The Shrine

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?obje ... 082DB1C</a>

UK gave out its first license to clone human embyros for stem cell research. Embryos are destroyed after 14 days. I kinda have mixed feelings about this...but as long as its for the greater good.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Keep in mind that at 14 days, the embryo is a few hundred undifferentiated cells.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm coo with it</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>I realize that. I think it's just the farming aspect of it that bugs me.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Excellent....everything is going according to plan....meh heh heh.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>So it's just about as alive as the bacteria in my spit right?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Still human though, and different from just "a few hundred undifferentiated cells" as if you took some skin cells off of your arm. This is a human in the very first stages of development and needs to be acknowledged as such.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I see no need to acknowledge it - or, more precisely, I see no reason to give it special status of any kind, which I think was your intention of that comment.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Aye. It may be "human", but it has no sense of intelligence or consciousness.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>"Aye"? Don't get all Scotty on us!</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>What? I've been saying that for a while.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Beam me up Scotty!</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Aye, laddy! I believe ye!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Let me pose to you this situation: There is a man in a coma. Say that there is a very good chance that he will recover within 9 months. However, he has suffered severe brain damage from the accident that put him in the coma and will lose all of his memory and will have to learn most things all over again once he awakens. He has within one of his glands some chemicals that could save the life of a dying (fully conscious and intelligent) person. However, removing this gland (the only way to get the chemical) will cause him to die.

Would it be morally acceptable to remove his gland to save another's life? He has (as the doctors will tell you) no sense of intelligence of consciousness, but will, if left alone and cared for, gain consciousness and afterwards regain his intelligence.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>lol that's one of the biggest bs situations I've ever heard. The embryo isn't human, it's just a bunch of cells right then. And your situation would be determined to the guys living will. I personally would say yes, take the gland. But, it's total bs of a situation...we don't have magic glands</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>He's trying to contrive an equivalent situation to cause you to analyze the one in question, an approach I saw often in my morality and justice course. But, his, like most situations I encountered, had key differences that don't translate across situations.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Semantic nuances aside, pretty much, yeah. I recognize there are grey areas - a five month old fetus, for example - but for a few hundred undifferentiated cells that happen to have human DNA and might develop into a person if afforded the chance, no.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Yes but at what point does a fetus transition from not human to human?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>ah, THE question...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The answer for me is at birth...too hot and tired to get into the why's.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>A sperm isn't life, it's just a DNA transportation mechanism. Life begins at conception.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Why do you think there must be a discrete "one second ago not human, now human" point? Like how I view all life, I think it's a spectrum. However, to steal someone else's line, the presence of dusk does not prevent me from stating when it is clearly day or clearly night.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>Maybe, but i find conception in utero different than a petrie(sp?) dish.</div>