Ain't evil allopathy wonderful!

[Rolfe]

It worked, folks!!! The little boy is cured.

One part of that report struck me as very significant.

"The HFEA are to be congratulated on changing their mind. But one must remember that their original decision, if it had stood and if the Whitakers had taken notice of it, would have resulted in one very sick child - possibly a dead child, and now there are two healthy, happy children."

I've noticed this before. How come the preferred solution of the alleged "pro-lifers" always seems to end up with fewer live healthy children than evil medicine's suggestion? I'm thinking of this sort of thing, and the conjoined twins where the nutters would rather have let the child who had a chance die rather than amputate the non-viable "twin", and another related case whose details I've forgotten for the moment.

And this poor little baby! What a hell of a life he's going to have. Never mind if he's healthy, and loved, and has all the advantages of a good education and a stable home and an adoring brother, and maybe even turns out very clever and becomes a great artist or scientist, he'll know he was conceived

not for its own end, but for the purposes of being a donor.

.... this alone is enough to ensure such pain, such anguish, such appalling quality of life that it would be better for him if he'd never been born. Obviously.

For God's sake, who are these nutters? Oh yes, the same ones who insist that a 12 year old pregnant as a result of incestuous child abuse must have the baby, because no matter what, the baby's life is of incalculable worth. Never mind if he's going to be hated and rejected and forever blamed for ruining his mother's life.... And the same ones who wouldn't condone an abortion even for a horrendous disease like EB, because no matter how pain-filled the life, that life itself must be protected.

These people make me sick.

You can conceive a baby because of an unwise drunken one-night stand, or in order to be obviously pregnant for a court appearance so that you'll get a lighter sentence (yes it happens) or just because you're bored with school, and nobody can say no, no matter what a diabolical upbrighing the poor little sod is likely to have. But the minute you actually want some cord blood, because you'd really like to have two children rather than none, this is not just criticised, but actively banned? (The ban has now been reversed, but never forget that this IVF was done in Chicago because at the time the parents were refused permission.)

Have the so-called moralists gone completely off their collective rockers?

Rolfe.

 

[EdipisReks]

Have the so-called moralists gone completely off their collective rockers?

yes.

 

[Benguin]

How anyone can fail to be inspired and fascinated by this advance in medical science is certainly beyond me.

Maybve it isn't just allopaths who like to prolong human suffering for their own immoral ends ...

 

[patnray]

How come the preferred solution of the alleged "pro-lifers" always seems to end up with fewer live healthy children than evil medicine's suggestion?

Because, for many activists, "pro-life" is a tag they use to hide their hidden agenda which is "anti any life style we disapprove".

Consider that most pro-lifers do not advocate aggressive campaigns to reduce abortions through complete, factual sex education (including all forms of birth control) and through making condoms freely available in high schools and youth centers. Instead their concept of abortion prevention is counseling for pregnant women, making adoption easier, and abstinance only sex education.

Most pro-lifers do not campaign against military tactics and weapons (such as the nuclear bunker buster) that cannot help but kill innocent civilians. Apparently the lives of innocent civilians are not so valueable if their government is our enemy. Although they can accept that military success will produce such benefits for mankind that the loss of innocent life is acceptable, they believe stem cell research can never produce sufficient benefit for mankind to justify destroying artificially created embryos.

Go figure.

 

[Rolfe]

Have the so-called moralists gone completely off their collective rockers?

I missed a bit!

It would have been legal for the parents to have conceived baby after baby, had the embryos tissue-typed at the earliest opportunity, then aborted if it wasn't right so they could start again - again and again until they got the match.

But even knowing that, and the parents saying that they really, really didn't want to go there because they thought that was really immoral, at first the HFEA refused permission for the IVF. Because of pressure from the "moralists".

Some people are just twisted.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Re: Re: Ain't evil allopathy wonderful!

Most pro-lifers do not campaign against military tactics and weapons (such as the nuclear bunker buster) that cannot help but kill innocent civilians. Apparently the lives of innocent civilians are not so valueable if their government is our enemy. Although they can accept that military success will produce such benefits for mankind that the loss of innocent life is acceptable, they believe stem cell research can never produce sufficient benefit for mankind to justify destroying artificially created embryos.

Go figure.

I think our nutters have a different activity profile. But your point is well taken nevertheless.

Rolfe.

 

[Benguin]

Re: Re: Ain't evil allopathy wonderful!

I missed a bit!

It would have been legal for the parents to have conceived baby after baby, had the embryos tissue-typed at the earliest opportunity, then aborted if it wasn't right so they could start again - again and again until they got the match.

But even knowing that, and the parents saying that they really, really didn't want to go there because they thought that was really immoral, at first the HFEA refused permission for the IVF. Because of pressure from the "moralists".

Some people are just twisted.

Rolfe.

It would have been 'morally acceptable' for them to squeeze out baby after baby condemning them to a life of poverty and neglect in a vastly oversized and under-resourced (and dare I say unwanted) herd of a family, in the vain hope one might happen to be a match.

It would also have been 'morally acceptable' to ignore the medical science and allow the existing child to continue suffering a fore-shortened life.

It must be great when you know it's right 'cos your god told you to think it. He says, only tweaking Rolfey's tail ever-so-slightly.

 

[Vitnir]

I don't agree on this part

John Harris, Professor of Ethics at Manchester University says this is not a slippery slope towards designer or spare parts babies.

If they could grow an embryo in a test tube for a few weeks and then use the cells to cure the child it would feel better than to have it grow in a womb to a full baby. I don't know why and it seems illogical of me to feel that way, though I do draw the distinction myself that abortion of a child in the stage where it would be able to survive if he had been born is wrong.

In this particular case the parents seem to be able to love their new child and not have used him just for his "spare parts" but given the current trade in kidneys there is certainly no guarantee that this will not be the case in the future.

 

[Benguin]

I don't agree on this part

If they could grow an embryo in a test tube for a few weeks and then use the cells to cure the child it would feel better than to have it grow in a womb to a full baby. I don't know why and it seems illogical of me to feel that way, though I do draw the distinction myself that abortion of a child in the stage where it would be able to survive if he had been born is wrong.

In this particular case the parents seem to be able to love their new child and not have used him just for his "spare parts" but given the current trade in kidneys there is certainly no guarantee that this will not be the case in the future.

To be fair, 'slippery slope' is a logical fallacy. This procedure has been approved and carried out and it is reasonable to suspect that sets a precedent.

Further exploitation of the technology in a more contentious arena would be subject to re-examination and reassessment of the ethical implications.

 

[MRC_Hans]

As for the spare part thing, we need to find out what constitutes a human. Is it a body that looks human, or does it require a fuctional brain?

Because if we could grow a brainless spare-part generator body, it would actually do away with the horribly unethical and also dangerous organ trade. Perhaps we could just grow individual organs, that would probably be easier to accept.

Hans

 

[CFLarsen]

Oh yes, the same ones who insist that a 12 year old pregnant as a result of incestuous child abuse must have the baby, because no matter what, the baby's life is of incalculable worth. Never mind if he's going to be hated and rejected and forever blamed for ruining his mother's life.... And the same ones who wouldn't condone an abortion even for a horrendous disease like EB, because no matter how pain-filled the life, that life itself must be protected.

That's just one of the things I find hypocritical with these people:

On one hand, they insist on bringing children born out of wedlock into the world.

On the other hand, they point their fingers at single mothers for being immoral. The kids are shunned.

Have the so-called moralists gone completely off their collective rockers?

Perhaps. But they most certainly are incredible hypocrites.

 

[Vitnir]

I have heard of the clone body without a head example before and it sounds expensive and pointless, to grow individual organs would be a nice way to get a replacement. This is all of academic interest to me though because who is dreaming of this to be available to even the public in the rich western world?

 

[Carn]

To be fair, 'slippery slope' is a logical fallacy. This procedure has been approved and carried out and it is reasonable to suspect that sets a precedent.

The 'slippery slope' argument can be a correct one(even your link indicates that), if there is some good thought behind it, so you should not dismiss it without thinking about it.

I cannot see in this case that the argument is correct, but for in-vitro fertilisation(hope thats correct word), there could have been such an argument, because for that procedure you create several embryos, knowing that most of them will not have a chance to develop into a human being. If you allow this, because it serves the good purpose to allow people who are unable to have a child to have one, you inevitably must give in, when a scientists comes along and asks for doing the same to develop/test some new medicine, that could provide cure to thousands of people.

So with such things the slippery slope argument can be correct, although there is still the question whether whats at the end of the slope is realy bad or dangerous.

Carn

 

[Benguin]

Oh yes, I do agree. I just think it is often applied incorrectly with public policy questions.

I don't think it is ever the case in this debate that anyone is saying 'go ahead do what you want with stem cells, GE etc so long as you save this kid in this case'.

It's been agreed that the medical benefits and ethics issues are correctly balanced and the procedure permitted. Growing organs in the labs would require another debate to take place, it has not been permitted by implication of what was done.

I'd disagree with you about it being 'good thought', I think 'evidence' is needed.

 

[Carn]

I'd disagree with you about it being 'good thought', I think 'evidence' is needed.

I used "good thought" instead of "evidence", because, as the slippery slope argument will always be about how things will develop and affect human society and values, it could be impossible to get evidence for or against such argument without actually seeing what realy happens.

But then it might be too late, to turn back again in case things turned out to be bad, so i personally thing that good arguments should be allowed in case evidence is unobtainable.

Carn

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>For God's sake, who are these nutters? Oh yes, the same ones who insist that a 12 year old pregnant as a result of incestuous child abuse must have the baby, because no matter what, the baby's life is of incalculable worth. Never mind if he's going to be hated and rejected and forever blamed for ruining his mother's life.... And the same ones who wouldn't condone an abortion even for a horrendous disease like EB, because no matter how pain-filled the life, that life itself must be protected.

If the child of a 12-year-old-result-of-incest's life isn't worth anything, then why risk an abortion? Why not just let the child come to full term, and after birth, just chop it up and throw it in the garbage???

 

[Carn]

Re: Re: Ain't evil allopathy wonderful!

If the child of a 12-year-old-result-of-incest's life isn't worth anything, then why risk an abortion? Why not just let the child come to full term, and after birth, just chop it up and throw it in the garbage???

Bad example to start this discussion, because as far as i know the risks of abortion are far lesser than the risks of a 13 year old girl to give birth naturally or through section.

And it might be that an abortion is always less risk for the mother than giving birth, then of course the answer to your question would be easy, abortion is less risk for mother than giving birth and killing child then.

Carn

 

[Darat]

Re: Re: Ain't evil allopathy wonderful!

....snip...

If the child of a 12-year-old-result-of-incest's life isn't worth anything, then why risk an abortion? Why not just let the child come to full term, and after birth, just chop it up and throw it in the garbage???

Takes a lot more effort for a start. Also the child would have to endure the problems pregnancy can bring, the elevated risk that all women have during pregnancy and then finally the risk of actually giving birth to a child. (And there is still a level of risk for mothers during childbirth even with the best medical care money can buy.)

So why would you want to put the 12 year old all through that when a simple, quick and with much less risk early abortion can prevent all that?

 

[Rolfe]

And trust Rouser to completely miss the point.

Which was that the same people will hotly defend the "right-to-life" of 10-week embryos with every prospect of a hellish quality of life for whatever reason, but will vehemently oppose any suggestion of embryo selection even for a very much wanted child, majoring on the terrible trauma the poor thing will have to endure, knowing that he was conceived with the aim of saving the life of his brother.

The rights or wrongs of abortion after the rape of a child, or an unwise one-night-stand, or a diagnosis of severe abnormality in the conceptus, are for another thread, and probably in a different forum area.

This is about the ethics of IVF-facilitated embryo selection so that an already-wanted baby can also supply the (otherwise discarded) cord blood that will save his brother's life. IVF isn't illegal, and IVF already involves selecting some embryos and discarding others. So all they could come up with was the horrible life the baby would be condemned to, knowing that he was "only conceived for spare parts" or some such emotive mis-representation. (Yeah, that toddler looked really unhappy, I thought! )

Same as the arguments for letting the little Maltese girl die, rather than amputate the completely non-viable conjoined twin that was sucking her life away. "How will she feel when she grows up, knowing that they killed her sister to save her?" Well, first, better than she'd feel if she was dead I imagine, and second, are you really suggesting that form of explanation as the best way to introduce the subject to a curious child?

Still, to be fair to the HFEA for a minute, I think at the time this procedure was first mooted they were unsure about the safety of the embryo biopsy procedure, and were only willing to consent to it if the procedure was for the benefit of the actual baby in the works. So, when there was a risk that the new baby might also have the same abnormality, and this could be prevented by screening the embryos, it was OK to do that, and while you were at it, if you also screened for tissue compatibilty then maybe that's OK too. So long as you maintain that the primary puropse of the exercise is to get a healthy second child, and any benefit to the first is only a bonus.

However, Diamond Blackfan anaemia can't be screened for or eliminated in this way. So the sole purpose of the embryo screening procedure was to benefit the existing child. And at that time there wasn't complete conficence in safety. One can see the HEFA's point, even if criticising them for being a little over-cautious.

Since that original decision, the overwhelmingly good results from embryo biopsy have caused them to reconsider that decision, also prompted I think by the heartwarming and amazing outcome of this present case. Embryo biopsy is now regarded as safe enough that it is permissible to carry it out even if it is not for the immediate benefit of the intended conceptus. And further cases like this one may be treated in this country.

I was probably too harsh on the HEFA above, but it did look so much as if they were giving in to the anti-science bigots.

Rolfe.

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>The rights or wrongs of abortion after the rape of a child, or an unwise one-night-stand, or a diagnosis of severe abnormality in the conceptus, are for another thread, and probably in a different forum area.


Oh, but it is you who mixed in the subject of the relative virtues of abortions. If your "quality of life" issues are so valid, why don't you just embark on a crusade to kill all of the illegitimate children in the world?