Stemcell research....GO!

[Feba]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

I was listening to a lecture on this the other day and the short and sweet answer is that there are multiple types and levels of stem cells. Think of it as being like an RTS tech tree with specialized cells being the ends of the branches. With adult cells there are ways we can trick certain end-product cells to take one step back in the tech tree, like building a Starport out of a Terran Wraith, which could then be used to produce a number of different unit types. We can't yet, however, turn the clock all the way back to the Command Center cell that sits at the top of all the branches and opens the way for any type of cell to be created. Fetal stem cells are basically that top building in the tech tree.

this is quite possibly the geekiest way to explain a subject which is rather geeky to begin with.

Well, considering the ethical climate of the medical profession right now - you know, like considering organs harvestable within seconds of death - I don't think the potential good is any better than the potentially questionable ideas and practices that are being advocated right now.

This also rides closely to the cloning thing. Are we extending/saving lives with Stem Cell research or are we just finding ways to cheat death, illness and the consequences of injury?

Its a question of ethics that extends beyond the abortion issue itself. It could save lives or it could be a Frankenstein story in the making. Or both.

New technology is always scary. I mean, think about the people walking around with pig hearts beating in their chests. I think if you want to draw the line between 'saving lives' and 'playing god', we crossed it centuries ago; at least since we started performing amputations.

But it's sort of like Web 2.0; Wikipedia, youtube, myspace, all that stuff. It doesn't really matter what we think, because our children are going to grow up knowing about it, and they aren't going to be afraid.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

But it's sort of like Web 2.0; Wikipedia, youtube, myspace,

One of these is not like the others . . .

[Feba]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

Not as much as you'd think, actually. Wiki has a lot of people mostly working toward a common goal, instead of going off doing their own thing, but you'd be surprised at how alike they are. It's also the best example; because for all the reservations the older generation may have about USING things like facebook and youtube to document your life, Wikipedia REPLACES traditional encyclopedias. That people put faith in something which anyone can modify is baffling, horrifying, and unacceptable to quite a few older people; such as it being banned by teachers. And I don't mean the ones that don't allow you to source it (which is good and correct; it's an encyclopedia), I mean the ones that don't allow its use period.

[Taskmage]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

Or possibly he was just picking on your punctuation.

[Feba]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

Or possibly he was just picking on your punctuation.

1- YM isn't smart enough to do that.
2- It's just fine.

[Taskmage]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

Strictly speaking though, one of your delimiters is not like the others.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

Not as much as you'd think, actually. Wiki has a lot of people mostly working toward a common goal,

*buzzer noise*

Sorry, please play again.

Hint: community isn't exactly the brunt of the focus here.

[Feba]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

*buzzer noise*

Sorry, please play again.

Hint: community isn't exactly the brunt of the focus here.

So what's your point, YM? That Wikipedia isn't a social network? That's not its purpose, but they have many similar elements. That Wikipedia doesn't have a lot of user created content and media? That's flat out wrong. That Wikipedia doesn't have pages that are just stupid? Sure it does, although there are people working all the time to get rid of them.

[ShepardG]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

Oh my god that cartoon was funnie as shit.

[Vyuru]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

A small disclaimer. If you are a woman who has had an abortion, or is planning one, you may not want to read what I have written. I am frank in some of my views, and at some point these may cause you some distress.

I've also been over this a few times, rewriting it a bit, so it may not flow.


Most of the arugments that I have heard about this are from several standpoints.

1) It's my body and so long as the baby/fetus is attached to me the baby/fetus is an extension of my body, free to do with as I please.

2) For (insert reason here) the fetus is not considered human for (insert reason here), therefore we can do whatever we want with it.

Reason #1 I disagree with. I will agree that it is part of your body. However it is a part that has a mind and a will of it's own. It controls it's own body, not you. For that reason I do not believe that it is merely an extension of your body, almost like an extra limb you can do with as you please. It's more of a symbiotic relationship to me. May not be the best word to describe how I view it, but pretty close.

