Pepsi used aborted fetus in flavor-enhancing research

qrrgprgua

Before you reach for Pepsi again I would read this article.

Seemingly its true. Pepsi have used cells from abortions to research flavour enhancing their products..



http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/obama-agency-rules-pepsi-use-of-aborted-fetus-is-ordinary-business

Max Power1

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Before you reach for Pepsi again I would read this article.

Seemingly its true. Pepsi have used cells from abortions to research flavour enhancing their products..



http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/obama-agency-rules-pepsi-use-of-aborted-fetus-is-ordinary-business

Mm thats some fine tasting fetus drink!

Helix

theres quite a difference between stem cells and actual aborted foetuses to be fair

gimmebroadband

I already posted it in the abortion thread.

qrrgprgua

Helix wrote: »

theres quite a difference between stem cells and actual aborted foetuses to be fair

They used stem cells from aborted babies... We heard tons about animal testing.... This is far far worse

Sonics2k

That's pretty disgusting to be honest.

I mean, I can see the advantages to Stem Cell research in terms of helping to cure diseases, but to add flavour to a drink, is just wrong.

RichieC

Can't believe you guys buy this crap..

milehip1

RichieC wrote: »

Can't believe you guys buy this crap..

I know 'tis overpriced muck and sprite tastes much nicer!

Improbable

Just to clarify for anybody who doesn't already understand, the HEK-293 cells come from a cell LINE. It was derived in the 1970's in the same fashion that HeLa cells are a cell line. Yes, the original cells came from an aborted foetus. Just making that clarification because qrrgprgua seems to be under the impression that the company is regularly harvesting foetuses which is not the case.

gimmebroadband

Improbable wrote: »

Just to clarify for anybody who doesn't already understand, the HEK-293 cells come from a cell LINE. It was derived in the 1970's in the same fashion that HeLa cells are a cell line. Yes, the original cells came from an aborted foetus. Just making that clarification because qrrgprgua seems to be under the impression that the company is regularly harvesting foetuses which is not the case.

It doesn't make it any less disgusting!

MrStuffins

gimmebroadband wrote: »

It doesn't make it any less disgusting!

Don't see what is "disgusting" about it TBH?

efb

So all you do is click like to end abortion?
Pepsi is muck, must have been some low grade feutuses

Maybe that's where they got their slogan 'The choice of the next generation'...

MrPudding

Improbable wrote: »

Just to clarify for anybody who doesn't already understand, the HEK-293 cells come from a cell LINE. It was derived in the 1970's in the same fashion that HeLa cells are a cell line. Yes, the original cells came from an aborted foetus. Just making that clarification because qrrgprgua seems to be under the impression that the company is regularly harvesting foetuses which is not the case.

I am not sure it will help, but perhaps it might be useful to explain what a cell line is, how it comes about and what the relation to the cells being used today are to the original cells...
MrP

im invisible

Im loving the thread title, by the way.

qrrgprgua

Improbable wrote: »

Just to clarify for anybody who doesn't already understand, the HEK-293 cells come from a cell LINE. It was derived in the 1970's in the same fashion that HeLa cells are a cell line. Yes, the original cells came from an aborted foetus. Just making that clarification because qrrgprgua seems to be under the impression that the company is regularly harvesting foetuses which is not the case.

My point... What would a company have ANYTHING to do with aborted foetus??? Esp a Soft drinks company.

MrStuffins

qrrgprgua wrote: »

My point... What would a company have ANYTHING to do with aborted foetus??? Esp a Soft drinks company.

Because they're a good source of stem cells.

Doc Farrell

Worst Pepsi ad ever.

Improbable

gimmebroadband wrote: »

It doesn't make it any less disgusting!

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Whether it was a natural abortion or induced is unknown. Even if it was an induced abortion, it was not done for the purposes of harvesting cells from it. The cell line was created and was made available to researchers. Could you perhaps expand on why you find it so disgusting?

qrrgprgua wrote: »

My point... What would a company have ANYTHING to do with aborted foetus??? Esp a Soft drinks company.

