Switzerland endorses stem cell research.

TomF

Well, when people say that using human fetuses for spare parts is not going to happen, I harken back to the 1980s when a big pharmaceutical company (Eli Lilly), doing research on the common cold and needing media to support rhinoviruses, began collecting nasal passages of "freshly-aborted human fetuses" for that media. At the time, the head of research of the company could see nothing wrong with the practice, because the fetuses were going to be discarded anyway, and at least some good might come out of his department's research, and weren't the objections only coming from those who would deny relief to people who suffer from the agony of the common cold?

Twenty years later, it seems prospects haven't been looking good for stopping the practice of in-vitro fertilisation of multiple human eggs and then picking and choosing the best of them to be put back into the egg-producer to give her a baby. (And, naturally, donating the surplus human embryos to local researchers.) The disappointment of not being able to conceive a baby seems to weigh much more in the balance than the peculiarity of having perfectly healthy babies being aborted by their mothers rather than bringing them to term and letting these disappointed couples adopt one of those surviving babies. It is madcap in the extreme.

Whose would be the loudest voices objecting to a ban on in-vitro fertilisation of multiple human eggs? Infertile couples might complain, but you know that their voices would be mightily amplified for maximum emotional effect in the cooperative media, accompanied by much financial support and public relations savvy from the abortion, the feminist and the new embryonic stem-cell research lobbies

I really find it hard to believe at this stage of the debate on abortion that anyone thinks late term abortions are only done to protect the mother's life or to prevent the birth of an unfit baby. Here is a quote, and I leave it to the reader to guess who said this: "In the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along."

If you have a strong stomach, you can read a description of the procedure by a practitioner at http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/haskellinstructional.pdf

Sparks

At the time, the head of research of the company could see nothing wrong with the practice, because the fetuses were going to be discarded anyway, and at least some good might come out of his department's research, and weren't the objections only coming from those who would deny relief to people who suffer from the agony of the common cold?

In other words, he advocated the harvesting of dead tissue from dead fetuses who were on their way to the incinerator, presumably (since you've not mentioned it and I'd be surprised if the ethics boards allowed it otherwise) with the appropriate permissions obtained, all to try to produce a cure to a very common disease in humans? Why, the absolute monster. Let's burn him.

Whose would be the loudest voices objecting to a ban on in-vitro fertilisation of multiple human eggs?

Doctors and infertile couples, one would imagine. Of course, those pesky civil liberties groups would also get involved on the premise that it's between the mother and father and their doctor and not the rest of society, but they're just bleeding heart liberals, so let's ignore them, shall we?

The disappointment of not being able to conceive a baby seems to weigh much more in the balance than the peculiarity of having perfectly healthy babies being aborted by their mothers rather than bringing them to term and letting these disappointed couples adopt one of those surviving babies. It is madcap in the extreme.

So what you're saying is that it's wrong for a couple to want to produce their own offspring, and it's a far better solution to force them to adopt a child produced by a mother who was forced to bring the child to term? Tom, your knack of totally overlooking the rights of people for an ideological ideal that isn't held by the majority of people is breathtaking.

If you have a strong stomach, you can read a description of the procedure by a practitioner

Or Tom, you could go to a site that actually tells you about D&X procedures instead of trying to convince you to think about them the way the author does.
I'd suggest http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pba.htm

Why Are D&X Procedures Performed?
This is a topic that is rarely discussed during public debates:

1st Trimester: D&Xs are not performed during the first three months of pregnancy, because there are better ways to perform abortions. There is no need to follow a D&X procedure, because the fetus' head quite small at this stage of gestation and can be quite easily removed from the woman's uterus.

