Research on Human Embryos
The current political idiocies revolving around stem cell research provide an interesting example of the poor state of modern discourse. I've watched several newsports thst seem to intentionally confusing the definition of terms. For example I've seen "progressive" newscasters show a clip with a doctor talking about how now embryos are killed in adult stem cell research followed by a conservative talking about embryotic stem cell research. A viewer who did not know that the clips were about different things would agree with the smirking progressive newscaster that the conservative was a kook.
Embryotic Stem Cell Research is a very important issue that our society need to address. It is even one of those areas where we may be forced to put legal restrictions on how science proceeds with their research. For that matter, it is an area where I believe you would find the majority of scientists agreeing that we need guidelines and restrictions. I doubt there are many scientists who want their industry engaged in unbridled experimentation and destruction of human beings.
What is really bizarre in this current debate is that progressives (who are generally the first to jump up and down to demand regulations and socialization) are the ones opposed to regulations. Meanwhile the Conservatives, who generally oppose regulations, are the ones arguing that any experiments involved with the creation of people should be watched carefully, regulated, and maybe even prevented.
The fact that progressives are actively working to muddle and suppress debate about the beginnings of life is not that surprising if you are familiar with the dialectic. The technique of the dialectic is usually to use the extremes to regulate the center. For example, a progressive using Marxist Dialectics would use us monopoly laws to regulate the hotdog stand on the corner. To accomplish the goal of regulating the center from arguments about the extremes, you must first do whatever you can to muddle actual debate about what takes place at the extremes. For example, in the Plan B debate, progressives redefined the term conception arguing that conception takes place at implantation. This effort has muddled our ability to talk about the beginning of life.
Anyway, back to the stem cell debate.
The conservative concern is that an out-of-kilter research machine wants to fertilize embryos (make humans) specifically for experimentation. I suspect that there are some scientists who would love to do just this. However, I suspect that most scientists draw an ethical line here. It is likely that we need some sort of legal restrictions here as well. To understand this, we have to look a bit at the reproductive system again.
The way human reproduction works is that a sperm fertilizes an egg. This new cell is called a zygote or embryo. This embryo starts as a single cell. The amazing thing about this cell is that it can develop into any of the complex cells in our body.
A cell that has the ability to develop into other cells is called a “stem cell.” So we have some natural crossover of definition which complicates the debate. There is a type of cell called an adult stem cell. These are cells that we carry through our lives that retain a certain ability to divide into different type of cells.
Most of the cells in this earliest stage of development belong to this class of things called stem cells. Research on these cells is called embryotic stem cell research. In debating the issue, there needs to be a distinction between fertilizing an egg so that you have cells to research, and other methods of researching on embryotic stem cells. For example, I’ve read articles about procedures that extracted embryotic stem cells from the umbilical cord.
A second area of debate is about cloning. Once again, the terms we use are not perfect. Scientists use the term cloning at a cellular level to refer to the division of cells. Science fiction books and popular imagination associate cloning with armies of genetically identical beings. When politicians say the word cloning, they are generally thinking of walking, talking people.
Interestingly, one proposal to allay fears of creating a human cloning industry (walking talking clones) is simply prohibit implanting any stem cells (embryos) created from the stem cell research into female uterus. I find this interesting as it relates to the Plan B debate which tries to define implantation as the time when human life begins.
This system where you try to curb the fertilization of embryos coupled with a prohibition on implanting and taking embryos to term (growing them into people) provides an interesting beginning of an ethical foundation for this stage in the development of stem cell research. This two part methodology is a start to allaying the great fears that an uncontrolled research community will start creating millions of embryos for research purposes, and it is a start in trying to find ways to keep the industry from starting to produce genetically modified people.
This compromise, of course, is far from perfect. It leaves unhappy people on both sides of the debate, which is often a good sign. Some might argue that any form of cloning embryos to get stem cells involves dinking around with human life. In the case of an embryo, each cloned embryo could be brought to term as a unique living human. We actually see a natural form of human cloning with identical twins. Identical twins are identical because the zygote somehow splits after fertilization. The fact that identical twins appear to be two different does put a human face on this cloning issue. Were a research lab to whip up a vat with 100,000 cloned embryos, they would have 100,000 eggs in their brew that could become people.
Whatever laws we pass at this stage of embryotic research is likely to need modification in the near future.
Since it is impossible, at this point, to determine a proper ethical line to limit where experiments on early human life should stop, my Libertarian heart tells me that trying to pass a law in this area is bound to fail.
It would be so much better to live in a world where Doctors could do something like the Hippocratic Oath and work to set and adjust ethical standards on issues like the experimentation on human beings.
Unfortunately in this world where Progressives routinely manipulate the scientific community to achieve their political ends, we will caught in a trap where we cannot depend on a rational scientific community to abide by any scientific guidelines set by the scientific community.
We are really in a bad situation right now. The progressive community has politicized research on embryos to the point that I don’t think we can trust the scientific community to make good ethical decisions. Progressive politicians want to push the scientific community into as many controversial areas as possible to create a deeply divided emotional body politic that they will be able to manipulate as they desire.
Embryotic Stem Cell Research is a very important issue that our society need to address. It is even one of those areas where we may be forced to put legal restrictions on how science proceeds with their research. For that matter, it is an area where I believe you would find the majority of scientists agreeing that we need guidelines and restrictions. I doubt there are many scientists who want their industry engaged in unbridled experimentation and destruction of human beings.
What is really bizarre in this current debate is that progressives (who are generally the first to jump up and down to demand regulations and socialization) are the ones opposed to regulations. Meanwhile the Conservatives, who generally oppose regulations, are the ones arguing that any experiments involved with the creation of people should be watched carefully, regulated, and maybe even prevented.
The fact that progressives are actively working to muddle and suppress debate about the beginnings of life is not that surprising if you are familiar with the dialectic. The technique of the dialectic is usually to use the extremes to regulate the center. For example, a progressive using Marxist Dialectics would use us monopoly laws to regulate the hotdog stand on the corner. To accomplish the goal of regulating the center from arguments about the extremes, you must first do whatever you can to muddle actual debate about what takes place at the extremes. For example, in the Plan B debate, progressives redefined the term conception arguing that conception takes place at implantation. This effort has muddled our ability to talk about the beginning of life.
Anyway, back to the stem cell debate.
The conservative concern is that an out-of-kilter research machine wants to fertilize embryos (make humans) specifically for experimentation. I suspect that there are some scientists who would love to do just this. However, I suspect that most scientists draw an ethical line here. It is likely that we need some sort of legal restrictions here as well. To understand this, we have to look a bit at the reproductive system again.
The way human reproduction works is that a sperm fertilizes an egg. This new cell is called a zygote or embryo. This embryo starts as a single cell. The amazing thing about this cell is that it can develop into any of the complex cells in our body.
A cell that has the ability to develop into other cells is called a “stem cell.” So we have some natural crossover of definition which complicates the debate. There is a type of cell called an adult stem cell. These are cells that we carry through our lives that retain a certain ability to divide into different type of cells.
Most of the cells in this earliest stage of development belong to this class of things called stem cells. Research on these cells is called embryotic stem cell research. In debating the issue, there needs to be a distinction between fertilizing an egg so that you have cells to research, and other methods of researching on embryotic stem cells. For example, I’ve read articles about procedures that extracted embryotic stem cells from the umbilical cord.
A second area of debate is about cloning. Once again, the terms we use are not perfect. Scientists use the term cloning at a cellular level to refer to the division of cells. Science fiction books and popular imagination associate cloning with armies of genetically identical beings. When politicians say the word cloning, they are generally thinking of walking, talking people.
Interestingly, one proposal to allay fears of creating a human cloning industry (walking talking clones) is simply prohibit implanting any stem cells (embryos) created from the stem cell research into female uterus. I find this interesting as it relates to the Plan B debate which tries to define implantation as the time when human life begins.
This system where you try to curb the fertilization of embryos coupled with a prohibition on implanting and taking embryos to term (growing them into people) provides an interesting beginning of an ethical foundation for this stage in the development of stem cell research. This two part methodology is a start to allaying the great fears that an uncontrolled research community will start creating millions of embryos for research purposes, and it is a start in trying to find ways to keep the industry from starting to produce genetically modified people.
This compromise, of course, is far from perfect. It leaves unhappy people on both sides of the debate, which is often a good sign. Some might argue that any form of cloning embryos to get stem cells involves dinking around with human life. In the case of an embryo, each cloned embryo could be brought to term as a unique living human. We actually see a natural form of human cloning with identical twins. Identical twins are identical because the zygote somehow splits after fertilization. The fact that identical twins appear to be two different does put a human face on this cloning issue. Were a research lab to whip up a vat with 100,000 cloned embryos, they would have 100,000 eggs in their brew that could become people.
Whatever laws we pass at this stage of embryotic research is likely to need modification in the near future.
Since it is impossible, at this point, to determine a proper ethical line to limit where experiments on early human life should stop, my Libertarian heart tells me that trying to pass a law in this area is bound to fail.
It would be so much better to live in a world where Doctors could do something like the Hippocratic Oath and work to set and adjust ethical standards on issues like the experimentation on human beings.
Unfortunately in this world where Progressives routinely manipulate the scientific community to achieve their political ends, we will caught in a trap where we cannot depend on a rational scientific community to abide by any scientific guidelines set by the scientific community.
We are really in a bad situation right now. The progressive community has politicized research on embryos to the point that I don’t think we can trust the scientific community to make good ethical decisions. Progressive politicians want to push the scientific community into as many controversial areas as possible to create a deeply divided emotional body politic that they will be able to manipulate as they desire.
posted by y-intercept at 4:18 PM
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