What kind of depravity is required to think this way?
Posted by AmericanGreatness 9 years, 5 months ago to Culture
Evil that's hard to fathom...
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If your reaction to this video (which is possibly fake - see jdg's link to Reason article) is a reaction against abortion per se, then that is a separate discussion. The main thing is that these 'things' (human or otherwise) are already dead and it is good that their body parts can be used for improving the lives of people who are not-dead.
Legal harvest of fetal stem cells from aborted fetuses follows guidelines that are developed by the individual countries, but there is a general consensus on the following precepts (ED Biomed, 2002):
"There is a ‘strong’ consensus about some of the central conditions for good clinical practice regarding EFTT. These concern the following conditions:
1) the decision to abort should not be influenced by
the subsequent EFTT;
2) commercialisation is not acceptable;
3) tissue may only be obtained from dead embryos or fetuses;
4) informed consent should be obtained;
5) the decision to terminate the pregnancy must be
made before consent for donating EFTT is
solicited;
6) approval of experimental study by a qualified ethics committee
Interestingly, those parameters, arrived at by various ethics councils (Sweden and Canada are the ones I recall), were very similar, though the councils acted independently.
The existence an EKG does not prove that something is human - chickens have known EKG patterns, but that will not prevent me from having chicken for lunch.
The future of stem cell research probably does not lie in cells harvested from aborted fetuses, but in reconditioning your own endogenous stem cells to make different lines and tissues as needed. This is difficult, and it is more difficult for some tissues than for others (liver cells were a real problem). Using these fetal cells can bridge the gap between our current knowledge and the ability to clone our own body parts.
The last comment that I want to make is that this is an individual choice. On the 'murder of an adult human' we have a large social consensus - and we have laws against that. There is not a large consensus on whether abortion is right or wrong, which means that there should not be a law against it - it should be up to the individual.
Jan
In the case of your question, I am quite happy the government has not sided with a practically 100% religious position that the mother should be slave to a little pile of cells...because a soul is created at conception and housed in the single cell created by fertilization of an egg. Sure that single cell is alive, but has a lot less to live for than my dog, with its memories, relationships and feelings.
AND implicit in that 'argument' is a 'definition of "alive" ' that is based on brain waves OR heartbeat... Which is NOT proof, but nothing more than consensus/agreement, no matter who mis-defines it or how.
Sorry.
Second, the question may be simple but the answer, if any, leads to a VERY complex discussion.
Third, when I enter such a 'discussion,' my First Question is: "Define 'Life' and 'Begins' before we go any further," at which point most such 'discussions' implode, because the folks trying to make the case against abortion or choice refuse to define those concepts.
There are NO 'scientific' definitions of either term. And without that, any further 'discussion' is mental masturbation.
Sorry.
but no comments about when to stop or even take the foot off the gas... Six Billion? Seven? Ten? Twenty?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/22081...
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT)
They apparently pursue a philosophy that believes humans have done their damage and that they ought to help the world by not reproducing, thus leading to self extinction. They actually seem fairly well thought out about it.
I've told my sons to cremate me, have a memorial if they wish, find a good trout stream in some mountains and throw my ashes in it, then remember me in any way they wish. If someone could make an ethical (Objectivist only) use of part of my body, I wouldn't mind, but I'm afraid that this old body is past the use-by-date. It seems to me that it's the height of self aggrandizement to place an obligation of your body on your family to preserve, protect, and worship after death. It's almost neolithic.
I don't see anymore worth to a dead (for whatever reason) fetus, and if a researcher can use it for some benefit for future people, why not. Death is a part of life from conception on and there's no guarantee either prior to birth or after. The only reason I can see for all of this turmoil is some religionists beliefs that a supernatural being somewhere has a spare soul sitting around that he wants to stick in it and some of their beliefs that the bodies go into a grave and wait for the end when god pulls them out of the ground and restores them or some such stuff.
In some ways this argument seems to align with PETA's objections to what we do with animals and animals' bodies.
I support YOUR idea of 'freedom of choice' in such matters.
