I’m doing a survey on stem cell ethics. I know this is a very controversial topic and I'd like to know what others think about it. Any opinions and comments are welcome. Thanks!

1. Are you for or against embryonic stem cell research?

2. Can we ever intentionally destroy a human embryo?

3. Can we benefit by others destruction of human embryos?

4. Can we create an embryo to destroy it?

3/24/2006 12:13:13 AM

for

of course, what's stopping us

probably

of course what's stopping us

3/24/2006 12:15:04 AM

apathetic on all 4

3/24/2006 12:15:05 AM

for

of course, what's stopping us

probably

of course what's stopping us

3/24/2006 12:15:51 AM

1.) Against

2.) Sure, we *can*. I would encourage strongly against doing it, though.

3.) Not in ways that I would deem "beneficial".

4.) I'll bet we *can*, but I would recommend against it.

Why? Quite simply, I'm not a fan of any human "playing God". Regardless of religion, it's just not a good idea. If our President can't run the country right (some people say), then I wouldn't trust another human to make decisions about another human's life.

3/24/2006 12:16:49 AM

You should probably look into them pulling stem cells out of bone marrow and using the cells in targeted therapy such as repairing heart tissues after a heart attack.
Why is stem cell a bad word? Because it kills babies... if you're ignorant as my shoe... they can get the embryonic stem cells out of the umbilical cord.

3/24/2006 12:25:36 AM

1. Are you for or against embryonic stem cell research? For

2. Can we ever intentionally destroy a human embryo? Can we? Obviously yes. But I take it that you meant this as a "should we" question. Its like coming up with & testing new drugs, no one is morally required to do it, but its not a bad thing if someone does.

3. Can we benefit by others destruction of human embryos? Potentially, we'd have to test the waters to find out. You don't learn to swim by studying water, you learn by jumping in and seeing whats it like.

4. Can we create an embryo to destroy it? Obviously yes. But I take it that you meant this as a "should we" question. Its like coming up with & testing new drugs, no one is morally required to do it, but its not a bad thing if someone does. Humans play god with every medical advancement we have. People living to their 70s? If we could do that in a time when the average life span was 35, then it would be be playing god giving someone 2 lives. Transplanting body organs. How about that. You have part of a dead guy living in you. Theres all kinds of crazy medical advancements that at times would have been seen as playing god... eventually you either have to come off it, or give up on medical advancement.

I'm under the impression that there are countless stem cells that we freeze or just throw away after in vitro stuff b/c it would be "immoral" to use them for research. If there are human souls in those couple of cells, then dying in a trash can (which can be degrading), or being frozen for eternity (trapping the souls, never able to move on to the after life), seems like a waste when they could die for a cause. Other countries will pass us medically if we keep restraining ourselves, but the US can't be top dog forever, so why bother? Every skin cell on your arm, given the right conditions, could grow into a healthy church going adult… I still have no problem playing football and getting scrapped up occasionally.

Trying to define a hard cut off point for life where deservingness of moral treatment starts isn’t really possible. Its not as simple as a binary like that. It comes in degrees. Things are to respected and treated right increasingly with an increase of kindness, intelligence, or ability to feel pain. Killing non-conscious cells just doesn’t strike me as all that immoral. Hurting animals is a worse thing to do following the increase of these 3 factors. When you get up to the conscious human level of kindness, intelligence, or ability to feel pain then morality on a level we are used to for people kicks in. But not for a non-conscious cell in a Petri dish that’s just going to be frozen or trashed anyways.

3/24/2006 12:37:06 AM

for
yes
yes
yes

Oh, and don't try to draw conclusions from surveys that are not statistically sound.

3/24/2006 12:54:35 AM

especially when 99% of the population isn't informed enough to answer

3/24/2006 12:59:49 AM

1. For.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.

3/24/2006 1:03:18 AM

1. for
2. yeah, you can. will you?
3. yes
4. yeah

those questions are too similar, and there are too many in between answers that require explanations.