2nd Trimester: D&Xs are very rarely performed in the late second trimester at a time in the pregnancy before the fetus is viable. These, like most abortions, are performed for a variety of reasons, including:
- She is not ready to have a baby for whatever reason and has delayed her decision to have an abortion into the second trimester. As mentioned above, 90% of abortions are done in the first trimester.
- There are mental or physical health problems related to the pregnancy.
- vThe fetus has been found to be dead, badly malformed, or suffering from a very serious genetic defect. This is often only detectable late in the second trimester.

3rd Trimester: They are also very rarely performed in late pregnancy. The most common justifications at that time are:
- The fetus is dead.
- The fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would place the woman's life in severe danger.
- The fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would grievously damage the woman's health and/or disable her.
- The fetus is so malformed that it can never gain consciousness and will die shortly after birth. Many which fall into this category have developed a very severe form of hydrocephalus.

And by the way, you've not yet answered the question of who is advocating unrestricted harvesting of embryonic stem cells. A name Tom, if you please.

bonkey

Sparks wrote:

Indeed - if you happen to include the completely extremist tinfoil-hat brigade as a legitimate group...[/size]

Well, I would seperate the completely extremists from the tinfol hatters...but basically, yes - taking the word legitimate in the sense of "established and legal"

jc

bonkey

TomF wrote:

Well, when people say that using human fetuses for spare parts is not going to happen, I harken back to the 1980s when a big pharmaceutical company (Eli Lilly), doing research on the common cold and needing media to support rhinoviruses, began collecting nasal passages of "freshly-aborted human fetuses" for that media. At the time, the head of research of the company could see nothing wrong with the practice, because the fetuses were going to be discarded anyway, and at least some good might come out of his department's research, and weren't the objections only coming from those who would deny relief to people who suffer from the agony of the common cold?

Was the objection not that they were performing this "harvesting" without the consent of the mothers? And...tieing back into the proposal which was accepted here in Switzerland...is that not what is being done here - requiring consent?

Twenty years later, it seems prospects haven't been looking good for stopping the practice of in-vitro fertilisation of multiple human eggs and then picking and choosing the best of them to be put back into the egg-producer to give her a baby.

And? You're still showing how we got here....not how this means we'll go from here to Frankenworld.

The disappointment of not being able to conceive a baby seems to weigh much more in the balance than the peculiarity of having perfectly healthy babies being aborted by their mothers rather than bringing them to term and letting these disappointed couples adopt one of those surviving babies. It is madcap in the extreme.

And how is there any sort of correlation between supporting this form of research and people having abortions which they could conceivably carry to term???

You're beginning to make it sound like there's some sort of human-parts conveyer-belt system created to fund science, through the manipulation of the ethics and mindsets of the public. Come on TomF...this isn't the X-Files.

Whose would be the loudest voices objecting to a ban on in-vitro fertilisation of multiple human eggs?

I'm sorry...I've mistaken you. Should we take it that your objection isn't to the use of these embryos, but rather to their creation in the first place? Surely thats a seperate question and a seperate issue?

Infertile couples might complain, but you know that their voices would be mightily amplified for maximum emotional effect in the cooperative media, accompanied by much financial support and public relations savvy from the abortion, the feminist and the new embryonic stem-cell research lobbies

I see. And who's shouting out loudest on the other side, I wonder? That wouldn't be the religious fundamentalists, would it?

If you're going to pick-and-choose which voices you'll typify my side of the argument with, I don't see why I shouldn't return the favour...

I really find it hard to believe at this stage of the debate on abortion that anyone thinks late term abortions are only done to protect the mother's life or to prevent the birth of an unfit baby.

Woah. Where did this come from? What has this to do with stem-cell research? Or are you still trying to show that because we got here, we must be on a slippery slope to Mengeleville, rather than explaining what will cause us to abandon our remaining standards?

We're discussng stem-cell research. Not convenience abortions.

jc

TomF

I really think the advocation of using dead tissue of killed human fetuses (translation: "little ones") for experimentation because it is better than consigning it to the incinerator is getting uncomfortably close to justifying the killing to do the research. Isn't that also getting to be an asymptote of Mengelian Medicine?

