I hadn't even planned on blogging about this today but Savage was so eloquent and insightful last night it inspired me. Yeah Savage is known for an extreme view every now and then (nobody ever seems to define this term "extreme") but I enjoy the show anyway and the biggie topic yesterday was Obama taking pen in hand (yet again) and signing an executive order lifting the ban on taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem-cell research. OK, so 'twas to be expected and so far Obama's report card has a big fat red L on top saying he's a liberal and so where to begin?
ALL the approaches from the scientific to the philosophical to the mathematical which I recently contributed in a blog point overwhelmingly in the direction that human life begins at conception. Faith talks about ensoulment but I don't think that's relevant here, after all if we hold a newborn may not get a soul until two weeks later we don't normally then sanction infanticide. You did not come from an embryo, you once were that embryo, so says this branch of philosophy concerned primarily with the nature of existence. Mathematically we have what Dr. Bernard Nathanson calls the vector of life at work, cells dividing at a rapid pace and forming organs etc., a velocity and direction at work, a force and magnitude and again the vector obviously begins at conception. It's a canard to say we don't know when life begins and will probably never know, that's not the issue anymore although many pretend it is but that's for psychology. The long and the short of it is as one pro-lifer put it after yesterday's signing "this president places very little value on the life of the unborn." You wonder though, yeah I know Obama's official political position is one of Pro-Choice but when he looks into the eyes of his daughters Sasha and Malia at night how can he not question his own stance or is he that hardboiled on the issue? Anti-socialism unites us conservatives far more than the social issues (ka-ching ka-ching) but for me the larger concern may be how extreme will Obama be on abortion? The media might pretend FOCA doesn't exist but I know an awful lot of folks who are concerned. As Savage said yesterday Obama is beginning to pay back one of his biggest constituencies, the abortion racket in this country. Some people might consider this out-of-the-box talk but I was never a fan of the box anyway.
Obama seems to be doing everything possible to be the opposite of the previous administration (including having class, but that's another story). But I sure wouldn't want to be in his shoes when he meets his Maker.
ReplyDeleteOoooh, don't diss His Holiness. You know I just had this thought and I'm not coming at this from an animal rights angle or anything, it's just an observation. When using animals to find cures for disease was made controversial by the PETA crowd the fall back defense was always the lesser of two evils, that it might be unpleasant to give a monkey a tumor but it'll all lead to cures for everything in the end. Well ya wanna know something? it's like all those animals losing their lives didn't mean a hill of beans. Again not coming at this from any kind of PETA angle at all but with this kind of success ratio why should we get so excited about the embryos curing everything that ails us?
ReplyDeleteIt's considered "wrong" to test freaking shampoo on animals anymore Z-man, but okey dokey to take a human embryo (which you so absolutely pointed out we all WERE embryos at one time) and kill it in the name of science. Total insanity!
ReplyDeleteIt's like with Schiavo, it's against the law to starve an animal to death but you can a human under certain circumstances but my main point above is if they couldn't be more successful with the animals how are the stem cells going to be any different?
ReplyDeleteRe meeting our Maker in your opening comment I was always a subscriber to the notion it's better to hedge your bets but as my friend says some people like to thrive on chaos. Was just at lista's blog and BB has some useful comments about bloggers and commenters in general but I'm trying to decipher who he's talking about (lol):)
ReplyDeleteIs BB being cryptic again?!?
ReplyDeleteAs for stem cell research, there is promise in ADULT stem cell research, and there was never a federal ban on embryonic testing, it just had to be privately funded (well until now) so even though I am against it for moral reasons as well as practical reasons (believing embryonic stem cells don't work as well as adult stem cells) but my tax dollars are funding the dman thing.
With regards to animal rights seeming to be more universally acceptable and important than the unborn human lives, there is just no logic to it, none.
ReplyDeleteBB cryptic? NO! I'm gonna go home now and have a cup of coffee and get ready for the doc and hope to be back a little later. Good discussion today!
ReplyDeleteOkay, take care, good luck at the dr. appt.
ReplyDeleteBB cryptic? No..a little dyspeptic, perhaps..
