Obama to reverse embryonic stem cell ban

[sou]

Hi.

thanks wilson, i'm still undecided. so with embryonic stem cells you are killing a possible baby if you use them?

So happens with masturbation and menstruation. The personality is the result of the programming experience performs on the neural network we have in our heads. A bunch of cells that could produce a human personality is definitely not a human being.

Life started some billion years ago, as a reaction that can regenerate itself. Humans, horses, ants, microbes are all branches of the one and same thing. Cells organized in complex organisms are no different than cells that are not. But the neural network adds an extra abstraction layer over the organism that we call personality.

My opinion is that experimenting on embryonic stem cells is absolutely moral. In this case, the definition of "human" does not refer to a set of organs but to a personality. Cells have neither personality nor any ability to have one. So, killing them is not a murder.

Leaving people/personalities suffer is much more immoral than killing billions of human cells. Think of this: Chemotherapy kills billions of human cells. Is taking it immoral?

sou[/b]

[cheerleader]

And now, a brief lesson in civics, from someone who has studied it.

What then is the relation of law to morality? Law cannot prescribe morality, it can prescribe only external actions and therefore it should prescribe only those actions whose mere fulfillment, from whatever motive, the state adjudges to be conducive to welfare. What actions are these? Obviously such actions as promote the physical and social conditions requisite for the expression and development of free—or moral—personality.... Law does not and cannot cover all the ground of morality. To turn all moral obligations into legal obligations would be to destroy morality. Happily it is impossible. No code of law can envisage the myriad changing situations that determine moral obligations. Moreover, there must be one legal code for all, but moral codes vary as much as the individual characters of which they are the expression. To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows is a very grave act, requiring for its justification the most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains, for it is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters.
R.M. MacIver, scholar and author of many treatises regarding law and the state.

AC

[marcstck]

Great job, Mark. Appreciate your opinion. Hope folks understand.
We can't legislate morality.
Our personal beliefs cannot deny others their rights. I may personally disagree with invitro fertilizaton, abortion, embryonic stemcells and euthanasia ...that's my right.
But it's not my right to deny these to anyone else. Or to judge anyone else in their personal and private choice.
We now have a president who is unafraid of science, and unafraid of individual rights.
A true peacemaker.
AC

Excuse me, but your statements are blatantly false. In America, I have the absolute right to vote my conscious, regardless of what your opinion is. The U.S. may be headed for socialism or something else. But the Bill of Rights are still in play here. And, I STILL have a right to vote the way I feel, not the way YOU feel.

Also, just about all law is based on morality so give me nonsense about not legislating morality.

You need to go back to school for some simple Civics lessons.

Wow.

Who said anything about keeping you from voting your conscience? Who said anything about voting at all? Of course you have the right to vote your conscience, and I would fight to the death to protect that right.

What you don't have the right to do is force your faith-based views on those who don't share the same convictions. You believe that life begins at conception. Fine, that's wonderful, and nobody is forcing you to step on a zygote.

By the same token, I believe that a zygote is nothing more than a clump of undifferentiated cells that bears as much commonality to a fully formed human being as a piece of iron ore does to the Golden Gate Bridge. What gives you the right to dictate your version of morality to me?

Believe me, I firmly hold that the people who stand in the way of embryonic stem cell research are acting completely immorally, by keeping potential cures out of the reach of millions of patients suffering from horrendous illnesses. By choosing to protect a zygote, based only on a "belief", they are potentially sentencing millions of living, breathing, fully formed, fully conscious human beings to pain, paralysis, and lingering death. I place the suffering of actual living human beings over the "rights" of a barely organized group of cells smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

But that's just me. Believe what you want to believe, just don't expect me to abide by your rules...

[Loobie]

I knew this would happen when this thread opened up. This thread looks like the comments section on the Huffingtonpost. You guys beliefs are 180 degrees opposed. WE GET IT. Now can we get back to being an MS board please? Some people just can't keep it in their pants. I vote we stick to MS. There are places all over the internet to have those debates, I vote we don't do it here.

[scorpion]

I agree Loobie I was the one who started the thread so throw your rotten tomatoes this way. Sometimes I think that if there is another Civil War in America it will occur over the debate of when an egg and sperm become a human. Ughhhhh!

[Loobie]

I know. If I interpreted why you started this thread correctly, it was to talk about how we look at this moving forward now that the funding ban is lifted. Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't even for a second infer that this thread was to take sides on Roe v. Wade, or dog on Bush, or dog on Obama. We all have our feelings about that, and that's great, and there're many more internet sites to debate that than there are like this one. I was liking the thoughts on this thread until we started looking back and saying "my ideal is better than your ideal". It's a fact, the ban has been lifted. Let's go forward, not back , and at least on here we should focus on MS, thus the name of the site.

[robbie]

other Civil War in America it will occur over the debate of when an egg and sperm become a human.

Well we all eat eggs but we would'nt if they looked like baby chickens.

[rainer]

It's a discussion forum. If witnessing the discussion bothers you then don't click on the thread. My 2 cents.

[cheerleader]

National Multiple Sclerosis Society Commends President Obama's Initial Steps in Removing the Bans on Embryonic Stem Cell Research

NEW YORK, March 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is a driving force in creating a world free of MS. To advance this goal, the Society continues to seek ways to prevent, slow the progression or repair the effects of MS. One channel is by supporting scientifically meritorious medical research, including research using human cells. This is done in accordance with federal, state and local laws and with adherence to the strictest ethical and procedural guidelines. For the past eight years, federal policies have impeded these efforts by severely limiting the number of approved embryonic stem cell lines that could be used in federally funded research and prohibiting the donation of unused embryos for research purposes by people utilizing the services of in vitro fertilization clinics.

President Obama has taken a major step in removing the barriers to a promising path of responsible scientific research and the Society commends him for the new hope and optimism he brings to the millions of people living with chronic and debilitating diseases or disabilities.

Says Weyman T. Johnson, Jr., Chair, National MS Society's board of directors:

"As an MS advocate and someone living with the disease, I applaud President Obama's actions. The lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research now allows our best scientific minds the opportunity to pursue all avenues that can speed more effective treatments and we hope, eventually, find a cure for the over 400,000 people in America living with MS."

Adds Dr. John Richert, Executive Vice President for Research and Clinical Programs, National MS Society:

"The National MS Society believes that all promising avenues that could lead to the cure or prevention of MS, or relieve its symptoms by repairing MS damage, must be explored - including expanding the number of stem cell lines that are available for federally funded research. President Obama's actions to alleviate restrictions on the use of embryonic stem cells represent an important step that will allow us to move forward with greater speed and effectiveness in exploring potential new areas for treatment, not only for MS but for many chronic diseases."

[chrishasms]

Hey I know how to sum up the politics of this conversation:

CNN: Lou Dobbs the only true independent.
Foxnews: Republican party payroll

Democrats: The closest thing to socialism in the USA today.
Republicans: The party George Bush 2 winged, John McCain broke it's leg, and Bob Jindahl, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Steele poisoned the IV medicine keeping it alive.

There....all done!!

[rainer]

It's a discussion forum. If witnessing the discussion bothers you then don't click on the thread. My 2 cents.

Most forums ban discussions in politics and religon, because most people cant avoid a topic and have something to say.

Stem cells are pretty relevant to a board about MS.

And the ole "I may not like what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" also comes to mind.

[patientx]

I must say, though discussions like these can get heated, the fact we can have them is one of the things I like about this site. A similar discussion has already been quashed on another board.