trouble explaining stem cell's, how they work and where we get them. Perhaps if we informed the public more they would oppose the research and the production of stem cells less. Half of america pictures fetuses in beakers being killed and harvested for cells. Pro life blew it way out of proportion when scientists asked if they could have the umbilical cords of aborted fetuses. We are scientists, we don't want to see something very useful go to waste. We could save lives with those cells

[dberge1088]

By the way, I am so proud of you. You posted in your journal!

[anonymous]

Hey...it's Adam again...thought I'd try to slip in

[anonymous]

That's a good point adam, but I think we should have more faith in the science field. For one thing, many scientists do bring many morals to the table when they perform their research and make their decisions. I also don't think that the communtiy as a whole would want to end a life that has already begun (such as euthanasia) for a "greater good." We talked about eithanasia in my crim law class and the results were interesting. I think stem cell research in particular is a great thing. And as has been mentioned before, harvesting cells are done mostly at the cellular (wow that was a poor choice of wording) level. Can't come up with the proper word now. Anyway, the April issue of Discover magazine had a great article on viable life and it discussed stem cells aswell. If you can get your hands on the article it is very interesting and not very biased at all. I was impressed.

[anonymous]

by the way this is Nobbit

[smackymc]

i agree, adam with sevral of your points. the only problem, as you pointed out, is thatmorals are very flexible and can differ greatly among people. if we were to use a set of morals to define where life began, who's morals would we use? and what about the people who dont have those morals?

and i definitely agree with you that polititcians shouldnt be in charge of deciding that. i think it should be a panel of people that look into it. some scientists, some regular people, some religious people... it's never gonna happen, but that'd be the best method for deciding . represent as much of the public as possible, and figure out a common answer.

so adam, when would you say that we should consider life as begun?

A Pannle of Experts

[dberge1088]

Making an effort to form a pannle of experts is laudable and it has been done many times. The panel should consist of folks who like me are very science bias, folks like the pope very religiouse bias and folks like you andy who are very philosophical. Unfortunatly these pannels are generally appointed by one person

Re: A Pannle of Experts

[smackymc]

ok, to get to every point... here goes

Re: A Pannle of Experts

[dberge1088]

The sunset law thing is not such a bad idea and all but then how often do you go about reviewing sucht hings as this? Do we review things such as abortion and stem cell research every year, every 10 years, every 50? Do we just review them when the people start to complain? It is quite a conundrum

Re: A Pannle of Experts

[dberge1088]

I hate polls. While I don't doubt that a bunch of people were against interacial marriages at that time, i don't think polls are any sort of efficient way to find out what people think.