Reason #2 opens up an entire can of worms. It implies that something that we consider inhuman can become human, which also implies that something that we consider human can become inhuman. There's a word for this that I can't remember, but basically I believe that a being is human from conception. There isn't any great religious reasoning for that, it's simply a question of if you aren't, when are you human then? I hear alot of people like to use brain waves and stuff to define wether it's human or not. Ok then, how about using brain dead people as an example? They're alive, still breathing and all (although wouldn't they need a machine to breath for them at that point? Not sure on that detail) But based on the assumption that they don't need a machine to work their bodily functions for them, do you consider them dead or inhuman at that point? As I said, if not at conception, when?

And I wholeheartedly am vehemently against anything that approaches the subject of whether or not something is human. It is disgusting to hear what some people think they could do simply because something isn't considered human. This is partly why I dislike the term fetus when talking about an unborn child. To me it is someone trying to dehumanize the child, and I think to alot of women that is what it is as well. I've been around alot of pregnant women. True, not family members, but classmates, campus, malls, etc, and their voices carry. And I'd be willing to say that without a single exception, every single time I heard the word fetus used it was by a woman who wanted to get an abortion. Every time I heard the word baby or child used it was by a woman who wanted to give birth to the child.

Furthermore I have seen the reactions of women who have had miscarriages who wanted to have a child or another child. And I can assure you that to them that "fetus" or whatever you want to call it, was a living breathing child that they wanted to give birth to. I have seen them torn apart inside because they lost a loved one that they never got the chance to meet. I have seen the women who suddenly realise that the abortion they had killed a life. It may not be when they had it, it may be even as much as 10 years down the line, and that is even worse to see than the women who have a miscarriage.

That, more than anything makes me believe that you are human upon conception. You sure as heck are to the mothers who care about you.

Furthermore, there are some glaring inconsistencies in law. A woman has an abortion, nothing happens. A man kills a pregnant woman, he is charged with two counts of murder. Granted I don't recall how long she was pregnant, I believe she was under 5 weeks pregnant, although I cannot recall. Point being that I believe that she was still legal to go and get an abortion. If she could go and legally get the fetus killed, why the double murder charges?

If abortions are to remain legal, I want to see some changes in the law. Not only the above instance, but in case it hasn't already been changed I would like to see a change in the rule that the mother can get an abortion without the father's concent/knowledge, in some cases at anyrate. I am absolutely furious at the thought that someone could go and legally kill my child and there is nothing I can do about it. Now granted, and under our current laws, if the mother doesn't want to carry the child to term I don't think she should be forced to, but it shouldn't be solely in her hands either.

And for the record I am not precisely for nor against abortion. I am against abortion as a form of birth control just because you were too lazy to use a condom or some lazy ass excuse like that. But I do recognize that accidents happen, we're human, and I am sure there are some instances where I think the option should be open for women. But as I said, I am against abortion as a means of birth control simply because you don't like condoms or whatever other methods are out there.

I also believe whole heartedly that safe legal abortions should be available to those who need them. It is only right, and humane, regardless of what I think of abortion.

But by the same token I believe the "shame" of an unmarried woman having a child needs to change. And for damn sure I want to see the "pride" of being an unmarried woman having a kid change. And by pride I would say the young teenagers who walk around seeming to wear the fact that they have a kid as a badge of honor or something, you're practically a kid yourself, you should not be having children of your own. But getting back to the first sentence, the birth of a child is a wonderful thing, yes it'd be nice if the girl was married and had a husband, but in some or most cases that shouldn't be a cause for shame.



Please note, I may be open to discussing my views on this, but I am not open to defending my views on this subject. I cannot always express myself the way that I would like to on some subjects, it can be a little hard sometimes for me actually. This is one of those subjects where I feel that I am not explaining my views adequetly, and also there is a little bit of the problem that this is an issue I don't think I can explain that well. To me it just is. The best I can explain it is that I see a child as human from conception for a variety of reasons, but the key reason is that that is what I believe and to me what is true and fact.

Which brings a question to my mind. I am against stemcell research, but I am not against say, the harvesting of organs from someone who has just died. I think the difference to me there is that someone choose for that child to die, whereas there was a room full of medical specialists doing their best to keep that other person alive.

Anyways, talked about this enough for one day and I've got to run to class. Later all.

[Raydeus]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

I'm glad this went through, but I would caution anyone expecting miracles from this to not hold their breath for at least a decade.

