Ain't evil allopathy wonderful!

[Rolfe]

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?

Please point out what "quality of life" issues I expressed, personally?

I merely ask why the adverse quality of life issues surrounding such cases are never ever considered while arguing the rights and wrongs of these situations, but then suddenly the very idea that a child might get the idea that he was "created to save his brother" or that "her sister was killed to save her" completely and wholly justifies either refusing to allow a baby to be conceived, or allowing a baby to die, according to the very same people - no matter how good the quality of life is otherwise.

Rolfe.

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by patnray
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.

And for some incredibly odd reason, Pro-life also means pro-deathpenalty.

Originally posted by 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.

Sorry. Can't do that. Stem cell research has been all but forbidden as well.

Originally posted by 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.

Maybe pro-lifers are unable to love two children at once? Maybe they only like their firstborn, all the others are just "replacements" to carry on the family name in case the first born should mess up and die before having fulfilled his duty.
Personally, I would love the child who saved his brother even more. You end up with two children instead of losing one. What's bad about that?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

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.

Careful now. He is up against Kerry in November and you should be careful about influencing foreign elections.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

And for some incredibly odd reason, Pro-life also means pro-deathpenalty.

Balance of life, old son. One in, one out.

 

[Darat]

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

Is an organ donation trade necessarily unethical? If it's my body then surely it isn’t unethical for me to decide to sell part of it?

(I know some aspect of how the organ transplant trade happens now is certainly unethical and highly dangerous but that I believe is a function of making it practically illegal to sell your own organs.)

 

[CFLarsen]

Is an organ donation trade necessarily unethical? If it's my body then surely it isn’t unethical for me to decide to sell part of it?

(I know some aspect of how the organ transplant trade happens now is certainly unethical and highly dangerous but that I believe is a function of making it practically illegal to sell your own organs.)

I'm an organ donor. When I die, they can take whatever they want from my body.

(I doubt the liver is of any value, but the brain should be in pristine condition. I thought I had to say that myself, before anybody else did...)

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by CFLarsen [/i]


>>I'm an organ donor. When I die, they can take whatever they want from my body.

As a self-proclaimed organ donor, they may not want to wait till you die.

 

[Zombified]

As a self-proclaimed organ donor, they may not want to wait till you die.

Oh, boy, here we go again.

 

[Rolfe]

Tha update on this story is on BBC1 at nine o'clock.

Dead heat with Horizon on BBC2, Cassini goes to Saturn.

By the way, I know there were three similar situations, this one (the Diamond Blackfan case), the Maltese girl with the conjoined twin, and something else, all of which would have ended with fewer (including no) live children if the pro-lifers had had their way. Can anyone possibly tell me what the third case I'm thinking about is?

Rolfe.

 

[Benguin]

I'm an organ donor. When I die, they can take whatever they want from my body.

(I doubt the liver is of any value, but the brain should be in pristine condition. I thought I had to say that myself, before anybody else did...)

Has anyone here donated their body to medical science? I mean made a promise to do so, not actually handed the old carcass over yet ...

As a self-proclaimed organ donor, they may not want to wait till you die.

If they were that unethical I can't see why they'd bother even searching for a donor card, just hack in and sort the paperwork out later.

 

[Darat]

Has anyone here donated their body to medical science? I mean made a promise to do so, not actually handed the old carcass over yet ...

I've heard (man down the pub) that even if you do this the family can still prevent it being donated. I'd certainly donate mine; though I am rather hoping that it will be a little more used before then.

 

[Benguin]

I've heard (man down the pub) that even if you do this the family can still prevent it being donated. I'd certainly donate mine; though I am rather hoping that it will be a little more used before then.

Same here. Dunno what the procedure is though.

I've made sure my relatives are well aware of my wishes. I've also told them that there is nothing I'd love more than to think bits of me got used in practical jokes by students for years after I'd pegged it.

 

[RSLancastr]

My ex and I knew a couple who conceived a child in the express hope that the baby would be a suitable donor (marrow, I think) for their teenage daughter.

The man even had to have his vasectomy sugically reversed in order for them to have the baby!

The baby was born perfectly healthy, was a donor match for her older sister, who was thus cured of her fatal illness.

The couple loved the baby no less for its having been conceived for those purposes. More, probably.

The whole thing was a center of much controversy at the time (ten year ago?), and the two daughters made the cover of Newsweek magazine (or perhaps it was Time).

 

[Rolfe]

In a sense, they were lucky. The couple in this story tried that, but the baby girl wasn't a tissue match. They didn't want to go on producing a huge family just to find "the" one, or to have multiple abortions, hence the IVF and embryo biopsy.

The whole story was truly heartwarming. The parents were shown having all sorts of counselling, all the risks explained, everything to make an informed choice. The procedure was by no means free of risk, nevertheless the odds were always on their side, and compared to the alternative, they considered the risks worth taking. And it all paid off.

I just couldn't help running a little Rouser-commentary, about how the child wasn't really ill and it was all a conspiracy so that the doctors could receive vast sums of money for running this procedure, or yes the child was ill but he would have recovered anyway, as shown by the fact that he did in fact recover, and about how the parents were gullible fools to take such risks on an almost untried sequence of treatments....

That way I realised how horrible it must be to be Rouser, and even began to feel a bit sorry for him.

I'm just awed at the strides haematology has made even in the years I've been studying it, and the amazing feats which are now possible. Yes, it's nice that we're not all Rousers.

