Hi:
I agree with Bob, when he says that "what is needed, is a consensus as
to when one is "alive" (as a human
being), and once this state is reached, it is my opinion that such a human
being has all of the rights that any other human being has. This consensus
needs to be reached in discussions between scientific, religious, ethical,
and legal scholars."
However, even if we reach a concensus, this by no means is bound to be
a correct decision, since the matter of great impotance will be decided by
voting.
We should not forget life comes from life. By this definition, human
life starts when the egg is fertilize by a sperm. Whether there is a
developed brain or not, the sensory fucntions are carried out even at this
stage. However, we do not find it a crime to kill the fertilized embryos in
the early stages of implantation by taking birth control pills. Several
million human embryos are killed every month. Nobody is feeling guilty
about this mass murder, except of course the Catholic religion. And yet,
when somebody wants to use his own nucleus for therapeutic cloning of stem
cells from the blastula stage (5-7 day old), we enter into this ethical
objection. I see a serious case of double standard here.
Another fact we always forget. That is Nature always over produces the
offsprings; only a few survive and make it. Every living organism reproduces
much more than the world can support. Most of them do die. That is
Nature's way. A fertile female produces approximatly 500 eggs with
potential to become human beings, if fertilized. The recent observation on
mice would lead us to believe that even adult females can produce more eggs
from germline stem cells, increasing the number of eggs produced by each
female. A male produces virtually millions of sperms during each
ejaculation, yet only one will succeed in fertilizing the egg. Can you
imagine what will happen if all these embryos are fertilzed and mature into
full human beings? I think we should learn a lesson from Nature and thank
God for the Nature's way.
Raj
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