News Flash one day in the future.." Aborted baby is mother"

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I came across an interesting news piece on the BBC and I had to share this with you all. BBC Link



The story talks about using harvested eggs from aborted babies....



Quite frankly I don't know what to add to this but to say I think it is a bit ironic to expend human life on the one hand and turn around and use that aborted life as a spare parts "junk yard" to create yet another life.



Something is a bit cruel about it to me.



Just my initial reaction.



What are your thoughts of this idea?



Fellowship
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 42
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Why can't science ever figure out to just leave well enough alone on some things? Isn't there somebody in one of these labs that's said "You know what, maybe we shouldn't fool with this."



    Makes my brain hurt just to think about it.
  • Reply 2 of 42
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    if they can do that, why the hell cant they raise the aborted child in the first place?



    abortion's days are limited... not that I'm saying people won't have unplanned pregnancies, but instead of killing children to "fix" them, they will put them up for adoption through artificial wombs...
  • Reply 3 of 42
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    I agree with some of the people that replied to the BBC story:



    Quote:

    While I do see the benefit of harvesting stem cells from embryos, the idea of harvesting eggs from an aborted foetus is totally unjustified.

    Abortion is a tragic event regardless of the circumstances. This is especially so at the stage of gestation noted in your article. To then harvest eggs from the dead foetus to enable a woman who presumably has the funds to pay for treatment of her infertility is disgusting.

    It would be far better if the foetus was allowed to live and be adopted by the supposedly long line of hopeful parents.

    Gerald Reiner, USA








    Quote:

    Why should harvesting eggs from an aborted foetus disturb those who support abortion? I think it is completely consistent with the pro-choice view. According to pro-choicers, unborn babies are not human beings and therefore there is nothing morally wrong with their mother choosing to terminate them. What then can be morally wrong with harvesting their eggs? If the unborn are not human beings, then we should be able to do anything we want with them.

    Only the pro-lifer has a moral foundation for raising objections. The pro-lifer correctly recognizes that the unborn are indeed real human beings, and therefore it is morally wrong for anyone to abort them, much less harvest their eggs.

    Paul Angelikas, USA








    Quote:

    So the foetus is not human but has the ability to reproduce other humans? What, then, is it?

    To relegate the foetus to the role of baby production without acknowledging its humanity is wrong.

    Sven Haalgrod, Canada








    I have no comment..



    Fellowship
  • Reply 4 of 42
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    I go with my gut reaction on most of these issues. This one creeps me out.
  • Reply 5 of 42
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    What should be the rationale behind this?
  • Reply 6 of 42
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    What should be the rationale behind this?



    Having an egg bank for potential mothers that are infertile that can sit in cold storage until needed instead of having the aborted fetus grow up with a mother that does not want him or in foster care.
  • Reply 7 of 42
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook

    I agree with some of the people that replied to the BBC story:



    Quote:

    So the foetus is not human but has the ability to reproduce other humans? What, then, is it?

    To relegate the foetus to the role of baby production without acknowledging its humanity is wrong.

    Sven Haalgrod, Canada



    Fellowship



    Thing A is used to produce Thing B.



    Thing A does NOT have to be the same as Thing B.
  • Reply 8 of 42
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    What I meant was: Why use eggs from a fetus when there is no lack of eggs from other sources?
  • Reply 9 of 42
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    What I meant was: Why use eggs from a fetus when there is no lack of eggs from other sources?



    Harvesting eggs from grown women is an invasive procedure and much fewer women opt to donate compared to men donating sperm. If the technology is there, it will be easier to just get the eggs from aborted fetuses.



    And don't give me the "abortion is an invasive procedure" argument. The abortion is going to happen regardless if the aborted fetus is used for eggs or not.
  • Reply 10 of 42
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Perhaps I am behind the curve but is it really a problem getting enough eggs for those women that wants to bear a child but cannot produce them themselves?



    For me this looks like creating a demand not present.
  • Reply 11 of 42
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BR

    ...much fewer women opt to donate compared to men donating sperm.



    Thats good. Beacuse sperm is in much more needed than eggs.
  • Reply 12 of 42
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    Perhaps I am behind the curve but is it really a problem getting enough eggs for those women that wants to bear a child but cannot produce them themselves?



    For me this looks like creating a demand not present.




    If you don't know if there is a problem or not how can you speculate that it is creating a demand that is not present?
  • Reply 13 of 42
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BR

    If you don't know if there is a problem or not how can you speculate that it is creating a demand that is not present?