Rolfe.

PS. The chairman of the HEFA had a lovely little get-out. Not only had they now decided that the risks involved in embryo biopsy were actually so small as to be justifiable in order to achieve such a huge benefit for the brother, but they'd rationalised themselves into finding a benefit for the baby. They've now realised that it will be a huge benefit to the next-born child not to be part of a family which is coping with a desperately ill child, or dealing with the death of a child. Wow. It must have taken real egg-heads years to come up with that one! A new entry for the Department of the Bleeding Obvious, methinks.

 

[Rolfe]

In a sense, they were lucky. The couple in this story tried that, but the baby girl wasn't a tissue match. They didn't want to go on producing a huge family just to find "the" one, or to have multiple abortions, hence the IVF and embryo biopsy.

The whole story was truly heartwarming. The parents were shown having all sorts of counselling, all the risks explained, everything to make an informed choice. The procedure was by no means free of risk, nevertheless the odds were always on their side, and compared to the alternative, they considered the risks worth taking. And it all paid off.

I just couldn't help running a little Rouser-commentary, about how the child wasn't really ill and it was all a conspiracy so that the doctors could receive vast sums of money for running this procedure, or yes the child was ill but he would have recovered anyway, as shown by the fact that he did in fact recover, and about how the parents were gullible fools to take such risks on an almost untried sequence of treatments....

That way I realised how horrible it must be to be Rouser, and even began to feel a bit sorry for him.

I'm just awed at the strides haematology has made even in the years I've been studying it, and the amazing feats which are now possible. Yes, it's nice that we're not all Rousers.

Rolfe.

PS. The chairman of the HEFA had a lovely little get-out. Not only had they now decided that the risks involved in embryo biopsy were actually so small as to be justifiable in order to achieve such a huge benefit for the brother, but they'd rationalised themselves into finding a benefit for the baby himself. They've now realised that it will be a huge benefit to the next-born child not to be part of a family which is coping with a desperately ill child, or dealing with the death of a child. Wow. It must have taken real egg-heads years to come up with that one! A new entry for the Department of the Bleeding Obvious, methinks.

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by Rolfe
By the way, I know there were three similar situations, this one (the Diamond Blackfan case), the Maltese girl with the conjoined twin, and something else, all of which would have ended with fewer (including no) live children if the pro-lifers had had their way. Can anyone possibly tell me what the third case I'm thinking about is?

I just saw something about "Fetus in fetu"(sp?). Much can go wrong in the womb, although it usually doesn't kill the baby, in some cases it can. In cases of twins, one fetus might not be viable, but be leeching on the healthy fetus, which could in turn kill the healthy fetus. Considering the non viable fetus "human" would be an overstatement, it can't survive on its own, although I can imagine some fundies getting their knickers in a twist over the idea of saving the healthy twin by "killing" the parasite.

In case of Fetus in fetu, the undevelopped fetus is actually inside the healthy one, and can apparently even show signs of life, like movement (as in a case in the US). Usually though, it doesn't even have a brain or a heart, and it's dead as soon as the blood supply from the healthy fetus is cut off.

Apparently, there have been some cases where this parasitic twin has lived (if you could call it that) inside the healthy one for several years after birth, although I guess the only places where they would not remove the parasite before of shortly after birth would be countries that have lousy healthcare where parents simply can't afford the required operation.

Very fascinating stuff though. Currently the only way a male human could be pregnant I suppose

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah, I saw that too. Very interesting. I thought at first it was a teratoma, but no.

The Maltese girl had the parasitic twin outside, and the parents thought they were coming to England to have a caesarian followed by a separation which would give two live children. It was only when they got here that it was discovered one of the children wasn't viable - no brain, really, and no functioning heart I believe. But they put little clothes on her and gave her a name, and then there was a preposterous media outcry against "killing poor little Mary" or whatever. Better let the viable baby die than have her suffer the terrible trauma of being told that her twin had been killed to save her!

But I still can't remember the third case I was thinking of! Might have involved a choice between one live baby and two live babies, with the fundies wanting only one of course.

Rolfe.

 

[Benguin]

Apparently, there have been some cases where this parasitic twin has lived (if you could call it that) inside the healthy one for several years after birth, although I guess the only places where they would not remove the parasite before of shortly after birth would be countries that have lousy healthcare where parents simply can't afford the required operation.

There was a fascinating documentary recently on UK Channel 5 about a little boy in Kazakstan to whom this had happened.

They thought he had a tumour, but in fact found his twin brother was developing inside his abdomen.

Here's a news article

I think they'd simply not realised what was wrong with him, and as his abdomen grew not felt the need to seek medical help until the situation was quite advanced.

 

[Chris Haynes]

Has anyone here donated their body to medical science? I mean made a promise to do so, not actually handed the old carcass over yet ...



If they were that unethical I can't see why they'd bother even searching for a donor card, just hack in and sort the paperwork out later.

Some reading for you Benguin... fascinating book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393324826/
... oops... for your side of the pond:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141007451/pd_ka_0/026-6887584-3510069

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by Benguin
There was a fascinating documentary recently on UK Channel 5 about a little boy in Kazakstan to whom this had happened.

They thought he had a tumour, but in fact found his twin brother was developing inside his abdomen.

I know, that's the one I saw too (except I saw it on a local channel).