BTW - Sadly, animals are treated much more compassionately than fetuses (feti?) these days
The only brain activity going on about him now is in my head, my family's, and others, certainly not in his. So why would I visit that place? Like I said, struggling.
You ought to get a glimpse of what pathologist and medical examiners do to a body. Obviously this issue has to do with the abortion.
Any information they obtain will be utilized, twisted, and propagandized to continue to attempt to force and control the rest of us. That is the history and won't change till reason can override the superstition and supernatural. That is reality and I prefer to just ignore the irrational and any of their supposedly reasonable requests or demands.
I'd like to get rid of all government funding, but the irrational certainly take enough of it for use in their efforts and would resist any effort to get all of their information published. A line of non-compliance with the irrational must be drawn.
In the face of this scientific discovery, the pro-abortion side has but one argument: "it's woman's body". This would be true, if she were killing herself, but she's killing a baby (forcing her judgement on another without being granted consent).
Can the pro-abortion side confirm when life begins if not at conception?
Stop it!
Actually, I've often pointed out that the embryo/fetus is quite accurately a parasite to the carrier's body, too. Advocating Parasites' Rights?
:)
Of course, the government has found a solution to this dilemma - let them reproduce elsewhere and come here already in pupal stage, so that we can feed them. So, I suppose, America hasn't been saved after all...
Don't see too many folks carrying that flag...
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/file... is a nice one Google found... and PP is about a Billion-Dollar organization. Look where most of their expenditures are, too.
If you're aware of such breakthroughs, please let me know.
That aside, what we are talking about here is a problem that I see as one of our biggest problems in this country - a failure to recognize the value and sovereignty of life. This, in my opinion, is part of the foundation for Objectivism. Our lives, our bodies, and our minds are our own...
If you think our society values babies any more after their born I have a bridge to sell you. Our society (our government) doesn't give a rat's ass about children.
However that does not stop them from using "Its for the Children" as a rallying cry for any silliness they want to pick your pockets to fund.
As for the last sentence the originator of that thought put it this way. Our society cares more about dogs than children. Robert Heinlein wrote that. It was true then and more true now and for the same objectively provable reasons.
But you'll kill that thing that's in the womb, would not want no baby boom.
Steve Taylor, Song writer.
Care to elaborate on that, explain it or justify or defend that concept, please?
Thanks!
AR was pro-choice herself, and so am I. At least up to the 13th-15th week, when the cerebrum develops. Once a fetus has enough of a brain to be a moral agent, then I'll consider him/her sovereign.
Medical advancements have not come from embryonic stem cell research. Quite the opposite. The advancements have come from umbilical stem cells and the reprogramming of adult stems. Embryonic has been a pipe dream for year... it's somewhat akin to man-made climate change research.
The ability to survive outside the womb is a straw man argument. A full-term baby can't survive outside the womb without on its own.
Life begins when life begins... by definition, that's at conception.
But they're not intelligent life, nor is an embryo.
If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin?
That's YOUR definition... please cite consensus views on "when life begins"... I can't seem to find any agreement on it... just a lot of people agreeing on a lot of different points... fertilization, implantation, X-number of weeks after implantation, etc...
Groups of people Agreeing on something is NOT proof or definitional! If you can see the difference.
If you disagree, again, the 'discussion' is moot.
Yet another manufactured attack by the statists.
"IF" this offends you why would you even remotely think Abortion is right?
Anyone who is "FOR" Abortion and Planned parenthood, should be PROUD of these actions regardless, strictly on the basis of the usage of "worthless" tissue being used to "benefit" women who want to abort, and science who wants to experiment.
If however, these is in anyway offensive to you, then you might need to re-think your view on planned parenthood, and abortion all together.
We have an attitude that you can't sell human tissue. Many suffer needlessly because of that attitude. I do not think that this would lead to taking a fetus to late term and then abort as an organ factory. However, I am no fan of PP and I counsel wherever I can against abortion. It is not my decision to make for another, but knowledge is a powerful thing. Women need knowledge where they think they have no alternative. This kind of thinking leads to hospitals profiting to the detriment of a family who lost a loved one or the patient directly.
