New Hope for Stem Cell Research 466
ExE122 writes "A new scientific breakthrough allows scientists to harvest stem cells without harming the embryo. From the article: ''We have shown that we can not only generate stem cells without destroying the embryo, but that the remaining embryo also has the potential to go to on create a healthy blastocyst' said Dr Lanza, whose team's research is published in Nature. Asked if he expected the advance to satisfy President Bush, Dr Lanza said: 'Well, as you know, the President objects to the fact that you would be sacrificing one life to save another, and in this instance there is no harm to the embryo.''"
Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
This is similar enough to cloning to trigger the same hostility. I don't really see the difference it will make.
Not to mention the problem of what to do with the excess embryos after the desired number of offspring has been reached. I don't understand how pro-life POV can accept fertility treatments that generate extra embryos.
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The interesting thing is that they have set up 'embryo adoption' organizations where willing couples can adopt embryos from IVF couples who are through having kids, but have embryos left over.
The reason you don't see as much hostility toward birth control and IVF is that they generally place a higher priority on fight
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Where's their outrage over those lives?
They have a voice? They can choose to be part of the military or not. Last I checked, there was no draft.
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1) abortion
2) IVF
3) death penalty
4) war
5) George W. Bush
6) the Republican Party, which has gone off the deep end
There just don't seem to be enough of us to rival the rest of the voting population.
Re:Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irrelevant (Score:5, Informative)
For an interesting perspective on the impact of life and culture in the future without the benefit of cloned organs - try reading some of Larry Nivens works. (I think Limits is the collection with the stories of a detective who goes after black market organ harvesters.)
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The science-based definition is simple. You clone somebody and each has its own soul.
The religious definition is more complicated. If you clone somebody then it either:
1) creates a new soul, t
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In that vein, how can a good christian support blood transfusions and organ transplants since "it does bring up some difficult issues regarding souls". How do Christians define souls these days? When a fertilized egg splits into identical twins, does only one of them have a soul? If so, then when do you draw the line between parents' souls, new soul, and no soul? If I bleed, am I shedding a piece of my soul? If I 'spread my seed on the ground' am I not then loosing a piece of my soul? If
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I find it interesting that you've come to that conclusion, especially since most "christians" refuse to, despite t
The soul resolves the paradox of seperation (Score:2)
If everything is one, and nothing is seperate, there is no need to place blame, no need for judgeme
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These type of objections are not logical to me, so I have no problem predicting that further illogical objections will be raised.
This is good news... (Score:2)
hooray! (Score:4, Insightful)
good news, let us see it twisted someday (Score:3, Insightful)
I can just see it now. Bush will claim something like, "By sticking to our upstanding morals, we have driven science further than any other generation ever."
Bush is like a broken path in the Internet. Science will route around him.
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I was thinking the exact same thing you were, but not as sarcastic. If this article is true, then I see this as a victory for both parties
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I agree with your thought completely. The science has progressed further because of the "limitation" (that stops no one from doing their own privately-funded research) placed on it, not despite it.
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The word "harvest". (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish folks would stop using that word and find another one. "Harvest" gets a lot of folks riled up and gives them the impression that people are going to be farmed (or whatever) for their parts.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's not the case, but in this day and age of bumper sticker sound bites, that's all people hear and they don't want to investigate further. They'll just jump to the first two-bit opinion that fits or the opinion that was given to them by a pundit and to hell with the facts.
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How about "disenfranchised"?
Allow me to use the newly redefined word in a sentence: "We disenfranchised a single cell from the embryo to create a stem cell line that will allow us to grow extra nose tissue for Michael Jackson."
Fantastic! (Score:2)
Now we can do our research and all the "pre-babies" that would have been destroyed in the process of creating stem cells can instead be thrown in the trash, just as God intended.
not the first time I've heard that.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If true, it kinda makes the extreme right a bit hypocritical, doesn't it? Kinda like saying you refuse to sacrifice one life for the sake of another while maintaining a war in the mid-east....but I digress.