    I have not heard of this as a problem (and I work in this exact area of medicine) so you should read it as a rhetorical question. So unless anyone can produce (not in the Bush way) some evidence supporting the need for this technique I regard it as what I wrote.
  • Reply 14 of 42
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    I have not heard of this as a problem (and I work in this exact area of medicine) so you should read it as a rhetorical question. So unless anyone can produce (not in the Bush way) some evidence supporting the need for this technique I regard it as what I wrote.



    I see nothing wrong with the pursuit of knowledge even if the demand is not here at the moment. If someone is willing to foot the bill for the research, why the hell not? Who knows, there may one day be a virus of epidemic proportions that renders women infertile and all of the Scotts and Fellowships of the world will then come crying to the scientists that simply shake their heads in disgust because the same people running to them for help prohibited them from researching the technique that could save humanity.
  • Reply 15 of 42
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook, from Sven Haalgrod

    So the foetus is not human but has the ability to reproduce other humans? What, then, is it? To relegate the foetus to the role of baby production without acknowledging its humanity is wrong.



    While there's a strong emotional, rhetorical appeal to this argument, if you stop and think about it, the ability to produce human life is hardly one of the greatest hallmarks of humanity. In this case, the aborted fetus would merely be playing a role in a very artificial chain of events leading to a new human life.



    We've already been able to sequence the entire human genome, and we have machinery that can produce customized genetic material. If we take a known sequence of human DNA, edit it to correct defects and chose desired traits, and then have a machine crank out a new, unique, viable human genome that later grows to adulthood, would we have proved the "humanity" of our lab equipment?



    At the risk of being repetitious, I'll repeat a re-edited version of something I posted a few weeks ago:



    People on both sides of the abortion debate drive me crazy because neither side usually shows any signs of being vaguely aware of the hidden assumptions behind what they're saying, most notably concerning the word "life". (Or in this case, the word "humanity".)



    If anyone bothers to think about, it's clear that on one hand you have life with a small 'l', and on the other hand you have Life with a capital "L". Which is which, and how you define the distinction, is the real debate.



    Clearly an embryo or a fetus is alive in some sense of that word, even before it's capable, with or without the assistance of modern medicine, of survival outside the womb. But jellyfish and lichen are alive too, and obviously don't illicit nearly as much interest for their protection.



    So, we've got lower-case life, which is merely biological activity of any sort, and upper-case Life, which warrants consideration under the law as having full human rights. We also recognize gray areas in between by having laws such as those regarding cruelty to animals.



    I think when you examine how people distinguish between life and Life, it's not hard to find some common basic criteria, but these criteria can become troubling and difficult under close examination.



    Here are the criteria that come to mind for me:
    • Possession of a soul: This one is probably one of the strongest reasons to protect an unborn child for many people, but it's also a matter of religious dogma, and almost certainly beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. To complicate matters further, there are many people who believe that animals have souls too, that maybe even believe plants have souls, and people who may or may not make any value distinctions between human souls and nonhuman souls.



      In any case, I don't think that religious dogma about the presence or absence of a soul has any place in formulating laws in a society that values separation of Church and State. Regardless of this fact, I think that other criteria that people use to distinguish life from Life factor largely into how they feel about souls (for those who believe in them at all).

    • Intelligence: The intelligence of human life is clearly one of the things that is widely valued about human life. By intelligence, I don't just mean language and math and music and such, but the subtle emotional intelligence of humans, our awareness of our own lives, our ability to have plans and hopes and dreams. It feels sad and wrong to snuff out this deep awareness, to end any chance that an intelligent mind might have to fulfill its dreams. An intelligent human mind can comprehend its own death, and it's considered cruel to make a human mind aware and fearful of its own impending demise in most circumstances.



      But if intelligence is our guideline, what of the human value of the severely retarded or brain damaged? What of the value of intelligent animals that may be more intelligent that some badly damaged humans?

    • Potential: A jellyfish or a patch of lichen might be alive, but they have no human potential. A human embryo does have human potential. But as science advances, a flake of dandruff may soon have all the potential to grow into an independent human being that a freshly fertilized human egg has. Every time a man and woman pass in the street, there's a potential for human life to be created. Do we bemoan every such opportunity that is not pursued?



      Is there something especially magical about the potential that exists only after a specific egg and a specific sperm have combined? If the answer is, yes, uniqueness, doesn't this beg the question of human Life being more valuable than other life if we don't also value the uniqueness of fresh and original plant and animal genomes?