Do people have a right to become pregnant by any means at all, even those means which involve medical doctors, hospitals, laboratories, public funds, or insurance companies' funds (other people's money), even negating the right to life of some other forms of human life in the process? I think that is a whole other question that is going to have to wait the writing of another shelf of books to examine.

The site I recommended for a description of late term abortion was written by a happy practitioner of the technique for presentation to a symposium on late term abortion. It is disturbingly frank, to say the least.

As for advocates of unrestricted harvesting of embryonic stem-cells, I didn't say anyone advocated that, did I? I searched this thread and the nearest thing I can find to me saying such a thing is when I said that Bethell didn't have [meaning "express"] a gripe against any partisan for such harvesting.

I don't see the honesty of arguing in favor of a statement that someone says I made when I didn't make it!

Sparks

TomF wrote:

I really think the advocation of using dead tissue of killed human fetuses (translation: "little ones") for experimentation because it is better than consigning it to the incinerator is getting uncomfortably close to justifying the killing to do the research.

You might think so. That doesn't mean that you'd be correct. In fact, you'd be incorrect, because your logic would mean that organ donation was the first step on the road to murdering someone for their kidneys.

Isn't that also getting to be an asymptote of Mengelian Medicine?

No, because firstly that term isn't defined (ie. it's meaningless noise) and secondly because were we to give it a defined meaning, logic would demand that it refer to the unethical and illegal use of unwilling humans as subjects in medical experimentation. Which is a thousand miles from where even your worried mind is trying to get to.

Do people have a right to become pregnant by any means at all

Yes.

even negating the right to life of some other forms of human life in the process?

Firstly, if you've found some other form of human life, congratulations and I look forward to the peer-reviewed articles in the New England Journal or Nature or whereever you publish.
Secondly, where exactly do they kill anything in IVF? I must have missed the bit in the pamphlet explaining the ritual killing of chickens...

The site I recommended for a description of late term abortion was written by a happy practitioner of the technique for presentation to a symposium on late term abortion. It is disturbingly frank, to say the least.

You mean it's a procedural manual for those who have to carry out the procedure? Well, that's shocking. I vote for banning all such texts. I mean, things like heart transplants are shockingly graphic (they actually remove a man's heart!) and we shouldn't allow these procedures because non-medical personnel are shocked by them.

As for advocates of unrestricted harvesting of embryonic stem-cells, I didn't say anyone advocated that, did I?[/quote[
You implied it heavily.

I searched this thread and the nearest thing I can find to me saying such a thing is when I said that Bethell didn't have [meaning "express"] a gripe against any partisan for such harvesting.

Which implies that such harvesting takes place. Which it doesn't.

I don't see the honesty of arguing in favor of a statement that someone says I made when I didn't make it!

And I don't see honesty in making the implications and committing the acts of slander that you've been merrily doing throughout this thread.

GuanYin

God, not this again *sigh*.......

TomF wrote:

I really think the advocation of using dead tissue of killed human fetuses (translation: "little ones") for experimentation because it is better than consigning it to the incinerator is getting uncomfortably close to justifying the killing to do the research. Isn't that also getting to be an asymptote of Mengelian Medicine?

Its nowhere near close. If you want to make an analogy with anything, consider making it to relatives consenting to transplant organ harvesting.

Do people have a right to become pregnant by any means at all, even those means which involve medical doctors, hospitals, laboratories, public funds, or insurance companies' funds (other people's money), even negating the right to life of some other forms of human life in the process? I think that is a whole other question that is going to have to wait the writing of another shelf of books to examine.

Who/How/Why is this being suggested? I'm unclear as to what you mean by this (perhaps my poor english). Is it that people may become pregnant to cell their foetuses? If so, that is a ridiculous scenario put forward by pro-life extremists to scare the more ignorant members of the public. No ethics committee is going to allow that in the EU. Its akin to offering a woman money for the lungs of her dead adolescent child. Can you imagine the government passing this?