Also, PP has no license to sell body parts or organs. These sales are something they've done on their own and in secret.
The Chinese harvest organs from their prison population. What PP is doing, because of how they are doing it, is far more vile that what China is doing.
Oath of Fealty.
Third none of the late term, partial delivery when the fetus is viable.
I would also look at the welfare baby factories and be in favor of tubal ligation and vasectomies after the first ''accident'' and before receiving any assistance.
Speaking in a general welfare of the nation way.
for each new baby, assistance should be decreased if you have another baby. Presto - birth control.
There are many factors that could cause it - if indeed the rate were increasing. It requires a multivariate analysis to even start to get at the root of it. Anytime you find yourself saying or implying there are no other causes you've likely committed a serious error in logic.
For example, the increasing welfare state could easily be the cause. The increasing nanny state could as well. Poverty can also be a significant driver in that the data does show abortions, as well as many other issues, have a strong correlation with income level. That all assumes the rate is rising. The data show it is not. The data shows abortions are decreasing.
For example:
In 2011, approximately 1.06 million abortions took place in the U.S., down from an estimated 1.21 million abortions in 2008, 1.29 million in 2002, 1.31 million in 2000 and 1.36 million in 1996. From 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions occurred in the U.S. (AGI).
Based on available state-level data, an estimated 984,000 abortions took place in 2013—down from an estimated 1.02 million abortions in 2012.
Objectively speaking, abortions are on the decrease.
Some other bits the data tells us that counter many claim about who is having them. Nearly 3/4ths of abortions are had by people claiming a religious affiliation.
Only 56% of abortions are for single, non-cohabitating women. 69% are "economically disadvantaged". Self-identification as protestants accounted for 37% and Catholic accounted for 28%.
About half of all pregnancies in the U.S. were unplanned. Of those, only 40% were aborted. According to the CDC in 2011, unmarried women accounted for 85.5% of all abortions.
When you look at this data some other data makes sense, and isn't at all racist. Yes, black women are nearly four times more likely to have an abortion. However, that doesn't mean it is racial. Given the above we know that being a 20-something, single, non-cohabitating woman greatly increases the chances you'll be aborting. And yet this is the category a great many black women find themselves in. Thus it should not be at all shocking for the aforementioned result.
We can also learn the assertion that those aborting are simply irresponsible is also not indicated by the data: only 8% of women having an abortion were not using any form of birth control. Granted that is self-reported data, but it does get broken down into more fine-grained such as frequency, etc. but this comment is already fairly long.
Given the motives and mentality of the American Intelligentsia, be vary cautious of what things "seem" to be like. Looking into the data very often shows the inverse of what is claimed.
Summary: Abortion is not on the rise, and there is no correlation between an increasing legal availability of it and the incidence or rate of it. As there is no correlation, I think that should pretty well eliminate the notion that increasing legal availability of it causes abortion to increase.
There is no question when the data line is extended back to Roe v Wade that the availability, coupled with pop cultural acceptance that followed let to a profound increase in rate of abortion.
You also use aggregated data versus demographic. The percent of black abortions has increased (as unwed pregnancy increased) to catastrophic levels.
And just so you know, in 2011 the number of abortions hit the lowest point since 1973. So clearly your argument here is also invalid. You can even go to strongly anti-abortion sites and learn this fact.
Define "catastrophic".
And you clearly missed the demographic data. Look into the income level and married vs. single, non-cohabitating data and you'll see the assertion it is racial is unfounded. You would also learn that the abortion rate among blacks has indeed followed the overall trend that whites and non-black minorities have all experienced in the last three decades.
Aggregated or demographic (which is btw also aggregate data) is irrelevant to the fact that abortions levels are the lowest they've been in three decades of decline. The fact is your assertion that they are rising is utterly false.
Your data on the abortion numbers since1973 is inaccurate on multiple levels (in terms absolute numbers as well as within the black community).