      Nature doesn't always show enormous regard for the potential of the fertilized egg. Many embryos never survive past gastrulation, the point in embryonic development where the embryo goes from a solid ball of cells to a tube of cells, forming the primitive basis for the digestive track. If "Samuel" never makes it out of the embryonic stage, his mother may never even be aware that his life (or Life) existed.

    • The feelings of the living: A big part of what we think about when we think of the sadness of death, and what rouses anger when we consider the crime of murder, is not the loss of life for the one who has died, but the loss of that person's presence in the lives of others.



      Yet again, just like intelligence, this is an uncomfortable standard for the value of human life, because we might not want to say that a well-loved person is more deserving of legal protection than someone who is friendless, or even widely disliked. There are certainly some animals who are more loved, and whose deaths would cause greater sadness among the living, than some humans.

    • Uniqueness: I touched on this in discussing potential, but the loss of an individual's uniqueness is often cited specifically as a regrettable aspect of death. Yet we do not value twins or triplets less, regardless of the fact that they lack genetic uniqueness and typically have less breadth of experiential difference than most people have when compared to any other individual.



      Also, uniqueness is not unique to humans. Other forms of life can be unique as well, although perhaps nonhuman uniqueness does not seem to us to have the same richness as human uniqueness.

    • Humanity: This isn't a clearly distinct criteria, but some of us value other human lives simply because they are like ourselves in many ways, genetically and historically members of the same extended family.

    An aborted fetus, even if its tissues contain fully human genetic material that may be viable for creating a new human life, hardly fits the full breadth of the notion of "humanity", simply by its potential to, in a very artificial way, participate in one narrow aspect of humanity -- producing new humans.
  • Reply 16 of 42
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    What the hell happened to ****ing?



    You know, penis in the vagina, move back and forth until sperm release. Try again later if it doesn't work (or if it does, just for fun).



    Is there some supervirus making everyone infertile?



    Is the barren-plague so bad we have to harvest eggs from dead babies?



    I'm no religious person at all, but this is absolutely idiotic.
  • Reply 17 of 42
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by groverat

    What the hell happened to ****ing?



    You know, penis in the vagina, move back and forth until sperm release. Try again later if it doesn't work (or if it does, just for fun).




    Too dangerous these days.



    Is there some supervirus making everyone infertile?



    Is the barren-plague so bad we have to harvest eggs from dead babies?




    I don't know if there's that much more infertility, but for those who are infertile, it seems obvious that there are many who will go to incredible lengths, great effort and expense, to have their own children. It's not about aggregate baby production, after all.



    I'm no religious person at all, but this is absolutely idiotic.



    Before you get your panties in too tight a bunch, please realize that FCiB's premise for this thread was hypothetical. No one has started a massive program to produce hordes of children from aborted fetal egg cells.



    For myself, I'd rather see childless couple who want children badly adopt a child that's already alive and in need. But, being 40 and having no children (my ex-wife couldn't have kids, I didn't mind, and I'm certainly in no rush to have a new relationship with children), I have to admit that I'm missing a drive to have my own biological offspring that most people have, so I try to be understanding that adoption won't satisfy the needs of many who are infertile.



    I suspect that any harvesting of fetal eggs going on right now has more to do with broad areas of medical and biological research, only some of which are related to fertility.
  • Reply 18 of 42
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shetline

    While there's a strong emotional, rhetorical appeal to this argument, if you stop and think about it, the ability to produce human life is hardly one of the greatest hallmarks of humanity. In this case, the aborted fetus would merely be playing a role in a very artificial chain of events leading to a new human life.



    We've already been able to sequence the entire human genome, and we have machinery that can produce customized genetic material. If we take a known sequence of human DNA, edit it to correct defects and chose desired traits, and then have a machine crank out a new, unique, viable human genome that later grows to adulthood, would we have proved the "humanity" of our lab equipment?



    At the risk of being repetitious, I'll repeat a re-edited version of something I posted a few weeks ago:



    People on both sides of the abortion debate drive me crazy because neither side usually shows any signs of being vaguely aware of the hidden assumptions behind what they're saying, most notably concerning the word "life". (Or in this case, the word "humanity".)



    If anyone bothers to think about, it's clear that on one hand you have life with a small 'l', and on the other hand you have Life with a capital "L". Which is which, and how you define the distinction, is the real debate.



    Clearly an embryo or a fetus is alive in some sense of that word, even before it's capable, with or without the assistance of modern medicine, of survival outside the womb. But jellyfish and lichen are alive too, and obviously don't illicit nearly as much interest for their protection.