Re:not the first time I've heard that.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:not the first time I've heard that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's reliable.
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Raises a new problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Raises a new problem (Score:4, Interesting)
The short answer is no.
The parents (probably even just the mother) of the embryo gets to negotiate away the rights to those cells, and the grown up embryo will have no rights involving those cells excepting those negotiated by the parents.
Isn't each part of the embryo a separate person? (Score:2)
Now a team at Advanced Cell Technology - a private company - has found that it is possible to create human stem cells using one or two cells from an early embryo, without doing any damage to the embryo.
If you split cells off of an early embryo, aren't they also viable embryos in their own right? Isn't this what creates identical twins?
I expect the Bush administration to object to this technique on the basis that each separate cell bundle from the embryo is an "individual".
Re:Isn't each part of the embryo a separate person (Score:2)
Re:Isn't each part of the embryo a separate person (Score:2)
The whole pro-life religious argument is that fertilization creates a soul. By this argument, all identical siblings are either possess only a fraction of a soul or God has given the additonal natural clones a bonus soul. The latter is the acceptable choice since sharing souls doesn't fit the afterlife scenario very well. Human interference is the key factor (e.g. ta
I am pro-life, here what I have to say (Score:2)
The problem that people do not understand derives itself from the form of IVF used and has existed as a moral and ethical dilemna way before stem cell research was popular. Since IVF is a relatively new proc
Oh come on... (Score:2)
Skin Grafts (Score:2)
This might (or might not, depending on risk) eliminate the "murder" question, but it certainly isn't a morally unambiguous practice.
-Peter
PS: I'm an athiest.
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pro-choice, but I do think there is a negative moral angle on abortion. I don't think any truly advanced society should have a place for abortion; education, contraception, and societal support for young mothers should completely remove the need for any such thing.
But you know what? The same right wing that preaches so hard against abortion, also preaches against practical sex ed, available contraception for minors, and social services for unwed mothers...not to mention the moral stigma they attach to young unwed mothers.
So don't talk about how you're adopting some of the babies who actually got born...That's the smallest part of what you need to be doing.
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I'm agnostic and pro-choice, but I have friends that are christian and pro-life, and they, more than anyone else I've seen in the iss
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an area where secular services are needed...We know the churches views on contraception ("Abstinence is good enough for anyone"), sex education ("Don't have sex until you're married, and don't enjoy it or you'll go to hell"), and on adoption ("Even though you're a slut and a whore for having this baby, we'll be willing to take it away from you and raise it to be the sort of kid that you're not").
Frankly, what this issue needs more than anything else is for the goddamn moralists to take a step back. This is a practical problem: women are getting pregant who don't want to be pregnant. There are practical solutions: help women not to get pregnant unless they want to be pregnant. This means education, and healthcare, and a whole bunch of things that the chruch cannot and will not provide.
If we provide these things, the numbers of abortions will decline, and isn't that the fricking point?
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I do believe that the bulk of our societies sex issues have a religious root, and I don't think that adding more religion is the answer, especially since their method of dealing with the problem is basically to deny it exists until a child is born.
The first step is to slow down the number of unwanted pregnancies, and that takes education, and that takes contraception, and since the church is anti-sex ed, and opposed to providing any form of contraception, and only promotes the use of abstinence/"Please god don't let me get pregnant", I don't see how getting them more involved is going to help in any way.
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:5, Insightful)
And economics? To minors who think that money is something you ask your dad for more of? I don't think that'll be a compelling argument.
I don't have problems with those things being taught, but they should be only a small part of the total lesson. Those kids should be taught about sex, they should be taught about rape, they should be taught about many different kinds of birth control AND HOW TO USE THEM. They should be taught about abortions, and how to make sure you don't need one. STDs, abuse, health issues, legal issues, the works, all the stuff that we had to learn the hard way.