Both adult and pluripotent* stem-cell researches are still far away from creating the miracle cures eveyone expects from them. So it's going to take some time, and the final result will probably be a combination of both like usual. So having people fervently doing research on both camps to try to disprove the other is pretty silly, although effective to advance things faster.




*The term "Embryonic" is used for sensationalist purposes for the most part.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

So what's your point, YM? That Wikipedia isn't a social network? That's not its purpose, but they have many similar elements. That Wikipedia doesn't have a lot of user created content and media? That's flat out wrong. That Wikipedia doesn't have pages that are just stupid? Sure it does, although there are people working all the time to get rid of them.

Did you click the link I embedded in to the hint at all? Our Princess is in another castle, man.

YouTube: Obviously Web 2.0
Wikipedia: Very Web 2.0

But Myspace? Really? Upon the vascular system that is the internet, Myspace is but a scab that, for some reason or another, has not been allowed to scar up due to all the people picking at it, because they think it's the cool thing to do.
Have you even seen a Myspace page recently? Repeated-tile backgrounds and embedded MIDIs, all nothing but a mere scrapbook of one random person's vain interests they think you'd be even remotely interested in? How on the interwebs is that relic from the 90s (and not even a good one) even remotely considered Web 2.0?

[DieselBoy09]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

For (insert reason here) the fetus is not considered human for (insert reason here), therefore we can do whatever we want with it.

Reason #2 opens up an entire can of worms. It implies that something that we consider inhuman can become human, which also implies that something that we consider human can become inhuman. There's a word for this that I can't remember, but basically I believe that a being is human from conception. There isn't any great religious reasoning for that, it's simply a question of if you aren't, when are you human then? I hear alot of people like to use brain waves and stuff to define wether it's human or not. Ok then, how about using brain dead people as an example? They're alive, still breathing and all (although wouldn't they need a machine to breath for them at that point? Not sure on that detail) But based on the assumption that they don't need a machine to work their bodily functions for them, do you consider them dead or inhuman at that point? As I said, if not at conception, when?
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Which brings a question to my mind. I am against stemcell research, but I am not against say, the harvesting of organs from someone who has just died. I think the difference to me there is that someone choose for that child to die, whereas there was a room full of medical specialists doing their best to keep that other person alive.

We're made of atoms, they're not living. Atoms string together through bonds to form molecules, molecules come together to form the larger functioning structure. In a sense, the nonliving is the essence of life. When all of these things string together and start having a mind blowingly beautiful harmonious function we get the completed person, but at what point does that begin? Is it the genetic material of the sperm fusing with the material of the egg? Even at that point its hard to say its a person, its a cell, just one component. After all, is a finger a person? Would it be murder to destroy a petridish full of cells? If we combine cells from two different people, is that a new person, even if its not able to differentiate in to what we consider a person? Just a little thing to think about.
-Yes, I do view brain dead people as dead. The body is nothing but a biological machine, with the proper input, parts can still function, but does that mean just because parts function, that it is still alive?
"Brain death is a legal definition of death that emerged in the 1960s as a response to the ability to resuscitate individuals and mechanically keep the heart and lungs working. In simple terms, brain death is the irreversible end of all brain activity (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life) due to total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of blood flow and oxygenation. It should not be confused with a persistent vegetative state." (Wikipedia, not the best source for anything, but oh well)
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The available cells are not at the demand of the scientists, at least at this point. They do not pay women to get pregnant only to abort. In fact, I feel they should make that illegal in the coming future as to not have stem cells become a female only cash cow. If that's the way you feel, we're just using cells that were discarded, your fight is only with those that abort, not those that use something that is already going to go no where, to help humanity.

[Caspian]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

The available cells are not at the demand of the scientists, at least at this point. They do not pay women to get pregnant only to abort. In fact, I feel they should make that illegal in the coming future as to not have stem cells become a female only cash cow. If that's the way you feel, we're just using cells that were discarded, your fight is only with those that abort, not those that use something that is already going to go no where, to help humanity.

They'd have to do something like they do with blood donations for transfusions. Making it illegal to donate blood for money.

[Vyuru]

Re: Stemcell research....GO!

They'd have to do something like they do with blood donations for transfusions. Making it illegal to donate blood for money.

But... You get a cookie when you donate blood....


And I like a cookie ; ;