Cells are people too
I have been studying up on stem cells and have been wondering what some other peoples thoughts are. I discovered that I had little to no knowledge of what they are. After many a websites and government reports I believe I have the knowledge to beat out a opine with some time.
These questions come to mind:
What do you know about Stem Cells?
Do you believe it's ethical?
Judge of the Whetten's spoke @ 11/22/2004 12:17:00 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Wow. I'm impressed with Judge and Chris bringing up the intellectual side of this blog thing. Heavens knows we all need that after 30 pages of kissing talk.
I know very little about stem cells, but I think as far as I know it is a good, ethical thing that I support. There is a question about where you get the stem cells, and that is the controversy, which I don't know enough about to have a real opinion.
Posted by Anonymous
That's why we talk about kissing instead. Because those are things we actually know about and have an opinion on.
Stem cell research is something we should talk about though so we can all learn about it and subsequently formulate a viewpoint of our own.
Posted by Faye
I agree with Faye. Why talk about things we don't know and that remind us of school? I am so sick of school anyway. Lets talk about kissing some more.
Ok, not kissing. I am sick of that subject too. So overrated, even in my own mind.
Let's talk about....Christmas Trees!
Posted by Momma Jolley
Ooh! I know what those are!!! They have stems and cells too. Doesn't make them a person though...
Posted by Faye
Unless they are part ent, then they're human-like. Does that make them persony enough?
And Stuff,
~Vasu~
Posted by Vasu "Blink" Chetty aka Sydney
But Ents aren't Chrismtas trees. Although if they were, we could get one for campus and move it to the middle of the flag circle easily, where it belongs.
Posted by Faye
Hmmm... stem cells to Ents. Interesting train of thought. I was hoping for some actual conversation about real topics (Ents don't exist, and neither does kissing in the recent lives of most of the people who posted.) But if anyone is interested in brain exercise, I'm looking for stem cell info.
Posted by Dragonfly Shem
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9811/05/stem.cell.discovery/
Just a basic overview. On a more detailed note,
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics. The issue is whether or not using embryonic stem cells is like abortion. As shown on the second website, there are other places to get them besides embryos, but there are advantages and disadvantages to both (medically, ethically is another question). I think it has potential for great things, and support it conditionally.
Posted by Shem SHem Dragonfly
Yeah I like how the topic quickly degraded. Well there are multiple points in the stem cell topic. But the two major ones are getting them from aborted fetuses and making them or getting them from fertilized eggs. There are adult stem cells but they have all ready specialized into the cells that they are and many of them don't reproduce. The good thing about embryonic stem cells is that they can become any cell in the human body. Which means allot if we could learn how to control it. It would mean that we would never need an organ donation, it could mean a cure for cancer, and it could fix many defects with the human brain. The question is would we be buy this miraculous cure with a little bit of the human soul. I believe strongly that doctors in recent years have moved from healing a patient to just fixing the body. The conduction of life has lessened while the years have been lengthened. I don't know when a human soul enters the body. I don't know how I feel about invetro federalization. But after my researched I have come to think that embryonic stem cells should not be harvest. The argument comes around what is a small sacrifice for a greater good. A sacrifice is acceptable for the greater good I believe, but only if it is voluntary. I would never let some one scarifies anyone for the greater good if it was against their will. My argument boils down to this we need to look for ways to make the human experience quality not quaintly.
Posted by judgewhetten
Just a note that I support stem cell research because it is this research that is aiding many cancer patients. Doctors have discovered a way to harvest less cancerous stem cells and then replant them after further chemo therapy has been done in order to lessen the count of cancerous cells. Its this whole big thing and I'm am in full support.
Posted by Becky (formerly known as a BYUH student)
here's the thing. why are you trying to cure cancer? why are you supporting anything that is trying to lengthen life? not that life is all that crumby or anything. maybe it is a natural process to harvest stem cells. maybe 1982 is the next step. but i would have to agree with my brother here that why try to get more time when most people don't really jump on the time they have. "my mother or father or dog or whatevr has cancer and it hurts." is usually when people become really interested in science. it is a religion that delivers the results people want, thats for sure. i've got nothing against stem cell research if thats your religion, just like i've got nothing against praying five times a day or fasting for a month or eating bread and water and telling little kids that its flesh and blood. ya know. everyone is looking for something meaningful. if time is meaningful to you - then by all means get an organ transplant. but remember that the same science that is giving you a new liver also preaches "things fall apart." the book of thermodynamics 1:1.
Posted by michael whetten
did not i mean 1984? orwell sighs.
Posted by michael whetten
You're right Michael, I do care more about science because my Dad had cancer and died last week, and it does mean more to me now. And life is precious and time does matter sometimes. If I could have one more day, one more week with my Dad, I would cherish it, and if science or a stem cell transplant could have helped with that, then yes, I am in full support of it. You speak as a person outside of the box it sounds, and maybe you haven't had to deal with something like cancer in your family, but then again maybe you have and you are bitter. Either way while you are remembering "things fall apart" I know that I will be remembering the doctors and nurses and people that helped my Dad and all the research that went in behind it to help him and I'm grateful.
Posted by Becky (formerly known as a BYUH student)
i suggest the book "the tibetan book of living and dying." of course life is precious. of course we all love and miss. but we can't allow emotion to judge medical ethics.
Posted by michael
I think we have two entirely unrelated issues being addressed here. I will admit that people sometimes make science a religion, but I don't think that's the point. Whether or not people use their time on earth wisely, whether it be long or short, is their business. We're not going to stop vaccinating children or performing heart surgery just because most people don't live life to the fullest. The bypass surgery that saved Elder Robert d. Hales life (see Ensign, Nov. 1998, 14) or the cancer treatments that prolonged Elder Maxwell's (Ensign, May 2003, 95) would not be possible without advanced medical science. They used their extra time to do great things. I think everyone deserves that chance. It is our duty, however, to be sure that science does not overstep moral and ethical boundaries, which is why discussions like this one are important.
