Duke said:
Did you know, that by percentage of budget, the USA spends the least amount of money on helping Africa and curing AIDS out of all major developed countries?
Duke
And a big SO WHAT? is the correct response.
Some reason why Africa can't help itself? The only thing I know holding Africa back is that Africa is sitting around sticking it's hand out and waiting to be "rescued". Screw 'em.
AIDS research? Why should money be spent curing a disease that's basically contracted on a volunteer basis? Don't screw
them!
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But let's focus on Stem Cell Research...or more specifically,
embryonic stem cell research. Two questions arise right out of the chute.
People complain that the government isn't funding it. La-di-da, folks. The federal government doesn't have constitutional authority to fund it. How many of you guys out there wanting the federal government to fund this project have posted complaints about Bush's exploding budget deficit? I suspect there's a strong connection between unconstitutional spending and budget deficits. Ya think?
If the process will be as profitable as so many claim, ...where are the venture capitalists?
Bluntly, government shouldn't be funding medical research.
Moving on to those wee little embryos. Current in vitro fertilization technology seems to be process similar to a female salmon dumping a pile of eggs on the river bottom and the male salmons spews milt indiscriminately in the hopes that a few will get fertilized. How else to explain dozens or more fertilized eggs left over when only one is needed or desired?
A horribly inefficient process. The commercial harvesting of left over embryos for research purposes with create intense economic incentive to create more excess, not less, much the same as the black gooey mess from crude oil refining became the plastics industry.
To my knowledge, no practical application has yet arisen from embryonic stem cells. My knowledge can be out of date. Apprising me and everyone else of any such would certainly be useful. (I'll cruise over later and check out the SCR board under ABORTION later).
And there's that sticky moral dilemma that these embryos are human beings. Okay, they're really really tiny human beings. But what else are they? Now, as has been said, they're gonna get flushed anyway. They're certainly insensate, but does that alter the morality? If ESCR becomes a commercial proposition, won't increased demand lead to deliberate production of embryonic humans for cultivation and harvesting? What do you think the research will lead to, if not that?
I can envision one line of research that requires genetically close stem cells for tissue matching purposes...which leads to cloning. Cloning goes to lots of fun places, but let's just say that cloning is both clearer and cloudier than embryonic stem cell research, depending on what you're looking at, and the moral issues are different, also.
One of the big concerns on ESCR is that aborted fetuses have the potential to provide enormous quantities of partially or fully differentiated stem cells. How could the research be complete if those avenues aren't explored? Are people going to argue that those parts are going to be tossed in the incinerator anyway, why not use them to save lives? You can see, of course, that eventually a line is crossed and "humans" are being used for medical research without their consent.
Since the courts have run away every time an attempt is made to get them to agree on the definition of "human". Actually, Congress abdicated it's job to write the definition, which is why the courts feel they have to run away, but that's politics, not morals or ethics, and food for another thread.
On the whole, embryonic stem cell research opens terrible moral doors, and keeping those doors closed lets other moral problems into the room.
At the same time, it's not like embryonic stem cell research is not going on. It's just not going on in the United States, and it's not being paid for by the US taxpayer. How much of that is in your consideration, and why?