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Unless you were being sarcastic, there are other valid reasons for abortion, like medical -- for either the mother or child to be or, arguably, cases of rape, incest, etc...
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Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:4, Insightful)
And, for the record, screaming "Rape and Incest" in a discussion about abortion, is like screaming "Nazis" whenever you're talking about war. You're not adding anything to the discussion.
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(1) Hair-splitting: Incest shouldn't be a separate category here. Either it's Rape of a Minor, assuming one of the parties -can't- consent, or it's Rape if one of the parties -doesn't- consent, or it's just icky consensual brother-sister stuff. I never understood why it's always trotted out like it's a whole new category.
(2) Life of the mother, in my o
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What is the negative moral angle? A truly advanced society shouldn't be basing its moral imperatives on rhetoric which doesn't distinguish between various stages of life, such as gamete/embryo/fetus/child (much less the various stages of embryonic development). This "negative angle" which you conceive of is merely the result of a group of ignorant fanatics attempting to put undue guilt on women who are faced with the already difficult choice of whether or not to fully carry a pregancy to term.
The fact that
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And my metric is what the embryo/fetus is biologically capable of at that point of development. The human reproductive cycle is well understood and the biology behind it has been extensively studied. Consciousness in the context I was using it in r
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The choice isn't between pregnancy and abstinence. It's between pregnancy, spending a bit of money on contraceptives, and abstinence. But if people don't know where to get contraceptives, they will not have the third option.
So now it's the teenage "live-forever-no-consequences" instinct against the prohibitions instilled by their parents, who quite obviousl
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How about a realistic approach? How about telling kids "Abstinence is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and STDs, and it'd be great if you practiced it. However, that's probably unrealistic, and so here are some ways to protect yourself if you do choose to have sex."
Because, you know, many of them WILL choose to. And which would you rather have? Pregnant teenagers with untreated STDs because they don't know fuck-all about
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:4, Insightful)
And when I say education, I mean education. I don't mean "teach abstinence". I mean "this is sex, this is what goes on, this is what you can catch, and this is how you can do it safely." I'm talking a significant course here, not just a day out of gym class.
The only way to help people make the right descision, is to make sure they have access to all the information. They may go through the whole class and not learn a damn thing, but they have a much better chance than if you'd tried to keep them in ignorance all along.
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Are you adopting a real macroscopic kid who needs parents, or a clump of frozen cells?
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Exactely, the first thought would be from my first brain which be along the lines of "Man, this is kinda of illegal and stuff"
The second thought would come from my other brain saying "OVERRULED!"
A little one-sided (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A little one-sided (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some people really do think that a microscopic clump of cells is a baby. Perhaps there exists an untapped market in teeny tiny baby supplies for these really small children. A playpen made out of a ring of hydrogen atoms and an amoeba for a pet.
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Forget where I read this but it illustrates the hypocrisy of the right-to-life kooks.
Your friend is working in an in vitro lab. The place catches fire, do you save your friend or the freezer full of frozen embryos? Most pick the friend.
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Hint: cages weigh as much as freezers, and most people can't lift them. It's not hypocrisy, it's just efficient use of resources. You don't throw away your life AND your friend's life on a mission with a 99.9% chance of failure when you can save yourself and your friend with an equal chance of success. And I doubt most people would disagree that toddlers are peopl
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And frankly, it's much easier to carry two kids than one adult.
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It really is an "out there" example.
Say the lab has my wife's frozen embryos stored there. Say maybe we have no chance of conceiving again. Sorry, "friend." :)
Or again, say a night club is burning down (Great White venue*). I might save my friend even over several strangers. Maybe. It just all depends on finer circumstances.
* What? Too soon?
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And what those strangers look like...chicks dig guys who jump through flaming debris to save them.
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Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes sense.... as much as the idea that anyone opposed to the death penalty being should be required to take death row inmates into their homes.
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Well, we are not colonizing distant lands with convicts any more, are we?
