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Tom -- Thanks very much for sending this amazing interview with Robert P George. It clearly demonstrates the common trick used by professors of assuming your conclusion at the beginning of your argument. When you do that, everything seems to fall in place since you can conveniently and myopically stick to your conclusion while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Mr. George states "The only non-arbitrary principle is the one that says human beings - irrespective of age, size, stage of development, or condition of dependency - may never be exploited and destroyed in research to benefit others." I may agree completely with that statement. However, my answer to him would be "at what point does this entity become a human being"? It is clear that our society has chosen not to invest in embryonic life all of the rights available to born human beings. For example, the government can remove a child who is being abused by its parents and place it in a (hopefully) safer foster home. But, we don't allow the government at the present time to go around and decide whether the "incubating" mother is unfit (like be a cocaine addict) and remove an eight day old fetus and place it in a foster uterus. I suppose that Mr. George would advocate that the government do that since it is consistent with his views. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he wishes it, that's just not the way our society works. Similarly, if someone is pregnant and driving alone in the car, they can't ride in the carpool lane. Our society just says that an unborn person is not a person for many purposes. We don't postpone the execution of a pregnant woman. The embryo inside her just doesn't have the right to be born, in our society. Killing a pregnant woman is one murder, not two. So, there are many ways in which we have decided that embryonic life is different from born human beings. I regret that people like Mr. George refuse to let the facts influence their conclusions. Note also that Mr. George says that "... human beings ... may never be exploited and destroyed in research to benefit others." This implies that "human beings" may be exploited and destroyed so long as no research or benefit to others is involved, such as in-vitro fertilization. If there is any benefit to living people, he would prohibit such research. It seems that he believes that life begins in the blastocyst and ends with birth! Just my $.02. Gary ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn