G A T T A C A

[angledge]

Watched Discovery Channel program on genetic & stem cell research; head is now all full of conflicting thoughts. Is it right to make an embryo solely for the purpose of making stem cells? I have to admit, that thought makes me a bit queasy, though I'm not sure why. If I consider creating embryos in such a fashion to be unethical, why is that so? What does that imply about my views on abortion? And what about using embryos left over from fertility treatments - is that morally equivalent to harvesting organs from people who had living wills, or is it more like executing criminals & using their organs for transplants (rumored to be a current practice in China, BTW).

Then again - is it right to let a person suffer/die if they could be treated/cured with a therapy based on stem cells? Does a blastocyst have more of a right to life than someone who is dying of a disease that could be cured by an injection of stem cells? The program mentioned, in particular, research on rejuvenating cardiac muscle ravaged by heart disease.

Another point brought up by the program - have U.S. Government restrictions on human research grown too extreme? One of the researchers on the show pointed out that forty years ago, when heart transplant operations were first being attempted, the survival rate was 0%. No one who had a heart transplant made a full recovery (some patients' lives were extended for a few weeks). However, researchers learned lessons from these early attempts that could not have been learned any other way. The researcher that was being interviewed said that such experiments would never be allowed today. Does this mean that there is some treatment out there - potentially as revolutionary as heart-transplant surgery - that is not being developed because human testing is not allowed? A disturbing possibility.

ANOTHER thought: human cloning. Is there any good reason to clone someone? Has it already been done, somewhere, by someone, in secret (we can all just ignore those wacky Raelians)? WHY would anyone want to clone themselves?

Comments

[thereject.livejournal.com]

I wonder though, would you feel the same queasiness if the embryos in question were pig, or rat. If so, then your views are probably more centered around a "life is precious" viewpoint, rather than "humans are precious" ideal. I consider the former to be better than the latter, for reasons I will now explain.

Given the outrageous number of humans, and our propensity for mindless destruction, I find nothing inherently sacred in what may or may not be human. From freshly fertilized eggs, to embryos, to withered old people yelling at kids to stay out of their fruit trees, I don't give them more consideration than I would, say, a manatee. Not because I hate people, though my stint on a tech help desk pushed me in that direction, but more because I don't think people are "special" and have some inherent moral superiority over animals. We're just another animal that walks upright, except we have thumbs. I'm not certain how much weight my opinion carries though. I think the only reason I don't eat people is that it's illegal.

Now, the issue with fertility treatments, or at least the embryo-insertion technique, is that a general run will create around 20 embryos. Several are found viable and implanted, and usually only a couple of those actually take. The rest are flushed down the toilet or tossed in the trash. Now tell me which is more horrible, using trash to possibly cure diseases which kill thousands of people a year, or protecting the "sanctity of life" by flushing it down the toilet and allowing thousands to die as a result?

If you're wondering whether I think the religious right is hypocritical... yes. I do.

[thereject.livejournal.com]

Forgot about the cloning.

It's simple, they would clone themselves for the same reason they would have fertility treatments... they're selfish assholes that think their DNA is so God damned important that they NEED to carry on their lineage.

I endorse adoption as the selfless alternative.