3/24/2006 1:42:28 AM

1. Are you for or against embryonic stem cell research?
for it

2. Can we ever intentionally destroy a human embryo?
of course we can. if abortion is legal, why not this?

3. Can we benefit by others destruction of human embryos?
absolutely. stem cell research is a research field that has unbelieveable potential.

4. Can we create an embryo to destroy it?
we do it already, just not for research.


*this is the opinion of a researcher... i'm personally frustrated as hell that stem cell research isn't government funded, because it could do an unbelieveable amount of good... all those embryos going to waste in cold storage across the country... embryos that will never be implanted in women and carried to term... or if they're not frozen, they're destroyed as biological waste.

3/24/2006 6:16:52 AM

1) For
2-4) There is a huge difference between "can" and "should". We CAN do anything we want to. Whether we SHOULD do it is another question. Should implies a moral decision attached to it.

Btw, what class is this for?

3/24/2006 6:29:29 AM

Quote :

"We CAN do anything we want to. Whether we SHOULD do it is another question. "

Not completely true, sometimes we fail. Or things that we want to do are physically not possible or at least not possible at the current time.

But I know what your saying.



and

Quote :

"1. Are you for or against embryonic stem cell research? For 2. Can we ever intentionally destroy a human embryo? Can we? Obviously yes. But I take it that you meant this as a "should we" question. Its like coming up with & testing new drugs, no one is morally required to do it, but its not a bad thing if someone does. 3. Can we benefit by others destruction of human embryos? Potentially, we'd have to test the waters to find out. You don't learn to swim by studying water, you learn by jumping in and seeing whats it like. 4. Can we create an embryo to destroy it? Obviously yes. But I take it that you meant this as a "should we" question. Its like coming up with & testing new drugs, no one is morally required to do it, but its not a bad thing if someone does. Humans play god with every medical advancement we have. People living to their 70s? If we could do that in a time when the average life span was 35, then it would be be playing god giving someone 2 lives. Transplanting body organs. How about that. You have part of a dead guy living in you. Theres all kinds of crazy medical advancements that at times would have been seen as playing god... eventually you either have to come off it, or give up on medical advancement. "

[Edited on March 24, 2006 at 9:43 AM. Reason : ]

3/24/2006 9:24:53 AM

Yea, i know this is by no means a statistically sound survey. I just thought this would be a good place to get some comments on the topic.

After reading some of the comments here, I think it would be interesting to do a real poll (for/against), and divide the results by age. under 35 / over 35. I think the results would be pretty divided.

3/24/2006 10:09:46 AM

Quote :

"*this is the opinion of a researcher... i'm personally frustrated as hell that stem cell research isn't government funded, because it could do an unbelieveable amount of good... all those embryos going to waste in cold storage across the country... embryos that will never be implanted in women and carried to term... or if they're not frozen, they're destroyed as biological waste."

Yeah the opposition b/c of religious reasons/playing god bothers me b/c of this. Why not let humans that are going to be destroyed, or frozen indefinitely thus trapping that cell's soul forever, when if they have to face death or imprisonment forever they could do it in a way that saves many lives and advances medicine. Especially when its contestable whether a couple of cells even have a soul. Trying to make morality binary, deserving or undeserving of respect is too simple. It seems to me like it comes in degrees of the 3 (maybe more) factors I mentioned before of kindness, intelligence, and ability to feel pain. It seems like a couple of cells is on the low end of the spectrum, a living dog or monkey is a little higher, and a living breathing human the highest of all.

3/24/2006 10:21:25 AM

yo, i'm going to UCSD for a phD in molecular pathology next year for the express purpose of doing stem cell research (http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/stemcell_con.asp) so if you have any specific questions either now or after i'm actually there hit me up.

3/24/2006 10:31:26 AM

I'm not against stem cell research in and of itself. I am, however, adamantly against killing people to do it.

3/24/2006 10:33:06 AM

1-for
2-yes
3-yes
4-yes

3/24/2006 12:00:47 PM