They don't. Not really. They use a cell line in research that was originally, 40 years ago, derived from an abortion. Would you object so much if the cell line was used (as it is) by companies to create new drugs?

CiaranC

Improbable wrote: »

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Whether it was a natural abortion or induced is unknown. Even if it was an induced abortion, it was not done for the purposes of harvesting cells from it. The cell line was created and was made available to researchers. Could you perhaps expand on why you find it so disgusting?




They don't. Not really. They use a cell line in research that was originally, 40 years ago, derived from an abortion. Would you object so much if the cell line was used (as it is) by companies to create new drugs?

You are posting like people know what the hell a "cell line" is

Improbable

CiaranC wrote: »

You are posting like people know what the hell a "cell line" is

A sample of original cells is obtained. The conditions in which these cells grow is known. They are grown in, for all intents and purposes, petri dishes in an incubator. As they reach a critical mass, cells can be siphoned off into other petri dishes, creating a larger amount of cells. Ad infinitum.

Peregrinus

Yup. Culturing cell lines is not in itself ethically objectionable.

Nor is culturing human cell lines. I’m no expert, but so far as I know culturing human cells is a common technique in diagnostic procedures - they take a tiny amount of tissue from the patient, isolate the cells they want, then culture them to grow a cell sample large enough to be tested to see whether you have this disease or that disease. The time taken to culture the cells is the reason why you sometimes have to wait for your diagnostic test results. No ethical problem there.

No, the ethical issue here is not the creation of the cell line; it’s the original derivation of the cell from which the line is cultured. It comes from a human foetus, aborted some time in the mid-1970s.

Improbable says above that we don’t actually know whether it was an induced abortion, or a spontaneous abortion/miscarriage. Let’s assume - because it sharpens the ethical issue - that it was an induced abortion. But it seems very unlikely that the abortion was induced specifically in order to harvest stem cells from which a cell line could be culture; the abortion was probably induced for other reasons, and then the opportunity was taken to harvest stem cells, and to culture this line.

Finally, let’s also assume that the induction of the abortion was gravely morally wrong. (If you take the view that it was morally A-OK then I don’t see that there can be any great ethical issue about the harvesting of the stem cells, the culturing of the cell line, or the subsequent use of cells cultured in that line.)

Right. Does the morally impermissible abortion “taint” everything that follows, so that it is wrong to harvest the stem cells, wrong to culture the harvested cells, and wrong take any advantage of any kind from the use of the cell line?

If an adult with a rare disease is murdered, is it wrong to take tissue samples - necessarily, without his consent - and use them for research into or treatment of the disease that he suffered from? Is the answer different if he died in a traffic accident?

A related issue arises, in theory, in relation to medical research carried out by Nazi scientists on concentration camp inmates and people with mental deficiencies. The research was, of course, profoundly unethical. Most of it, as it happens, was completely bogus; nothing of value was learnt or was ever likely to be. But suppose something did turn up which proved very valuable in, say, treating a hitherto incurable disease. Would it be unethical to take advantage of what was learned in highly immoral research in order to treat people with that disease?

And does it make any difference whether we are exploiting an abstract thing (information) that was gained unethically, or a material thing (a tissue culture) that was obtained unethically?

Does it make any difference whether we are exploiting the information/the tissue culture (a) to improve the profitability of our fizzy drink concern, or (b) to treat human disease and alleviate suffering? In other words, can our good intention in using whatever it is “cure” the evil intention or act of those who produced it in the first place?

These are weighty ethical questions, but it doesn’t seem to me that they have simple, obvious answers.

I can mostly avoid the dilemma. Since little of value emerged from Nazi medical research, the question of whether we should exploit what was learned doesn’t come up very often. Since Pepsi-cola tastes the way it does, the question of whether I should decline to drink it for ethical reasons doesn‘t present itself as a practical issue

But the underlying principle is important, and it comes up quite often in less dramatic circumstances. If I intentionally eavesdrop on a private conversation, can I make use of the information I learn? Ever? In any circumstances? If I don’t eavesdrop, but learn of information which somebody else got by eavesdropping, when - if ever - can I make use of it? If it’s sometimes permissible and sometimes not, what are the principles at work?

qrrgprgua

Improbable wrote: »

A sample of original cells is obtained. The conditions in which these cells grow is known. They are grown in, for all intents and purposes, petri dishes in an incubator. As they reach a critical mass, cells can be siphoned off into other petri dishes, creating a larger amount of cells. Ad infinitum.

Improbable wrote: »

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Whether it was a natural abortion or induced is unknown. Even if it was an induced abortion, it was not done for the purposes of harvesting cells from it. The cell line was created and was made available to researchers. Could you perhaps expand on why you find it so disgusting?




They don't. Not really. They use a cell line in research that was originally, 40 years ago, derived from an abortion. Would you object so much if the cell line was used (as it is) by companies to create new drugs?

Lets get it straight.... They used cells from aborted babies to grow more cells that were used in Flavour research for Pepsi and other companies and you don't see a problem with this?

The Human person is not a by product that should be used for testing.. Each human person is unique and must be respected from conception to death. (unless they give their body willingly to medical research after their natural death)

What we have here is totally crazy!!. Borderline Nazi experimentation. That any child had to die to may a soft drink taste better beggers belief. Its a sad reflection on humanity that its not able to see the objective reality of humanity that needs to be respected always.

What we have today is widespread degeneration of social conscience. Not only do people not see that a child is being killed in during abortion but that its ok to experiment on the aborted child.

MrStuffins

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Lets get it straight.... They used cells from aborted babies to grow more cells that were used in Flavour research for Pepsi and other companies and you don't see a problem with this?

The Human person is not a by product that should be used for testing.. Each human person is unique and must be respected from conception to death. (unless they give their body willingly to medical research after their natural death)

I realise this is the Christianity forum, so I will just say I completely disagree with your timeframe here.

What we have here is totally crazy!!. Borderline Nazi experimentation. That any child had to die to may a soft drink taste better beggers belief. Its a sad reflection on humanity that its not able to see the objective reality of humanity that needs to be respected always.

Now, you're getting a bit over the top and you're not doing your argument any favours, neither is Mr.Godwin!

A child did not die to make a soft drink taste better. That's a silly statement!

Zombrex

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Lets get it straight.... They used cells from aborted babies to grow more cells that were used in Flavour research for Pepsi and other companies and you don't see a problem with this?

The Human person is not a by product that should be used for testing.. Each human person is unique and must be respected from conception to death. (unless they give their body willingly to medical research after their natural death)

What we have here is totally crazy!!. Borderline Nazi experimentation. That any child had to die to may a soft drink taste better beggers belief. Its a sad reflection on humanity that its not able to see the objective reality of humanity that needs to be respected always.

What we have today is widespread degeneration of social conscience. Not only do people not see that a child is being killed in during abortion but that its ok to experiment on the aborted child.

What are you talking about?

Firstly scientists use human cells all the time for research. When I was leaving cert biology we looked at cheek cells from my own mouth under a microscope. No one had an ethical break down, no one thought "Oh my God how can you have such little respect for human life". They were just cells. Three weeks ago I had a mole removed and guess what! They did research on it to see if it was something to worry about. Thankfully it wasn't, but do you think I give a fudge what happened to the cells in that mole. If some scientists want to use it for further research more play to them.

Secondly these cells were taken from kidney cells of a deceased foetus. The kidney cells. When was the last time you got attached to some kidney cells. You probably pass a few thousand of them every time you pee. Again research is carried out all the time on cells from dead people, be they kidney, heart liver what ever. Heck you can't perform an autopsy without doing such research.

As Improbable pointed out you seem to be under the impression that these foetuses were aborted for their cells. There is no evidence that is the case. We don't even know if they were terminations or mis-carriages.

This seems a whole lot of fuss over nothing. I really think people just find excuses to be offended these days. Oh my gosh they are using my toe nail clippings without consent!!!!

Improbable

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Lets get it straight.... They used cells from aborted babies to grow more cells that were used in Flavour research for Pepsi and other companies and you don't see a problem with this?

The Human person is not a by product that should be used for testing.. Each human person is unique and must be respected from conception to death. (unless they give their body willingly to medical research after their natural death)

What we have here is totally crazy!!. Borderline Nazi experimentation. That any child had to die to may a soft drink taste better beggers belief. Its a sad reflection on humanity that its not able to see the objective reality of humanity that needs to be respected always.

What we have today is widespread degeneration of social conscience. Not only do people not see that a child is being killed in during abortion but that its ok to experiment on the aborted child.

Firstly, the cells were not grown for the purposes of flavour research. They were grown for research purposes in general. The fact that a company in the business of food and drink products chose to use them is neither here nor there. I think the issue has to focus on the more general argument about whether you think the use of the cells is immoral or not, not what the subject of the research is.

The statement that "Each human person is unique and must be respected from conception to death." has no play here. The abortion had already taken place. Once again, I stress that there is no knowledge as to whether it was a natural abortion or an induced one, which I suspect has a lot to do with your outrage as you seem to focus a fair bit on the morality of induced abortions, which you cannot simply assume that it was, simply because it suits your argument to do so.

If you really think that this is even remotely comparable to the experiments performed by the likes of Mengele and/or Unit 731, I must inform you that you are severely mistaken. For one, the foetus here was already dead. The experiments by Mengele were on living people and caused them untold suffering and killed a lot of people, purely in the interest of scientific experimentation. He reputedly ordered 750 people to be killed because they had been infested by lice, among other things. To compare the creation of the HEK cell line to the experiments by Mengele does a disservice to the people who died in Auschwitz and unfairly demonises the scientists who created the HEK cell line and those who use it.

You are once again confusing the issue. There was no experimentation done on the aborted foetus. This was not some machiavellian plot. The only procedure that was performed on the ALREADY aborted foetus was a small extraction of a clump of cells.

StanMcConnell

I'm pro-life, but the amount of people accepting this myth wholesale is insane.

Also, to clarify, the cells aren't used for flavour testing but to test the effects of sugar and sugar substitute on human cells, specifically kidney cells.

qrrgprgua

Zombrex wrote: »

What are you talking about?

Firstly scientists use human cells all the time for research. When I was leaving cert biology we looked at cheek cells from my own mouth under a microscope. No one had an ethical break down, no one thought "Oh my God how can you have such little respect for human life". They were just cells. Three weeks ago I had a mole removed and guess what! They did research on it to see if it was something to worry about. Thankfully it wasn't, but do you think I give a fudge what happened to the cells in that mole. If some scientists want to use it for further research more play to them.

Secondly these cells were taken from kidney cells of a deceased foetus. The kidney cells. When was the last time you got attached to some kidney cells. You probably pass a few thousand of them every time you pee. Again research is carried out all the time on cells from dead people, be they kidney, heart liver what ever. Heck you can't perform an autopsy without doing such research.

As Improbable pointed out you seem to be under the impression that these foetuses were aborted for their cells. There is no evidence that is the case. We don't even know if they were terminations or mis-carriages.

This seems a whole lot of fuss over nothing. I really think people just find excuses to be offended these days. Oh my gosh they are using my toe nail clippings without consent!!!!

I also used cells from mouth in Biology.. But using cells from a people would is willing to donate them to using cells from a Child that was killed during abortion is worlds apart. Had the used a miscarried child..Maybe, But it was aborted Children that were used. It sick and immoral.

qrrgprgua

StanMcConnell wrote: »

I'm pro-life, but the amount of people accepting this myth wholesale is insane.

Also, to clarify, the cells aren't used for flavour testing but to test the effects of sugar and sugar substitute on human cells, specifically kidney cells.

The cells are used to create research they new drinks..

Improbable

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I also used cells from mouth in Biology.. But using cells from a people would is willing to donate them to using cells from a Child that was killed during abortion is worlds apart. Had the used a miscarried child..Maybe, But it was aborted Children that were used. It sick and immoral.

Have you not paid attention at all? I have twice now stated that it is unknown whether it was a natural abortion or an induced one, i.e. a miscarriage or what you would call an abortion in common vernacular. Others have said it as well. You cannot just keep claiming that the child was the product of an induced abortion because it fits more neatly into your argument. Though I fail to see how using cells from a foetus that was aborted is any different morally from using cells from a foetus that was miscarried.

Zombrex

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I also used cells from mouth in Biology.. But using cells from a people would is willing to donate them to using cells from a Child that was killed during abortion is worlds apart. Had the used a miscarried child..Maybe, But it was aborted Children that were used. It sick and immoral.

It is exactly the same. You lose cells all the time, no one is attached to the individual cells they contain. To assume someone is is ridiculous. Such a person could not function in life, they would spend their entire time bleaching anything they touched.

You are losing cells right now from your skin as you type on your keyboard. As I said to another poster you probably lose more kidney cells when you pee than this foetus had extracted from it.

Barr125

qrrgprgua wrote: »

The cells are used to create research they new drinks..

Ok, so what? I highly doubt that Pepsi ordered the abortion or were possibly even aware of where the cell batch came from. I use human cells cultures from anon donors in my lab all the time. I don't get a script on the donors life unless it's needed for what I'm doing with them.

PDN

Barr125 wrote: »

Ok, so what? I highly doubt that Pepsi ordered the abortion or were possibly even aware of where the cell batch came from. I use human cells cultures from anon donors in my lab all the time. I don't get a script on the donors life unless it's needed for what I'm doing with them.

Genuine question. Are you saying that the source of the cells (or even of the cells that started a cell line) is immaterial to you? Would you be happy, for example, if you knew the cells you were using came from a line that was originally harvested by a dictatorial regime from the bodies of political opponents that they had executed?

dj357

One can almost immediately disregard the discussion upon reading the term "aborted human beings" in the Shareholders Resolution. A human being is a discrete entity imbued, by society and society alone, with inalienable rights. A fetus does not equal a human being especially before it passes into the gestation weeks.

Peregrinus

dj357 wrote: »

One can almost immediately disregard the discussion upon reading the term "aborted human beings" in the Shareholders Resolution. A human being is a discrete entity imbued, by society and society alone, with inalienable rights. A fetus does not equal a human being especially before it passes into the gestation weeks.

Huh?

Over in the “Keep abortion out of Ireland” thread, you say that “The whole issue of what is a human being and what is not is not something that can be argued on the basis of religious convictions, teachings and/or doctrines. It can only be argued on the basis of the actual science i.e. what we like to call independently verifiable facts.”

Is there not a certain inconsistency here? Are there “independently verifiable facts” to support your claim here as to what a human being is? It looks to me that you are advancing a claim arising out of your own philosophical convictions in this thread, while in the other thread denying that philosophically-based claims are legitimate, and insisting on the need for scientific claims resting on empirical evidence.

dj357

Peregrinus wrote: »

Huh?

Over in the “Keep abortion out of Ireland” thread, you say that “The whole issue of what is a human being and what is not is not something that can be argued on the basis of religious convictions, teachings and/or doctrines. It can only be argued on the basis of the actual science i.e. what we like to call independently verifiable facts.”

Is there not a certain inconsistency here? Are there “independently verifiable facts” to support your claim here as to what a human being is? It looks to me that you are advancing a claim arising out of your own philosophical convictions in this thread, while in the other thread denying that philosophically-based claims are legitimate, and insisting on the need for scientific claims resting on empirical evidence.

No, one argument is grounded in the other. Society provides human beings with inalienable rights, giving us a rounded definition of what defines a human being. Empirical evidence gives us the developmental timeline of human offspring and can help us isolate the point at which these rights can be afforded to the individual in question. My point in this thread was to point out the inconsistency in the term "aborted human beings", the verb 'to abort' being used as reference to terminating the growth process, a human being consisting of an individual who is outside of that particular growth process. Not only are terms like this incorrect but they betray an inherent lack of objectivity.

Peregrinus

dj357 wrote: »

No, one argument is grounded in the other. Society provides human beings with inalienable rights, giving us a rounded definition of what defines a human being. Empirical evidence gives us the developmental timeline of human offspring and can help us isolate the point at which these rights can be afforded to the individual in question.

No offence, but I don’t think this is completely coherent. Science certainly informs us of the developmental timeline of the human offspring, but how does that influence when society “can” accord inalienable rights to that offspring? If society accords inalienable rights to the fertilized ovum, is there as scientific case for saying that this is somehow invalid? I don’t think there is. You can argue that inalienable rights should only be accorded to the human offspring when it has developed certain capacities, but that’s a moral position, not a scientific one, and there is no scientific case for saying that someone who takes the opposite view is incorrect.

Secondly, I think the implications of what you are saying are alarming. If a human being is an entity to which society has accorded inalienable rights, then an entity to which society has not accorded inalienable rights is not a human being. And the logic of that is that, if society decides that - say - Jews, or persons with Down’s Syndrome, or convicted criminals, do not have inalienable rights, then those people are not “human beings”.

Most people - you included, I don’t doubt - revolt against that. The truth is that an individual doesn’t become a “human being” because we accord them certain inalienable rights; rather, we accord them rights because we recognize that they are already human beings.

And this raises the question, on what basis do we recognize this? You’re arguing, I think, for a scientific basis - we look at their human development - but ultimately I think that argument is incomplete, for two reasons. Firstly, we have to pick a point along the continuum of human development and say “this is the point at which the individual becomes a human being” and your argument offers no criteria for doing that. (Why should it not be fertilization? At the other extreme, why should it not be the attainment of psychological maturity at around the age of 25?) Secondly, and more fundamentally, you don’t address the question of why any point of human development should be the relevant point. (Why should it not be human genetic identity? Why should it not be human potentiality? Why should it not be legal citizenship?)

I’m not saying there are no possible answers to these questions. There are, but they are not, for the most part, scientific answers. I think your claim that the question of what is a human being “can only be argued on the basis of the actual science” is wrong. Science is, basically, incapable of answering this question.

dj357 wrote: »

My point in this thread was to point out the inconsistency in the term "aborted human beings", the verb 'to abort' being used as reference to terminating the growth process, a human being consisting of an individual who is outside of that particular growth process. Not only are terms like this incorrect but they betray an inherent lack of objectivity.

I don’t think they do. Or, at least, not more than your own position does. You are claiming the status of objective truth for your opinion that the developing human entity is not a “human being” because society has not yet accorded it inalienable rights, and for your opinions that whether society can legitimately or validly do this is determined by the degree of development which the individual has attained. And yet you make no attempt to demonstrate the objective truth of your opinions.

dj357

Peregrinus wrote: »

No offence, but I don’t think this is completely coherent. Science certainly informs us of the developmental timeline of the human offspring, but how does that influence when society “can” accord inalienable rights to that offspring? If society accords inalienable rights to the fertilized ovum, is there as scientific case for saying that this is somehow invalid? I don’t think there is. You can argue that inalienable rights should only be accorded to the human offspring when it has developed certain capacities, but that’s a moral position, not a scientific one, and there is no scientific case for saying that someone who takes the opposite view is incorrect.

While arguing such would indeed be a moral position, it would also be a scientific one, providing one was using science to argue the position.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Secondly, I think the implications of what you are saying are alarming. If a human being is an entity to which society has accorded inalienable rights, then an entity to which society has not accorded inalienable rights is not a human being. And the logic of that is that, if society decides that - say - Jews, or persons with Down’s Syndrome, or convicted criminals, do not have inalienable rights, then those people are not “human beings”.

And yet the reason we have come to a stage in human development where we accord those rights to individuals and groups who society previously deemed sub- or non-human is because we have a robust science of human traits, capabilities and faculties and we recognise even the most basic of these in everyone regardless of age, race, creed or disadvantage.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The truth is that an individual doesn’t become a “human being” because we accord them certain inalienable rights; rather, we accord them rights because we recognize that they are already human beings.

I will completely agree with you here and I think the confusion is mainly due to my narrow definition based on the assignment of these rights. I would however argue that there are therefore two distinct sides to the definition of a 'human being' and I'll accept that I've likely been remiss thus far in not recognising that.

Not only that, this agrees with my initial post as we do not recognise that an aborted fetus is already a human being.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m not saying there are no possible answers to these questions. There are, but they are not, for the most part, scientific answers. I think your claim that the question of what is a human being “can only be argued on the basis of the actual science” is wrong. Science is, basically, incapable of answering this question.

I would disagree here. In the realm of morality, which is where this part of the discussion has strayed, we can argue moral policies based on scientific foundations as we can see in the work of Sam Harris. Furthermore if science cannot answer the question "what is human being", then what can?

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don’t think they do. Or, at least, not more than your own position does. You are claiming the status of objective truth for your opinion that the developing human entity is not a “human being” because society has not yet accorded it inalienable rights, and for your opinions that whether society can legitimately or validly do this is determined by the degree of development which the individual has attained. And yet you make no attempt to demonstrate the objective truth of your opinions.

Again this relates to the narrowness of my initial definition, however as I said earlier I was not arguing the validity or legitimacy of according rights at a certain point.

muppeteer

Peregrinus wrote: »

You can argue that inalienable rights should only be accorded to the human offspring when it has developed certain capacities, but that’s a moral position, not a scientific one, and there is no scientific case for saying that someone who takes the opposite view is incorrect.

If the moral position is contingent on when a human trait is present or not then science can inform the decision and tell you if you are correct or incorrect, but it can't make ethical positions in of itself. We can ask the question "when does a fetus develop cabability for pain" or "how can societies reduce suffering" and science can throw back an amoral answer which we use in our moral assesment. Science on its own can't find ethical answers but ethics without science is blind.

Peregrinus

dj357 wrote: »

While arguing such would indeed be a moral position, it would also be a scientific one, providing one was using science to argue the position.

If so, then the position that “the human being comes into existence at fertilization” is also a scientific one, since science can be (and indeed is) used to argue that position. (Science tells us that a living human entity, genetically unique and genetically distinct from both its parents, comes into being at this time.)

I think science can (and should) inform our moral positions, but it can’t determine them. You can critique a particular moral position if it requires a rejection of scientific truth. But I don’t think the converse is true; you can’t say that we are ever compelled to hold a particular moral position by a particular scientific truth. Science can tell me in great detail what will happen if I hang you or shoot you or stab you or poison you, but it can’t, on it’s own, establish when (if ever) I am justified in doing any of these things.

dj357 wrote: »

And yet the reason we have come to a stage in human development where we accord those rights to individuals and groups who society previously deemed sub- or non-human is because we have a robust science of human traits, capabilities and faculties and we recognise even the most basic of these in everyone regardless of age, race, creed or disadvantage.

Just not true, I’m afraid. The Nazis had “a robust science of human traits, capabilities and faculties”, and that didn’t prevent them from concluding that Jews were “subhuman”. Conversely, the view that Jews were human was held by many people, and many cultures, long before the development of modern science. And you could even argue that the Nazis positively invoked the “science of human traits, capabilities and faculties” in support of their attitude to the disabled.

dj357 wrote: »

I will completely agree with you here and I think the confusion is mainly due to my narrow definition based on the assignment of these rights. I would however argue that there are therefore two distinct sides to the definition of a 'human being' and I'll accept that I've likely been remiss thus far in not recognising that.