Posted by Shem
I understand every ones point of view so far, but I don't feel that I speak from a box. On or in one, and if I come across as one that does my apologies. I am just speaking about what dictates my logic and how I feel about this subject. I am not looking for converts to my thinking. When I speak about use the life we have and prolonging life. What I am saying is that I don't support stem cell research. I am not going to oppose it but I feel that these resources could be better used. As I think about I come to realize that I am a little biased. I have come to a slight dislike of American society. It breads mostly form ignorance on my part. I feel such pain for people in other countries that are dying for starvation and other disease. There is so much that people can do for them now but don't. I am tortured by these thoughts daylily and struggle to think of how I can help. I do what little I can from day to day, but it is not nearly enough. So when things like stem cell research come up I think why spend so much time and effort on something that may not be ethical when we could use those resources to help children that need that help now.
Posted by JudgeWhetten
I hear dat. Stem cells could possibly save lives at some undertermined future date, but there are people who we can save right now with already-existing technology, if the resources and effort were redistributed.
Posted by Shem
here's another touch. the problem is not prolonging life or feeding the hungry or anything like that. people's money is or is not their money. what i am talking about is the push for immortality. what makes me sad is the sense of entitlment that is so woven into the american upbringing. the 'work hard for what you get' and american dream can just as easily be reinterpreted as nationalism and a sense of entitlement. people may feel like they deserve to be an american or that they deserve to be mormon or that they deserve to be middle class or comfortable - when all they really are is lucky - or in the redemptive view (if your source is the bible or karmic view if it is anything eastern) responsible. do or don't they they somehow deserve 1 more week to live simply because it is available? i guess they do, but at what cost? the statement was made earlier, "i would give anything..." is that hyperbole or do we actually give everything to maintain our (i do say our) lifestyles. work hard, you have the oppurtunity - but lets not be deluded that what we take does have a cost greater than the price tag. example: has anyone ever visited a modern dairy farm? has anyone here ever gone to a slaughter house? (i'm not talking about free range chickens, or halaal or kosher meat - i'm talking your good ol' american gluttonry) Has anyone read about the american dust bowl? the air in mexico city? what are we entitled to? God gave us dominion over the earth - if you believe the genesis account - when did that mean he gave anyone the right to take and take and take. am i one that speaks from outside the box? outside the box of playing favorites maybe. people choosing people that they love more than people that they don't know. bombing the japanese is fine as long as your not japanese. hell yes i'm speaking from outside the box because the box is biased. because the box creates prisons instead of reformatories. has anyone ever been out to Shiprock New Mexico? How about Mississippi? How about Newark New Jersey? Do you see people living like dogs? how about another country? like for example - the phillipines or south america - you will see people that live a life much less glorious than even dogs. and their dogs are a completely different story. and yet i am surprised whenever i have visited a lifestyle like these how the people are almost always happier than average americans and America is such a wonderful place. the bill of rights may be the greatest document ever written next to the sermon on the mount. how can we justify the price?
and what is the point? is it none of our business? what has science really done? what have all the medical advances done? have they brought anyone contentment? all they have given us is a few more weeks. and i say that the means have not justified the ends. i believe the same ends could have been reached another way. have these medical advances only worked to strengthen the illusion of permenance? i believe that americans ignore death. i believe that they have seperated themselves from aging and dying so much (who else would hide their elderly, including mothers and fathers in a home full of unfamiliar things to rot?) we, more than any other people believe that we are entitled to immortality. we more than any other people believe that we are entitled to as much as we can carry.
me included. i don't know if stem cell research is bad or wrong. it may be the best solution - i don't have a problem with that - but people believing that a few more weeks or years is going to make them happier makes me sad. lets say you get your two more weeks, its still only two more and when thats gone won't you want another two? isn;t there a point in which the romantics of the two more weeks will wear off and you really will need to prepare for the inevitable, accept it, and make it an important part of your life - because you and i are alive - we are part of a great tradition called human - and humans die and get sick and everything else. the point of medicine shouldn't be to prolong life as it should be to improve the quality of life.
Posted by -m
Well said my friend. You have said the things that I did not have the words to. While bring to light things that I haven't thought of. I will make another post about these thought, but in this one I have yet still more to say. Thanks to my religion class her I can express myself better in my feelings on what this post has evolved into. Like the sons of Moshia I feel pain when I think of any soul in the torment of guilt and sin. I am 21 years of age and have only recently discovered how the sprite speaks to me. Now while the sprit speaks in many ways to many people. I always felt left out. This is because the main way the sprit speaks to me is through torment. I still find it hard to explain but I will try. I have come to call it my spike chained heart. When I think of people suffering it feels like sorrow is being poured into my. The sadness for others heart ache or pain is more then I can bear. It hurts more for me to see someone else break a bone then it does when I do it. This is why I have to be careful with what I watch. I speak of trying to feed the world or heal those with disease because I have more knowledge of such things. These things are still temporal and I knew that. When ever I give money to a charity or volunteer for something I know that this service is temporal. I am still very spiritually illiterate. I know not how to read or understand the sprit. So I do things that I know how to. I wish I could use these things called words better. I wish I had the knowledge to explain all my thought and emotions to you all, yet again I can’t. I am nothing but an average man who is trying to tell others how things might be. I am forced to use the words of other to make up for what I lack.
“Why can’t we be friends?” – smash mouth
“We where meant to live for so much more.” – switch foot
Posted by JudgeWhetten