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Old 07-21-2001, 02:36 AM   #15
Yorick
Very Mad Bird
 

Join Date: January 7, 2001
Location: Breukelen (over the river from New Amsterdam)
Age: 53
Posts: 9,246
Wasn't this question raised when the Nazis were conducting experiments on humans they deemed as worthless to save the lives they deemed as worth it. Isn't the fact that some regard the embryos enough of a concern to those that don't? It's not just a matter of what an individual thinks, but also what others think. We have to allow for the possiblity that we could be wrong.

What do we lose by not conducting the research? Slower advances in medicine. That's it. Same status quo, just a slower advance. The human race has survived and propogated without it.

What do we lose by conducting it? We risk the chance that the moral objectors are right, and that we are committing a horendous crime upon humans. We are also emotionally harming and disempowering a large section of the community that provide a safeguard for moral concern over human rights issues such as childcare, battered wife/child sheltering, care for the homeless and the poor etc.

**Here's a thought: Usually the death of a child is considered worse than the death of an elderly citizen because of the unrealised potential and the life experiences that were denied. How much more in the case of an embryo?**

The topic is a touchy one. Both sides have care for the Race at heart, but which side is damaged the most?

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I am the walrus!.... er, no hang on....

A fair dinkum laughing Hyena!

[This message has been edited by Yorick (edited 07-21-2001).]
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