House passes bill to ban all cloning

maxsdadeo, cloning has the potential to save lives by replacing diseased or injured organs, glands, perhaps someday even limbs. Is that not a good thing?

Do you think that stem cells have individual souls, or a collective soul? Do brain cells, liver cells, intestinal lining cells, and hair follicles have souls also?

You have ignored several questions I asked you:

How is cloning your own stem cells morally any different than cloning your skin or blood cells?

Who is hurt by cloning stem cells?

Does the government have any legitimate interest in banning therapeutic cloning?

Do you think that people who oppose blood transfusions or any other medical procedure should be allowed to enforce their religious beliefs to the detriment of others?

Terry: I have "the potential" to be a star in the NBA or NFL, yet I doubt very much if that "potential" will be realized.

You put a lot of stock in the "potential" of stem cell research.

You also did not address my point that ends justification has a very poor track record in means testing.

There are other, less controversial methods which not only have potential to do those things that stem cell research has, they have the added benefit of being less controversial.

There is way too much baggage for my taste with stem cell research.

Apparently, the House of Representatives agrees with me.

I did not address it because it makes no sense unless you can demonstrate that the means are in any way unethical.

Now would you please tell us who would be hurt by stem cell cloning, what ethical reason there is to oppose the cloning of any kind of cells, why you think that human stem cells have some inherent sanctity, and why you think that vote in the House of Representatives was based on anything but politics?


Outlawing slavery when the Bible condoned it was controversial. Allowing women to vote was contorversial. Buying Alaska, going to the moon, and sequencing the genome were controversial. The vaccine for smallpox was controversial both when it was invented and now as a response to terrorism. If we never did anything that was controversial, we would not be living long, healthy lives in a democracy with electic lights, cars, and tomato sauce on our pizzas.


You only have the potential to be a sports star if you have superior athletic ability and motivation. So what does that have to do with stem cell cloning? We know that embryonic stem cells are superior to other kinds of cells for cloning. The fact that people are suffering and dying from diseases is sufficient motivation for most of us to want to help them. No one would be harmed and many could be helped by therapeutic cloning research. So why does ANYONE oppose it?

Terry - thanks for writing it out so coherently and intelligently....

Give me a second to digest your big gulps of generalities for a moment.

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There, that is better.

It was precisely the ethics that concerned the House, you can review that on your own.
Just because you fail to see the ethical questions involved does not mean that they do not exist.

To believe in the sanctity of human life is an absolute, one cannot pick and choose which life "deserves" something that is denied another.

Of course broader questions such as When does life begin? are inherent in this discussion.

I would not presume to answer, because frankly, I don't know.

And neither do you.

Until society can reasonably show with some consistency that it's Ethics is commensurate with it's science, we SHOULD limit the type of research such as this.

I realize that the phrase "playing God" falls on deaf ears to those who do not share a belief in a Creator.

But the fact remains that our forefathers did, and until proof that God does not exist, I will stick with the "All men are CREATED EQUAL, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Please note that the ability to pursue happiness is guaranteed, not the acquisition of it.

But, Max, it's a religious morality you're talking about. Not scientific ethics. Only part of the country believes in the presence of the soul. Why should us non-believers suffer without the medical break-throughs that can be earned through the science of cloning or cloned cells themselves? Why should the government be passing legislation based on religious morals?

One further point, you may want to review the biblical version of "slavery" before you use it again in an argument.

What Blacks were subjected to prior to the Civil War does not even REMOTELY resemble the biblical constructs of slavery.

A better analogy would be to say that the biblical version of slavery is like earning minimum wage.

Of course, the Jews were subjected to the type of slavery to which you refer by the Egyptians, but that was not acceptable by God then, either.

It was Terry, not I, who attempted to give nose hair and your appendix a soul.

I intentionally omitted any mention of a soul.

My opposition to the research lies in the Preamble to the Constitution, specifically the portion that I posted.

I do not expect anyone to have any respect or put any stock in any religious writing or teaching.

The Constitution, and it's Preamble, however, is a mule of a different hue.

maxsdadeo I still don't think I understand what your reasoning is behind opposing therapuetic cloning. If it does not involve a fertilized egg what is the problem? A person is not being created, an unfertilized egg cell is being used to produce stem cells.

One more thing then I will shut up for a while and let you talk.

Please, please, PLEASE do not assume that since I do not advocate stem cell research that I do not empathize with those who are afflicted with diseases and ailments.

Your implication that I am hard hearted is not even remotely accurate, and unconscionable to the extreme.

Max, I know you well enough to believe that the route of your dissapproval is rooted firmly in the soul.

maxsdadeo, let's forget all of the irrelevant stuff for a while and get back to the basics:

Exactly what do you consider unethical about therapeutic cloning? Lots of things are controversial, but that does not mean that they are necessarily unethical.

What does therapeutic cloning have to do with the sanctity of life?

What life is being "denied" to anyone other than the person suffering from a fatal disease? Are you saying that stem cells have an independent right to life, so you cannot use your own cells to save your own life? What about the rights of millions of cells destroyed by your body each day?

Who is being denied any unalienable rights, other than the people whose liberty and pursuit of happiness are impaired by their disease?

Aww, shucks, little k! I am flattered that you have been paying attention!

Terry: Please review the following:

Now, why do YOU think I may not agree with this?

Pre-embryo - does that mean it's an unfertilized egg? Is it murder everytime a woman ovulates and doesn't become pregnant?

Ah, it is fertilized....

Max


I'm am afraid you lost me. What has that to do with stem cell research or therapeutic cloning?

maxsdadeo, since a "pre-embryo" is nothing more than a ball of undifferentiated cells that will never under any circumstances grow into a human being, I have no idea why you would not agree with it.

What is the difference between stem cells and blood, bladder, liver, or skin cells? All of them have a complete set of DNA. All of them are alive and can reproduce. All of them will die if the owner dies because therapeutic cloning was outlawed for religious reasons.

Pre-embryo?

Once the sperm enters the egg, a zygote is formed. Is this what you're calling a pre-embryo...ie. prior to the first mitosis which then leads to embryogenesis?

Stem-cell research inputs the genetic material from any cell into an unfertilized egg, which is stimulated into dividing. After five to six days, stem cells can be extracted and used for research. Baldwin said this differs from reproductive cloning, which would involve cloning a human embryo.

"What this law will do is succeed to foreign countries who will continue to research and eventually find cures to terrible diseases," Beeton said. "The worst part of this law is that if a doctor in Germany finds a cure for Alzheimer's disease through therapeutic cloning, it would be illegal to use that cure in the [United States]."

Article

The DNA triggers cell division. If untouched, would this dividing mass become a human embryo? If yes, it should be banned.