Frozen Embryos

Yes, Terry, as I have already said, it is a property rights issue , rather than a moral dilemma. Finn just doesn't recognize that.

Well, I'm sure that Portal will appreciate your kind words.



Perhaps to you and edgar it is a property's rights issue, but for anyone who does not believe embryos are simple property, it is not a property rights issue.

Whether or not the disposal of embryos became an "issue" because of pro-lifers, the women's rights/pro-choice movement has engaged in it in an effort to protect what they believe is a woman's right to dispose of unborn children as they see fit. It is the same reason this movement is fighting the ban on partial birth abortions. From a political standpoint, I can understand this. It is fighting at the edges to protect the core. However for many people it is merely an extension of the political battle for a woman's right to abortion. The same can easily be said for many pro-lifers. Perhaps no one on this thread is motivated by the politics of the larger woman's rights movement, but I don't understand why you or edgar seem to object so mightily to my wondering to what extent politics plays in people's views on this topic.

To the extent that any ethical framework is essentially a matter of "personal opinion,"no. However if you are implying that there is reason other than "personal opinion" to support the choice to do whatever one wishes with unused embryos, I would be interested in learning of it.



This is a facile conclusion at best. What I do not care about, in the context of this discussion, are biological factoids that have no real relevance to the issue, and I certainly have no interest in politically motivated perversion of biological facts such as "An embryo/fetus is very much like a parasite." If you can offer biological facts that support the contention that a mother (or couple) have the right to discard unused embryos or terminate the life of a fetus, I am most interested to learn of them.

As for religion, my argument, all along, has been that a sense of religion is not required to hold an ethics based conclusion. It's fairly clear that there is a desire on the part of some who have contributed to this thread to frame the discussion as "biological FACT," vs "religious beliefs" (or more aptly, superstitious religious beliefs). This is non-starter since, first of all, the two are not mutually exclusive, and, secondly, either can only inform one's opinion on the subject, not confirm it.


To some extent yes, but the point is that when they combine, something completely new is created, and moves down the path of human development. Others choose to hold the life that moves through the mother's birth canal and into the light as sacred. I start much earlier in the process. Please explain how one might be right and one might be wrong.



Again your intent seems to be to trivialize my contention. Let me ask you this Terry? Do you belief life is sacred? If so when is it injected with the magic?

Your position would be more consistent if you were of the opinion that there was anything particularly sacred about life in general, and that a fully developed human isn't any more deserving of existence than a lump of tissue. Maybe that is just what you believe, but clearly others who have been engaged in this discussion do not. They choose to draw a line, purportedly based on biological fact, between birth and pre-birth.



This and the other questions which you pose and which you seem to belive somehow make your point are, again, irrelevant, and are being used as a dodge.

For instance:



This has no bearing on the issue at hand. Explain to me how any answer I provided could go towards supporting your point.


Another brilliant "bio-fact." So does every other living thing and therefore, by your logic, every living thing is a "pile of genetic code."



Terry an embryo is not a parasite - pure and simple. If you are going to wrap yourself in a mantle of rational science, at least get your facts straight. You may choose to use the term "parasite" as some sort of loose metaphor in describing an embryo, but factually it is nothing of the sort.
There are many reasons why this is so, not the least of which is that a parasite is an organism of one species which invades an organism of another species. Barring some bizarre scientific experiment, an embryo is clearly of the same species as the mother.



Opinion or another biological fact?

In any case now you seem to have jumped off the property rights issue to one of the perils of overpopulation - Not only can these couples feel free to discard the unused embryos rather than donate them to other infertile couples, they should for the sake of Gaia!

The embryos are created with the donors' personal body materials. None of it is supplied by anyone else, not even Finn. Since they have not at that point created a human being, merely a potential human being, the whole thing is a property rights issue. Finn has not offered anything that refutes this simple argument.

Common Law (upon which our system of civil law is based) has for hundreds of years held that "there is no property in the human body." The reasoning for this holding is that to commoditize human life is to cheapen it.

Don't believe me?



Or take a look at

Moore vs. The Regents of the University of California, 51 Cal. 3d 120 (1990).

The Supreme Court of the State of California found that John
Moore, the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Regents of the University of California, his doctors and several biotechnology companies, had no property rights to the tissues that his doctors had extracted during part of the treatment for the rare but potentially fatal disease hairy cell leukemia.

Your simple argument has little to no standing in the law, but perhaps you wish to advance it as a personal opinion.

Save yourself the trouble edgar. The only POV this guy's interested in is his own.

Personal opinion or not, the frozen embryos will when they number dozens for one couple never be used to grow children.

I'm disappointed edgar. You make a point of contending that I haven't refuted your property rights issue and when I do, you don't have the good grace to acknowledge it, or the moxy to respond to it.

And well, yes it is a personal opinion (of yours) that the frozen embryos of one couple will never be used to grow children. Considering that a very specific option presented to these couple is to donate the embryos to other infertile couples, I'm not sure how you arrive at this opinion. Assuming that your are correct, how does this factor into what the ethical choice is for those couples who produce numerous embryos? Are you arguing that because all of the embryos collected will not produce children that this, in and of itself, makes all choices morally equivalent?

And yet you keep coming back Wilso.

Again, perhaps you might want to offer your POV rather than dismissing mine...or do you even have one? Is a POV that lasts beyond a few seconds even possible for the post-modernist?

if you record your POV (of the moment), will you somehow violate your creed?

I may have been mistaken in pushing the property rights issue. Perhaps when enough people see the practicality of it that will change.
So long as people are not forced to give up their embryos to other potential parents, there will be a wide array of decisions made. I have no quarrel with the sharing of them, but that is not the only option that can or should be considered. These fetuses are, after all, not human.

I certainly have not advocated forcing anyone to do anything with these embryos. If the right choice is made only because it is the only choice, it hardly qualifies as "right." People have to live with their choices. Karmic retribution, in time, comes to all.



Soley by edgar's definition of human. Not so?

That's the reason I won't waste my time on you.

And if you're so desperate to know my opinion it's this simple, whatever you represent, I'm against.

sayeth Finn: Soley by edgar's definition of human. Not so?



Not solely my definition. The scientists who would use them would pretty much have to see it my way.

Wilso, you are amusing.

Well that surely justifies your position.

Are you suggesting that we need to talley the number of people who agree with us to determine who is actually "right?" Ethics determined by majority rule?

Mengele and any number of Third Reich "scientists" had firm opinions on what was permissable. Authoritative?

This is not to suggest you are the equivalent of a monster like Mengele, but to make a point.

"These fetuses are, after all, not human"

Not much room for discussion with that comment. I have no fundamental problem with your certainty of opinion, only that you might try to convey it as fact.

I am certain you are wrong. Can I prove it factually? No.

If we can determine weather the sex of the embreo is male or female, a lot of couples with a strong preference will want to use embryos instead of natural conception. Is non-distructive sex determination easy? Neil

Finn
You injected the question of how many see it from a certain point of view before I did. I only answered you. If there were only one or two persons alive with my point of view on this and everybody else agreed with you I would still be the more correct.