ReplyDeleteWe have a great appreciation for your comments always, BB, I hope you know that.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to read his comments at Lista's again, they were interesting. Had a long wait at the doctor's office as there were quite a bit of older folk before me and so I'm back to cap it off.
ReplyDeleteYou need one of those iPhones where you can check your e-mail while you wait for your appointment!
ReplyDeleteWell they had a real nice flat-screen AKAI tv over the fireplace with the Food Network on, right up my alley! Left two comments at Lista's today, I'll check in tomorrow to see if they're there yet, lol.
ReplyDelete5 minutes left!
ReplyDeletetoodles
I remember reading a few years back in some pro-life newspaper and I'm sure considering the source the other side will dismiss it but anyway the writer was talking about stem-cells and how it's gonna be a Frankenstein in the making, cell division going out of control leading to all sorts of monstrosities in the human body. Being a religious paper I guess the theme was something that starts out wrong cannot end up right but just something I thought I'd throw out there.
ReplyDeleteHey everyone I'm back. I guess I feel compelled to come here and play devil's advocate once and a while! Today I'll bring you what I consider a paradox between liberal's and conservatives.
ReplyDeleteThese big ethical decisions like stem cell research are about the lesser of two evils: do we kill embryos, or do we let disease kill millions of children and adults (assuming the research does what it's intended). Liberals think killing embryos is the lesser of two evils. In line with this is abortion itself. In this case the mother decides the lesser of two evils is killing the embryo (again this is an assumption based on whatever the circumstances are).
The paradox is when we look at war. Again, this is a choice between the lesser of two evils involving killing, where the decision is based on assumptions which may or may not be true.
To make this comparison as clear as possible, I'll use preemptive strike as an example. In preemptive strike, we kill people (almost always including innocent bystanders) in order to save lives in our own or our allies countries. Again, this is based on the assumption that this is the lesser of two evils. As the WMD in Iraq showed us, our assumptions are not always correct.
So what's going on here?
Conservatives will kill people to try to save lives when we use the word war.
Liberals will kill people to try to save lives when we use the phrase 'stem cell research'.
But
Conservatives won't kill people to try to save lives when we use the 'phrase stem cell research'.
And
Liberals won't kill people to try save lives when we use the word war (ok this is more of a tendency, but you get my point).
To put it another way, conservatives accept foreign lives as collateral damage (even embryos), while liberals accept domestic embryos as collateral damage.
This makes absolutely no sense to me and I would appreciate it if someone could clear this all up!
I will address this issue, because I know that my friend Z-man would agree with you that the Iraq war was wrong from Day 1.
ReplyDeleteWhen the USA fights a war, yes, there is the loss of innocent lives. But it is not an INTENTIONAL attempt to kill innocent lives.
With embryonic stem cell research, it IS intentionally killing the embryo. In addition, there are adult stem cell research that has been proven effective, so why destroy a life when you don't have to? (Did you know that stem cells from umbilical cords are ADULT stem cells?)
Aside from all this argument, what Obama has done now is to say that the federal government is going to fund the embryonic stem cell research. Prior to that, private citizens could fund it. So, if you think it is a good investment and a worthwhile cause, you could have given money to it if you wish, while say I would want my money going to adult stem cell research. Bottom line is that we both want to find cures and help people, I prefer to do it with ethical means while you do not.
I forgot to add, since I have presented an alternative to embryonic stem cell research, Just Me, I would be interested to hear your alternative to threats to our country if you don't believe war works.
ReplyDeleteThe question of whether there are really alternatives to embryonic stem cells should be decided by scientists. The decision whether to use these stem cells should be up to the people. We simply cannot expect the populus to have the extreme technical understanding of genetics, biochemistry, cell biology and development to make an informed decision on whether adult stem cells could replace embryonic stem cells.
ReplyDeleteI'd buy the argument of intention if we didn't kill innocent people in every war, but we do. Since it is constant, we know it will happen. Since we know we will kill people even if it is not our intention, we are morally responsible.
ReplyDeleteNeither the soldier nor the scientist wants to kill anyone.
As to your first point Just Me I can't really argue with it. It's like the vast majority of conservatives still support Truman's decision to drop the Bomb but this brings up an interesting side issue, by implication it didn't matter if a Japanese woman was with child or not. Now I have to read the rest...
