Thursday, October 26, 2006
and speaking of stem cells...
Easily the best ad in our district this cycle.
I know, I know, culture of life, when does life begin, blah blah blah. Look, the issue is over whether we should:
I really don't think the question of "when life begins" even matters here. To choose option A is just loco, but to force everyone else to choose option A is something else entirely.
I can understand dying for your beliefs, that's perfectly admirable, but forcing other people to die for your beliefs?
I know, I know, culture of life, when does life begin, blah blah blah. Look, the issue is over whether we should:
a) take all the blastocysts used in in vitro fertilization and toss them in the garbage, or
b) take their stem cells and determine whether they can be used to cure Parkinson's, paralysis, and a bunch of other incurable ailments. Like, miraculously cure.
I really don't think the question of "when life begins" even matters here. To choose option A is just loco, but to force everyone else to choose option A is something else entirely.
I can understand dying for your beliefs, that's perfectly admirable, but forcing other people to die for your beliefs?
Comments:
<< Home
Instead of doing my work, I've been doing a similarly educational thing by reading a blog called A Little Pregnant And I'm not just being cute when I say it's educational. It's the tale of woe and triumph of a woman not that much older than I (gulp) going through all sorts of fertility treatments (and ending up with a baby after IVF #4). There are many interesting things we don't kick around in our common knowledge about fertilization, embryos, the whole fetal development process that we really should, because otherwise the whole conversation is disingenuous. My wishful thinking is that sperm meets egg in an appropriately romantic setting, and bam! Baby gets on its way with nary a thought given to failure. But noooo.... Read this post for an introduction to such difficulties--such difficulties being in some way specific to the fertility-treatment process, but in a fundamental way representative of normal reproductive processes. Is an embryo, created in the old-fashioned way, one that can give you a positive on a home pregnancy test, but can't survive past a couple weeks of cell division because of regular old not-this-time circumstances a human being?
For that matter, is such an embryo that's been cooked up in a petri dish that may or may not become a thriving fetus in the womb suitable for research?
We really ought to be able to think and talk about these things in public, no matter how difficult or confusing, don't you think?
Rambling over now.
For that matter, is such an embryo that's been cooked up in a petri dish that may or may not become a thriving fetus in the womb suitable for research?
We really ought to be able to think and talk about these things in public, no matter how difficult or confusing, don't you think?
Rambling over now.
I think that, in order for us as a society to come to any kind of workable compromise on this and other pregnancy/fetus/unborn children-related issues, we're going to have to come to grips with the simple fact that all sides have been imposing the term "living human baby" at what are really just arbitrary points in the reproductive process. Each side picked a point that best serves their rhetorical purposes and ran with it. The problem is that, as we learn more about pregnancy and ESPECIALLY about conception, it becomes clearer that there's a lot of grey area between the meeting of gametes and "living human baby." Yes/no just doesn't cut it here.
Post a Comment
<< Home
