Ok, then tell me why before blurting out an unaccredited statement from the blue.
Often a thesis statement precedes the evidence. It's very standard English construction.
It's also standard argumentation practice for your thesis statement to support your evidence, which it did not.
Neither are pluripotent stem cells or blastocysts.
I think you're deliberately missing the point. Human blastocysts are human, the DNA settles this.
And I think you're deliberately misconstruing the point. Human blastocysts are a small collection of Human cells -- nothing more. They are not conscious and they do not suffer. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary regarding
this point. And about the DNA, we share 94% of it with chimps and some fraction will all life on earth. What is "Human" is a continuous gradient whether you look at it genetically or evolutionarily. The 4% that is unique to us gives us our sapience.
Bacteria are quite clearly not human.
They are distant genetic cousins, and they are cells, so why is their destruction any less worse than the destruction of tiny quantities of nascent Human cells?
Whether the blastocysts are alive is the question at hand.
They are alive by the definition provided to us by biology. The fallacy you are perpetrating is using life to conflate a self-sustaining chemical system and the ability to experience.
Sperm can't grow into a human.
If they're coupled with an ovum they can. Ever heard of sperm banks?
You were talking about the destruction of un-coupled sperm. Again, they can't grow into a human.
And neither can blastocysts unless implanted into a working uterus. Your argument is vacuous. Whether something can grow into a human is beside the point. You are talking about potential, which the DNA of any cell in one's body can provide, but what you ignore is that potential has to be coupled with a conscious choice.
then it's a human being, at one stage of development.
And you think my arguments are weak. Go look up "non sequitur" again. This statement has no logical connection to your previous one.
This is the very crux of the matter for those who are concerned. Of course it has a logical connection - some people believe that it is a living human deserving of full protections. You can't wish that away or pretend to be too obtuse to recognize it.
"If the blastocyst is 'alive'" --> "then it's a human being, at one stage of development." The implication here is fallacious. "Alive" here is nebulous and undefined. Your logic fails because you are once again equivocating your use of the term "life" which in this context could mean "ability to experience", which we already know is wrong, "ability to develop into a human" which we know is wrong because it is implicated on conscious choice, or some other unknown definition which brings us back full circle to "what is life?."
You can't wish away a non-statement or pretend to to be too obtuse to recognize it.
Defining 'life' is tricky.
And it's also irrelevant to this conversation, unless you're talking about "Human Life."
Of course we are, that's the subject of the whole debate.
Should we treat the suffering of an orangutan or dolphin any different than the suffering of the non-sentient brain impaired of our species, or even the non-brain-impaired, just because the latter looks like us?
Of course, this is a fundamental premise of our society and system of justice, no matter what your take on embryo research is.
Just because something is a "fundamental premise" doesn't mean it's right or isn't open to debate. In my opinion it is seriously flawed. Talk to a Buddhist.
Killing a bull, even painfully, is not a crime (in fact, it's bragged about on product labeling). Killing a handicapped child will get you life to death, depending on jurisdiction.
That's a nice straw man you have their. I never said anything about killing a handicapped child. Nice appeal to emotion as well. You've deliberately twisted my words. The untwisted version was meant to emphasize that ignoring the real suffering of the other species we live with
is arrogant at best, and criminal at worst. And the thing about the bull is disgusting. Don't we have animal rights laws that prohibit such unnecessary mistreatment?
For me, life is anything that can suffer.
Oh, you have a working definition of suffering? That's escaped philosophers for centuries.
You really know how to construct a straw man. Every human innately knows what suffering is, just like we know what heat or cold are, or what the color red is. Life, in the general ( universe-wide ) sense, is another issue altogether.
Positing that Humans are a higher form of life, other than the fact that we're sapient, is just cruel anthropocentrism and has led to the full scale destruction of the ecosystems that made us and sustains us.
Full-scale? Strange the world doesn't seem dead ... yep, just checked, my forest is quite healthy.
You fully know that I meant destruction in the progressive sense ( I accidentally omitted the "ongoing" ) and "full scale" in the "by every means possible" sense. ( go check a dictionary if you don't agree ) Now you are just slinging mud.
You're a radical vegan localvore, I presume?
Thanks for launching the first ad hominem attack and handing the argument to me. You must be getting desperate.
I'd advise you yo do the same.
I'm not funding any 'public' research.
Feel free not to contribute to the cause of eliminating human *suffering* and disease by the advancement of biological science, and eventually, that of the Earth's ecosystem as well.
jdb2