Adopt an Embryo (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, while the objection of President Bush and other moderates is killing the embryo, the Catholic Church and real "right wing zealot" Protestants have another deeper objection: the separation of sex and procreation. The idea is that it is fundamentally disordered to separate the two, as we have done since the 1930s. There is an analogous separation of eating and nutrition - also enabled by modern technology. While the Catholic Church has not said anything (that I know of) about the foo
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Human societies have had non-essential-nourishment foods in the form of desserts for millenia. Sure there's a huge range of nutritional value am
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Lab Tech 1: Put it right back in the freezer with the hundreds of other fertilized embryos that we got from the fertility clinic down the street. I'm sure you know that, by and large, once their customers successfully have a kid, they either keep them on ice indefinitely or simply throw them out away after a few years?
Right Wing Right-to-Life Zealot: What? No! That's murd... [remembers ow
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Ok, so this actually does address the Pope's main concern, and reduces stem cell donation to no different than kidney donation. Thus, as a Roman Catholic, I'm ethically satisfied. But the science half is still dissatisfied: What, exactly, does this get us? As we've been arguing all along, unless by some chance you have an exact DNA, RNA, and Mitochondrial match with a living human being who
off topic, but still... (Score:5, Informative)
Pro-life liberals outnumber pro-life conservatives but they get almost no press.
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It's just human nature. Humans are intrigued by physical action. It..moves them. That's why action movies get most box-office dollars. Kiss-kiss bang-bang.
Re:off topic, but still... (Score:4, Informative)
Could you supply a link with data supporting this?
There is a lot of gray area here. There are also pro-choice "conservatives." Theoretically, more "traditional" conservatives would argue for liberty over regulation and would not attempt to make this a federal issue.
That said, you're also going to find a lot of people, liberal and conservative, who may not think abortion is an option for themselves. Yet that does not mean those very same people wouldn't view abortion as a personal choice that others should be allowed to make.
Like this chap? (Score:3, Informative)
I just have to mention this [pandagon.net] chap, seeing as he's a pro-lifer who adopted kids when it suited his politics, but then disowned them (both!) when it didn't. Grr. Personally I favour the logic of pro-both [proboth.org]. The idea that you have to be anti-freedom-for-the-mother or anti-life-for-the-foetus is as nonsensical and divisive as "you're with us or you're against us". -- Jamie
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People who do insist upon populating the earth and saving every embryo need to do more than just adopt, they need to do ensure society has a place for them and has the necessary services in place, otherwise they will be debating where the build the next prison to house them as adults.
I take it you read "Freakonomics?"
Hu, intresting that. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, no matter what you do, women will have abortions by inducing miscarrages, often in unhealty ways. By making it illegal, you are trading potential lifes for actually lifes of women everywhere.
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...much as a coma patient is just another part of the hospital.
Whether you agree with that or not, surely you can appreciate that the issue is more nuanced that you're putting forward.
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:5, Insightful)
It is also amazing that we make them work through the requirements at all. It would also be amazing what they could have done if their work had not been bureaucraticly retarded for how many years now? At least they did manage to do it. Give thanks.
Bless Dr Lanza [i-bless.com]
Re:Yay! (Sort of) (Score:4, Informative)
Objecting to unfettered experimentation on human subjects by researchers without any concern for the well-being of the subjects? Perfectly valid, and I'd be one of those shouting against such research.
Superstitious objections based on "My holy book says you can't use the color red" and similarly flimsy/absurd arguments? Should be ignored.
There's a middle ground between these two extremes, however, where the line is not so clear. At that point, discussion and debate and inquiry need to take place. And yes, while that discussion and debate and inquiry happens, some people will die, and that's very unfortunate. However, I think it would be much more unfortunate for humanity to completely abandon any sense of ethics in the pursuit of progress.
How many lives can be saved by having a treatment come a little sooner? I don't know. How many lives would be spent if we had a society hell-bent on progress with no regard for human life? I don't know, but the 20th century gives us some pretty damn good estimates...