    So, we've got lower-case life, which is merely biological activity of any sort, and upper-case Life, which warrants consideration under the law as having full human rights. We also recognize gray areas in between by having laws such as those regarding cruelty to animals.



    I think when you examine how people distinguish between life and Life, it's not hard to find some common basic criteria, but these criteria can become troubling and difficult under close examination.



    Here are the criteria that come to mind for me: Possession of a soul: This one is probably one of the strongest reasons to protect an unborn child for many people, but it's also a matter of religious dogma, and almost certainly beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. To complicate matters further, there are many people who believe that animals have souls too, that maybe even believe plants have souls, and people who may or may not make any value distinctions between human souls and nonhuman souls.



    In any case, I don't think that religious dogma about the presence or absence of a soul has any place in formulating laws in a society that values separation of Church and State. Regardless of this fact, I think that other criteria that people use to distinguish life from Life factor largely into how they feel about souls (for those who believe in them at all).

    Intelligence: The intelligence of human life is clearly one of the things that is widely valued about human life. By intelligence, I don't just mean language and math and music and such, but the subtle emotional intelligence of humans, our awareness of our own lives, our ability to have plans and hopes and dreams. It feels sad and wrong to snuff out this deep awareness, to end any chance that an intelligent mind might have to fulfill its dreams. An intelligent human mind can comprehend its own death, and it's considered cruel to make a human mind aware and fearful of its own impending demise in most circumstances.



    But if intelligence is our guideline, what of the human value of the severely retarded or brain damaged? What of the value of intelligent animals that may be more intelligent that some badly damaged humans?

    Potential: A jellyfish or a patch of lichen might be alive, but they have no human potential. A human embryo does have human potential. But as science advances, a flake of dandruff may soon have all the potential to grow into an independent human being that a freshly fertilized human egg has. Every time a man and woman pass in the street, there's a potential for human life to be created. Do we bemoan every such opportunity that is not pursued?



    Is there something especially magical about the potential that exists only after a specific egg and a specific sperm have combined? If the answer is, yes, uniqueness, doesn't this beg the question of human Life being more valuable than other life if we don't also value the uniqueness of fresh and original plant and animal genomes?



    Nature doesn't always show enormous regard for the potential of the fertilized egg. Many embryos never survive past gastrulation, the point in embryonic development where the embryo goes from a solid ball of cells to a tube of cells, forming the primitive basis for the digestive track. If "Samuel" never makes it out of the embryonic stage, his mother may never even be aware that his life (or Life) existed.

    The feelings of the living: A big part of what we think about when we think of the sadness of death, and what rouses anger when we consider the crime of murder, is not the loss of life for the one who has died, but the loss of that person's presence in the lives of others.



    Yet again, just like intelligence, this is an uncomfortable standard for the value of human life, because we might not want to say that a well-loved person is more deserving of legal protection than someone who is friendless, or even widely disliked. There are certainly some animals who are more loved, and whose deaths would cause greater sadness among the living, than some humans.

    Uniqueness: I touched on this in discussing potential, but the loss of an individual's uniqueness is often cited specifically as a regrettable aspect of death. Yet we do not value twins or triplets less, regardless of the fact that they lack genetic uniqueness and typically have less breadth of experiential difference than most people have when compared to any other individual.



    Also, uniqueness is not unique to humans. Other forms of life can be unique as well, although perhaps nonhuman uniqueness does not seem to us to have the same richness as human uniqueness.

    Humanity: This isn't a clearly distinct criteria, but some of us value other human lives simply because they are like ourselves in many ways, genetically and historically members of the same extended family.
    An aborted fetus, even if its tissues contain fully human genetic material that may be viable for creating a new human life, hardly fits the full breadth of the notion of "humanity", simply by its potential to, in a very artificial way, participate in one narrow aspect of humanity -- producing new humans.




    Great post.



    I should just add one element :



    - the right of a (good) future. I think each child has the right to have a good future. Future of a child is different from a family to an another, and from a countrie to an another, but normally a chid have the love of his parents. It's sad when he child born without it.
  • Reply 19 of 42
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    I was wondering why this thread didn't take off right off the bat. But here we are now. <pulls on fire jumper gear>
  • Reply 20 of 42
    xenuxenu Posts: 204member
    Perhaps fellowship would be a good chap and explain how an aborted baby could become a mother.



    How would it feed the baby for a start?



    Just another serving of Pious Bullsh*t from the master chef.
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