As for the issue of science fiction. My god, what do you people think happens in science labs?

The type of work that stem cells are used for do not and will not result in "designer babies", "super humans" or "The Wrath of Khan". Research grants run on strict budgetary confinements and through a governing ethics board. The cells will be used within the realms described in the application. In this case its the use chemical/biological agents to nudge the stem cell in the direction of changing to another type of cell (a process called differentation). Any other suggestion is scaremongering.

swiss wrote:

I'm not a medical doctor, so I can't say with any authority whether stem cell research is beneficial or not.

9/10 medical doctors couldn't say anything with any authority either. The people you're looking for are medical researchers.

TomF

You know, it's hard-enough to debate someone whose native language is English, yet still manages to mangle my opinions, but I think it may be asking a little too much to have to reply through the filter of another language.

Still, I'll try.

I think I have a fairly good acquaintance with what happens in science labs and I don't feel particularly intimidated by people who can tell a pipette from a tin whistle.

First there is the bald claim: "Research grants [are] run on strict budgetary confinements and through a governing ethics board." This may or may not be true in publically-funded labs, but it is certainly wide-open for debate whether similar controls (other than the profit motive) exist in investor-owned or privately-owned organisations. That is, we don't all work for the government, or under government contract.

And then we have the dismissive: "Is it that people may become pregnant to cell their foetuses? If so, that is a ridiculous scenario put forward by pro-life extremists to scare the more ignorant members of the public. No ethics committee is going to allow that in the EU."

It has already happened that a child was conceived and allowed to be born to provide cells for a sibling, and it was in June 2003 in the U.S. (admittedly, not in the EU) that the conception(s) and screening took place, while it seems the birth took place in the U.K. All that was necessary to defeat the decision of the relevant EU ethics committee was to catch a plane. Read all about it:
http://www.betterhumans.com/Errors/index.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/Born_to_Save_Sibling_Designer_Baby_Stirs_Controversy.Article.2003-06-23-3.aspx

TomF

Sparks wrote:

You might think so. That doesn't mean that you'd be correct. In fact, you'd be incorrect, because your logic would mean that organ donation was the first step on the road to murdering someone for their kidneys.

Sorry, Sparks, but when I read this all I could think of was the Simpsons episode where Marge is on trial for shoplifting at Apu's Quickie Mart and her attorney, the ever-brilliant Lionel Hutz, tries to discredit Apu's reliability as a witness by turning around and asking Apu what colour is his tie, then removing his tie while his back is turned to Apu.

GuanYin

TomF wrote:

This may or may not be true in publically-funded labs, but it is certainly wide-open for debate whether similar controls (other than the profit motive) exist in investor-owned or privately-owned organisations. That is, we don't all work for the government, or under government contract.

No but they are still subject to the law and auditing. Unless they get specific legal approval such work cannot take place. If the do get approval, they cannot deviate from what they have approval for. Whats the issue?

It has already happened that a child was conceived and allowed to be born to provide cells for a sibling, and it was in June 2003 in the U.S. (admittedly, not in the EU) that the conception(s) and screening took place, while it seems the birth took place in the U.K. All that was necessary to defeat the decision of the relevant EU ethics committee was to catch a plane. Read all about it:
http://www.betterhumans.com/Errors/index.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/Born_to_Save_Sibling_Designer_Baby_Stirs_Controversy.Article.2003-06-23-3.aspx

Yes I notice how you ignored all the parts of that article that focused on the strict ethics laws in place and focused on how one couple went to great lengths to get around a legal loophole. You also are citing a case where the issue was humanitarian and not monetary and the baby donated stem cells and lived, not foetus harvesting. All in all a pretty lame example and not even close the an analogous of what we were talking about. But by all means, keep scaremongering....

TomF

Well, my wrist is tired, and I am putting down my paddle.