I disagree with the notion that embryo == full-fledged human being, but as I said in my previous post, disagreeing with someone does not mean that I cannot understand and respect their views if their views are sensible, self-consistent and based at least somewhat on reality. I will not dismiss someone as an idiot if they say they have a moral objection to destroying embryos during research. I would dismiss someone as an idiot if they say "Well, you're not killing babies anymore, but now you're playing god, so stop it!" I would also dismiss someone as an idiot and a monster if they were to say that *ANY* restrictions on research should be removed.
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People who are "pro-life" are also "anti-choice" it's true, but the opposite end of the spectrum isn't actually true; the "pro-choice" people aren't "anti-life" at all.
Abortion isn't something women do for recreation, it's a very major life choice. One side beleives a woman doesn't have a right to make a choice, and that having an abortion is evil, while the other side beleives that no matter how evil abortion is or isn't, that taking away a womans right to make that choice i
Troll parent (Score:2)
Really? You know many pro-choicers? You have accounts and statistics supporting your claim? I could've sworn they were fighting for the right to choose, not a systematic requirement that all pregnant women must abort. Obsessed with aborting? I've never met anyone, no matter how pro-choice, that I would ever sat tha
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The biggest problem with this whole issue is that there are hypocrites on both sides. Much like the Isreali rest of the middle east bullshit. When both sides do wrong it becomes hard to hammer out the issue at hand.
This is a remarkable advancement, personally I see nothing wrong with harvesting stem cells from fetuses that are going to be discarded anyways but this does allow them to collect stem cells on a much larger scale since any pregnant woman could potentially donate. That could help on a massive s
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That's not true. The President does not object to a great many things that he doesn't understand.
Perhaps you meant that he objects to things that he is aware he doesn't understand.
Re:We'll see... (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly untrue! The President has always been an avid supporter of the war in Iraq.
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Clearly untrue! The President has always been an avid supporter of the war in Iraq
I love it how lazy couch potato video game addicted Americans claim they understand stuff like the War on Terror better than the President and other government officials who are right in the thick of things. I mean clearly these lazy Americans are not at all biased by the slanted media. They also have absolutely no tendancy to become impatient and start to just
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Look, I'm not going to go around and pretend like our current US President is doing a great job. But it's tiring to see a supposedly intelligent, educated base like Slashdot fall for the Democrat propaganda machine.
Under Clinton, you couldn't do any research on ESC using federal funds-- at all. This is a bill that Clinton signed into law in 1995. In fact, Bush's rules are less stringent than Clinton's, and yet all we do is demonize Bush for his stanc
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Re:We'll see... (Score:5, Informative)
The bolding was done by me.
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Thanks to the embargo on stem cell research, someone is making a fortune off nervous new parents by storing this stuff just in case something awful happens. Graaarrr.
Totipotent vs. multipotent, and the Hayflick limit (Score:3, Informative)
There is also the issue of that ol'Hayflick limit, cells from an adult are 'older', they have a more limited number of times they can duplicate themselves before errors start showing up. Each time an adult cell divides, it's telomoric DNA gets shorter, and short telomeres lead to increases in copying errors (aka somatic mutations). Cells fr
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The funny thing is that Ann Coulter actually agrees with you [anncoulter.com].
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Second, you should distinguish between the set of issues that Dr. Evil, I mean, Karl, use to whip up support, and the set of issues that religious / non-materialist persons care about. For example, Christian's care[d] about killing humans before, while, and after the Republicans use it to get people to go vote.
Not doing evil things is a religious (or as you say, "fun
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Second, why do you keep putting 'religious' and 'non-materialist' together? The terms are unrelated and not even close to synonymous. Often, they are directly opposed.
Third, you a
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You what? (Score:2, Funny)
Anonymous Coward wrote: I flush viable human genetic material away all the time.
There is such a thing as TOO MUCH INFORMATION.