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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
All the genetic material that human being needs is present at the time of conception, even the human being goes through different developemental stages it does not take away from the fact that it is a human being.
It sounds like you are saying a human being has two stages a non-human stage and then a human stage. And that the non-human stage (e.g. a human embryo) does not merit moral consideration. That is a little complicated, when does this transition from non-human to human take place? Is it gradual or sudden? And where does this opinion of a non-human human embryo come from? I can not understand why anyone would take that stance that a human embryo is not human. Even if a person is not religious what about the philosphical understanding of a human being, natural law and the ethical treatment of a unborn human being?
I like to see you as well to prove that a human embryo is not part of the developement of the human being. If you can prove to me that a human being can skip over the embryonic stage and prove it is not neccessary for or a part of human life then you can start to build your case.
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Here you are making up an imaginary argument which I have never actually promoted. I believe the term is "strawmanning"? I have never claimed that fetuses are not human or that there is a threshhold one crosses in development where you suddenly deserve to be treated as a human .. It's painfully obvious you haven't read the post I referred you to.
If you want to argue against my moral views on stem cell research, at least get the right ones! Good on you for dodging those difficult questions, though
So what if a fetus has human DNA? How does that make it deserve to be treated with the same moral consideration you'd have for the average grown-up?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan
It is not the fact that it is a dead fetus, it is the fact that the human fetus had it's life deliberately taken from it. They are starting off with an unethical act, termination of life, then proceed to study stem cell that was procured from that unethical act.
There is adult stem cell research, which does not rely on the termination of life of a fetus or the use of destroyed embryos. And since there is an ethical way to go about stem cell research it makes the unethical way unnecessary and twice as wrong.
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I believe I already explained why one "has" to research embryonic stem cells so I won't bother repeating myself. As for the starting off with an unethical act, I think that since the decision to abort and the decision to research are two independent decisions, one shouldn't morally affect the other. If researchers were asking people to do abortions so that they could research the fetuses, then I think your criticism would be justified. Since they don't, I really think you should treat the abortion part and the research part morally independent of eachother.
To extrapolate the kind of view you seem to be promoting, it would be unethical to study a thousands of years old mummy if it's death way back then was by torture.
Put in practical terms, I think you should forget the abortions and
then focus on whether the research is unethical or not.