ReplyDeleteTo clarify my position on the Iraq War I'm not a pacifist but for me war to be necessary must be done as an absolute last resort, the intel was faulty and so it was wrong to go to war, it cannot be retroactively justified as many conservatives seem to be doing. This is why I stopped listening to that cheerleader Hannity when Bush was president, every one who called up opposing the war he pegged as a liberal. Geez I'm a conservative but I like to read the menu first.
ReplyDeleteI think public opinion about civilian casualties in war changed when Germany started dropping bombs on London and the allies replied in turn with their own bombs. After the bombings in dresden and tokyo we just seem to not really mind killing civilians that much, and if you do they call you a liberal.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong though, I think the question of war is a very difficult one. Unfortunately when we wage war, the citizenry doesn't seem to think about it that much, never mind debate it (except for the extremists who don't even listen to each other, so what's the point there?).
When looking at war, sure is easy to have 20/20 vision in hindsight, and I also believe war should be a last resort. Just Me, however, you have decided that we first must use embryos for stem cell research and then if that doesn't work use adult stem cells, but I ask you why not use the embroynic stem cells as the last resort? We have been using both though and adult stem cells are proven effective, embryonic stem cells are NOT, so why do you keep ignoring that, Just Me? Why not at least comment on my point that we should not use public funds for embryonic stem cell research? Why not keep it privately funded? Ethics aside, I consider it a bad investment of my tax dollars to continue unsuccessful research.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really commenting on whether we should use stem cells or not. What I'm trying to say is that liberals and conservatives each have double standards when it comes to killing in the name of the lesser of two evils.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to whether adult stem cells are as useful I think there is debate among scientists on this issue, and that from a scientific perspective this is all speculation anyway.
I kinda of get Just Me's overall point, conservatives are a little too pro-war.
ReplyDeleteThe whole stem cell thing kind of negates choicers' overall point that we're not dealing with human life. If it's not human why is it so compatible with human biochemistry or at least alleged to be? Maybe it's human enough to cure diseases but not human enough when we want to abort it. I've long said the pro-abort position is not based on Pure Reason.
ReplyDeletePersonally I am unsure about the moral cost of killing an embryo. Sure it's life but is it a person? It is doubtful that embryos have any type of consciousness. Physiologically all animal embryos are extremely similar - the difference is more in how they develop.
ReplyDeleteI've been through all the vector stuff already but would just add here that the notion of a human nonperson is of fairly recent vintage, in the past something was either human or it wasn't and if it was human it was considered a person. As it's a new concept I'll devote more time to it in the future, it almost deserves a dissertation in its own right which I'm not about to engage in here.
ReplyDeleteYou say Just me that it is doubtful that an enbryo has a consciousness, you even admit there being doubt. How can we have any sort of certainty when we can call the being growing and multiplying as soon as fertilization occurs a "person", how could we? Therefore, it has to be at the moment of conception to make any sense.
ReplyDeletewait, what happens at the moment of conception?
ReplyDeletetheres a sperm and an egg to begin with. does the sperm and egg each have a half consciousness? do they each have a half soul? At the moment of concepton does this single cell have a consciousness? a soul?
I don't think life begins at the moment of conception, if we're using the biologists definition of life, the sperm and egg are already alive, and they are born from living tissue themselves. Life is one big long continuation
If you look at a fully grown person, we know that consciousness is dependent on brain structures that don't develop for a long time after conception. It's clear to me that a rat is more self aware and intelligent than a developing embryo.
It is an interesting idea that there would be a soul born at the moment of conception, because what happens here is a combination of maternal and paternal dna. Perhaps this combination is the physical trigger that creates the soul. But DNA as the gateway to the metaphysical plane is a bit speculative...
Doesn't your argument tend to prove that the point when a new DNA source begins, then a new life is begun?
ReplyDeleteBut here's the deal, under Roe abortion is legal up 'til about the 6th month, some even say further because of the way the health cause is construed so even the most hardline choicer would be hardpressed to hold that a human being hasn't started yet at any point in this timeframe. I find this amazing actually.
ReplyDelete