Converation thread

If it's not a baby, what do. you think it is, and why do you support experimenting with, and developing and creating in labs for personal profit, living beings that you aren't sure the worth of? How can your conscience be satisfied when experimentation is going on against beings that could well have vast moral value? After all, you don't seem to know quite what to make of these embryos, nor do any of the Pro-Death people I've spoken to.

Something you learn in basic biology classes, and that is continually agreed upon by later scientists: an embryo used in lab experimentation is usually 4-5 days after conception, with a cell count of 100-150, and absolutely no functional nervous system or feeling at all. It is not traditionally “human” in any sense of the word that would relate it directly to you. At that point, it’s basically just unique stem cells without a being that’s created from it. The embryo couldn’t be an actual fetus at any point, let alone a baby, so it’s nerves and feeling will…  Read more never be formed. An embryo, a fetus, and a baby are very different things. An embryo is in its beginning phases before nerves are created, feeling can happen, and parts of its first trimester has occurred. A fetus is part of the latter portions of pregnancy, along with the earlier ones where visible pregnancy occurs. A baby is a fetus that has been born, and is VERY different than the embryos that are experimented with.

Until it’s reached actually growth as a fetus, it’s moral value is none, since the embryo is quite literally a clump of cells at that point in time, it was already doomed to never become a child, it’s nerves will never connect, and experimentation on it will very likely alter the DNA away from the unique combination it had before while contributing vastly to science as a whole. I see no moral value in the tiniest clump of embryonic cells that will not ever reach the fetal stage.

Until it’s reached actually growth as a fetus, it’s moral value is none

Alright, so you just said that human embryos that can turn into whole persons have the same moral worth as a clod of cow dung. You don't even think it has the moral worth of a bird, or something – dung. What a horrible, inhuman thing to say.

the embryo is quite literally a clump of cells

So are we! Do you realise how stupid that argument is? Every living thing on the face of this EARTH is a "clump of cells"! YOU AND ME ARE CLUMPS OF CELLS! There might be more cells in you and me than in an…  Read more unborn child, and we may look different, but that doesn't matter! We are clumps of cells! So saying that it's fine to perform abortion or experiment on unborn children in test tubes like they're lab rats, because they're "clumps of cells" is an absurdly stupid argument. Clearly, rather than getting that from thinking for yourself, Slate, or CNN, or the Guardian, or your college professor, or some outside influencer of you, planted that notion in your head – because if you thought critically about it for ten seconds, all this would be immediately obvious.

Well no, I don’t think it’s worth dung, i think it’s worth the same as any other animal embryo, because both when grown in labs have 0 chances of becoming humans on their own. The labs for artificial pregnancy and the labs for experimentation have different purposes, and therefore the embryos inside have different worth because one will possibly become human, the other will not. I am referring to the lab grown ones for experimentation, which are not allowed to grow past 14 days in the first place, which would still be extremely small and lack even the most basic of nerves.…  Read more That Is what I am saying has little moral value, something that won’t be born in the first place, same as a sterilized chicken egg. The lab experimentation is ethical, but arbitrarily killing frozen embryos meant for pregnancy with no stated reason is unethical, because that was INTENDED to be a child, which is one of the sole factors in the problem. When I say clump of cells, I am referring to a very recently fermented egg that has no nerves, brain, or even bones to speak of. I am referring to something long before even the fetus stage, which is almost visually indistinguishable from a chicken embryo or a lizard embryo, because they’re still not solidified biologically to become a human fetus if they won’t be incubated by a human at all. The “clump of cells” is in reference to small, dependent, and unfeeling cells with little to nothing to distinguish them from anything else, which is ethical to experiment with, because nothing will come of those embryos that cannot feel or think in the first place. It’s nearly entirely the same as a sperm with unique DNA, and that’s just about it. A common argument by others is that the embryo is unique, and therefore must be incubated the full way, which changes nothing of its moral value since all that can tangibly be related to is foreign semi-tissue that has no nerves. The ambiguity lies with the situation at hand, not the existence of the embryo itself. For an embryo that will never, nor can ever, become a human, it has a different moral value, and precisely the same value as any other animal embryo, which we experiment with all the tjme.

If you can concede that it has some moral value at all, and that the lines appear to you to be very blurry, why will you not do the ethical thing and assign maximum possible moral value to it just in case it has the moral value of a human? Is that really a risk you want to run – facilitating a practice that could well be just as abominable as murder – after all, you haven't a clue what the moral value precisely should be, and why?

I conceded a specific moral value: the exact same worth as an embryo of any other animal or being. It’s got worth, but it’s death is more of a sad thing that’s undesirable, but doesn’t gain the protections of human rights or anywhere near it.I also didn’t say the lines were blurry, I said the issue wasn’t a binary one and that it’s based upon situation. If the intent is for that embryo to become a child later, preservation remains a priority, but if it has to happen, termination is okay. For lab brown embryos that aren’t meant to become a fetus,…  Read more they have the same moral value as the lab grown embryos of other animals, because they will both never be born. There’s no need for a “just in case” for something that won’t be born in the first place, there’s no nerves to feel pain or gain any assumption it’s conscious enough to care, that would be like worrying about human skin cells “just in case”. Ethicists have even recommended the expansion of the tjmeframe allowing embryo experimentation, because there is nothing to be said about the barely existent matter with human dna that will never amount to a human.

There is a massive body of scientific evidence that proves that life begins at the point of conception and that human embryos are in fact human beings – they are just much smaller, and look much different, than us. The Alabama Supreme Court ruling that was just conducted removes this moral dilemma by stopping people from using embryos as lab rats for their scientific experiments and research so they can stay in their mother's womb AND BECOME fully-functioning humans beings. And why would a HUMAN embryo have equal value to an ANIMAL embryo – do you not believe that humans are more important than animals?

And at no point did I disagree with that, however a fully grown human being has a different moral value than a fully grown one. For an embryo, it is a lot less because, to begin with, it will not grow to become a full human, and is incapable of feeling anything at all, much less pain. It has the same value as an animal embryo in my eyes because both will not become human when done in the lab setting, since that was neither the intention, nor the worry at all, and since the embryo won’t feel or think at all, it’s not going to have the same value as a full-grown human.

Then that creates a moral dilemma for you – are people who are senile, maybe have dementia, and using anaesthetic or painkiller, then fair game to be gunned down in cold blood? After all, they feel no pain and can't form a logical thought!

I stated the condition of being fully developed, because once they can feel, think, and act for themselves, they get rights, and an embryo can do none of these things and meets none of these prerequisites.