I go into this level of detail because, despite all that effort, none of those embryos ever turned into a real, live baby. So perhaps you'll understand why I can't agree with the "life begins at conception" crowd. If conception were all it took, I'd have more than one child today. Those collections of cells had the possibility of becoming a human being if a lot of things went right, but most of the time, something doesn't go perfectly, and the embryos fall to implant. Or they implant in the wrong place. Or they implant but fail to continue to develop. Or you can even end up in a kind of limbo for a month, with some indication that maybe something is happening, only to find a month later when an ultrasound can be done that whatever was happening in there, it wasn't a baby growing in the uterus.
So, yes, I'm in favor of stem cell research using left-over, unused IVF embryos. There's enormous potential to save the lives of actual, living human beings, at the cost of embryos which, yes, have some potential to become human beings, but are very unlikely to do so. The alternative is to throw away those unused embryos.
I have a hard time understanding why some people are opposed to using these unused embryos, unless they are also opposed to IVF in general. Maybe they just weren't aware of how IVF worked; maybe IVF will be their next target. I have read some comments expressing unease about IVF once people learned how the process worked. I think one important factor to keep in mind is that in nature, in unaided conception, this process happens regularly, too. That is, not every fertilized egg implants, not every embryo survives, and often this happens without any awareness that there was ever a fertilized egg.
Predictably, Sherry found opposition to IVP. In a more recent blog she writes,
The rhetoric opposing the stem cell bill essentially equated these left-over embryos with real human beings, as if there's no difference between an 8-cell embryo and you or I. It's an interesting definition of a human being, I suppose, but not a very realistic or practical one. Why stop at fertilization? Why not treat sperm and eggs as real live human beings? 8-cell embryos aren't really much closer to a human being than an unfertilized egg.
An 8 cell embryo is like a lottery ticket. Just like a lottery ticket gives you a chance at a pile of cash, an embryo gives you a chance at a human being. But an embryo is no more a human being than a lottery ticket is a pile of cash.
2 comments:
I'm reminded of a statement made of Robespierre. "He loved humanity, but hated humans." He was so caught up in the ideal of Liberte, Equalite, Fraternite, that he gladly chopped off the heads of thousands to push it.
A President's dicotomy of erring on the side of life for a woman in a constant vegitative state, but fast tracked the death penalty and erred on the side of speed and frugality on the lives of countless convicts. The dicotomy of sanctity of potential life over the lives of those already living and needing medical help. Idealism taken to the ultimate is the most deadly force on the planet.
See the thing is you are all defending the right to discard unwanted fetuses but no-one is giving a viable definition to what a human is. Is it some one who is fully developed. In that case teens would not have the right to live. Is it someone with self awareness or cognitive ability. Infants and mentally handicapped people fall into that category. Is is the ability to live on ones own. Stephen Hawkins can not live on his own. I mean it really seams like you are all skirting the issue so that you can act in a manor that pleases you with out giving a sufficient definition of a human.
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