Not only that, this agrees with my initial post as we do not recognise that an aborted fetus is already a human being.

I appreciate your openness to refining your thinking here. I’m afraid, though, I not quite following you.

You say that “we do not recognise that an aborted fetus is already a human being”, which prompts a couple of thoughts.

First, who’s “we”? I think you and I can agree that it isn’t everyone; there are many who do accord the foetus the status of a human being. If we’re going to argue that the moral status of humanity comes from others, then which others?

Secondly, if “we” refers to a societal consensus (as opposed to societal unanimity) the I would suggest that - in Ireland at any rate - we don’t have a societal consensus on this question. (Or, if we do, it is that the foetus is a human being).

Thirdly, if “we” refers to a simple majority, then in those societies where a majority do regard the foetus as having the status of a human being, the implication is that the minority who take a different view and campaign for legal change, or go abroad to seek an abortion, or whatever, are indeed advocating the killing of human beings. And, presumably, there societies would be justified in dealing with them as people who advocate or even practice murder.

For all those reasons, I can’t see the notion that “human being” status comes simply from recognition by others as terribly satisfactory.

It also completely ignores the central question; on what basis does society (or you, or I) decide that we do or do not recognize a human foetus as a “human being”. Are there legitimate, valid bases for doing this, and illegitimate, invalid ones? If we can insist that society ought to regard Jews as human beings, and that those societies which fail to do this have got it wrong, then can we not at least potentially make as similar argument in respect of those societies which deny that the foetus is a human being?

In short, I don’t think that the observation that “we [whoever “we” is] do not recognize an aborted foetus is already a human being” is a terribly useful one, in terms of answering the ethical questions that face us in this area.

dj357 wrote: »

I would disagree here. In the realm of morality, which is where this part of the discussion has strayed, we can argue moral policies based on scientific foundations as we can see in the work of Sam Harris. Furthermore if science cannot answer the question "what is human being", then what can?

I don’t think the discussion has “strayed” into morality; the thread has always been about the moral question, as far as I can see. (Nobody has raised the question of whether Pepsico’s use of the stem cell line was poor science, for example.)

I’ll admit I was unimpressed with Harris; the concept of the book had great promise but in the end, it seems to me, he bottled out. Too often, his moral arguments ultimately could be traced to an “. . . and this is obviously desirable/a good thing” claim, which lacked any scientific basis.

Science can inform and enlighten moral arguments but, as I’ve pointed out above, it can inform and enlighten inconsistent moral arguments, which is not always much help.

The view that a foetus deserves human respect when it achieves a certain level of development is informed by a scientific understanding of embryonic and foetal development, but ultimately it depends on our according moral significance to the development of some capacity or group of capacities (rather than, perhaps, some other capacity which is developed much earlier or much later). And there is no scientific case for saying that we must accord moral significance to the development of this capacity, but not that one. Indeed, I don’t think there’s a scientific argument for saying that we have to accord moral significance to any capacity.

Simlarly, the view that a foetus deserves human respect from the moment of fertilization is informed by a scientific understanding of what happens at fertilization (this particular moral view was in fact unknown before the invention of the microscope), but it ultimately depends on our according moral significance to what happens, and there is again no scientific case for saying that we must do so.

The problem is highlighted by the fact that people with opposing moral views may be in complete agreement on the science - the pro-lifer may fully accept scientific truth about embryonic/foetal development, and the pro-choicer may fully accept scientific truth about fertilization. They may both share exactly the same scientific understanding and yet, informed by their shared scientific understanding, they arrive at irreconcilable moral views. Neither of them can (truthfully) claim that his position is more scientific than the other’s, or better supported by science, or better informed by science, or more scientifically demonstrated, or more demonstrably objectively correct, or anything of the kind. And this neatly illustrates both the ability of science to enlighten moral thinking but also the limitations of science in answering moral questions.