This line of debate, however, misses the point. It's as if we were arguing over exact number of Jews killed in the Holocaust as the determining factor in whether or not it was wrong to kill them in the first place.
Someone has to pay, and for "Free" that means the taxpayer. No thank you.
TANSTAAFL
Self responsibility
Birth control implants for welfare recipients as long as they are on welfare?
But again, it is not free. We have to pay for it.
Government and government funding should NOT be in the business of social engineering. They should be as minimally intrusive as possible, and no larger than needed.
A fantasy, I know, but one of my favorite ones.
Various forms of birth control have been shown to have ongoing medical issues that crop up over time. Given that such a large portion of those who would be getting free birth control would also be on medicaid and other taxpayer paid medical services the cost of these knock-on effects (depression, weight gain, hormonal imbalance, all the way up to mental diseases such as the dementia categories) may well eclipse the relative cheapness of an abortion.
Even given free access we don't have supportable reasons to conclude that it would significantly lower the incidence of abortion among the economically disadvantaged. There are cultural and religious issues surrounding effective use of various forms of birth control. The data shows it isn't the availability of it, rather it is the consistency of use that is a strong driver of it's efficacy. Making it free would not address the religious, cultural, and habitual aspects - the strongest indicators.
As a result we could well end up paying for both if we were to agree the government should provide them.
As noted in a previos post, the data backs you up. Less than half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.
Post the data which shows 51% or more of the "black community" (there is no such thing, btw) wants to end human life. If the data supports it, so be it. But the data won't show it, so I expect no such posting of data from you.
How so? Because you are confusing a high rate of a subset with the results in the subset. Black women account for a larger proportion than the population, yes. But they also account for the larger portion of unplanned pregnancies, and for your assertion to be true more than half of all pregnancies among black women would have to be aborted. That is factually not the case.
As I mentioned in previous post, it's like arguing total number of Jews killed in the Holocaust as a threshold bar to determine if killing them was wrong in the first place.
For the sake of the discussion, let's say 35% of black pregnancies nationally, and 60% in NY, end in abortion. Is that ok? Is that not a problem? Does that not lead to the devaluing of human life?
Instead you try to make the claim you're talking about something else, and in this post you even reverse the order of causality.
So this is my last reply to you. I'm here for reasonable and rational discussion not absent-minded ideology and sophistry. Cheers.
And yes, we all subscribe to an ideology. Mine, and over 50% of the rest of the country happen to be pro-life.
I'm unclear on your position. Are you ok with planned parenthood killing unborn children and profiting from selling the resulting parts?
It's remarkable that public get exorcised by the death of Michael Brown, but blissfully ignorant of the true genocide of blacks through abortion. When 60%+ of unborn black babies in NYC (and 50% nationally) are terminated, there's a problem.
A slave to the baby? Yes, a woman does have a responsibility to protect the human in her body. Her body is her choice, but she has no right to kill another.
If I'm driving my car alone and decide to run off a cliff, that's my prerogative (my body, my car). If, however, I have a passenger in the car and I run us both off the cliff without their consent, I've committed murder.
Either way, you've committed murder in the eyes of the law. You did not have the consent/right to kill your passenger.
If being a burden were the only bar necessary to kill another, where would it end? My aging parents are really a burden, I think I'll kill them so I'm not a slave to their needs. My handicapped child is such a burden, I think I'll kill him, so I'm not a slave to taking care of him.
At what point would you draw the line?
I have many more questions than answers.
Genocide includes an outside force performing the killings against the will of the person. In the case of abortion, since it isn't a procedure forced on someone, Genocide is inapplicable. These women are having this done voluntarily, so Racial Suicide would be a far more accurate label.
The real problem is lack of responsibility from the individuals concerned producing all these unwanted pregnancies.
Many methods of birth control exist, from abstinence to "morning after" drugs. Nor is the most common method (the pill) expensive, under $10 at Walmart.
The inability to exercise personal responsibility to not become pregnant, or impregnate someone else is what needs to be addressed.
If I'm driving my car alone and decide to run off a cliff, that's my prerogative (my body, my car). If, however, I have a passenger in the car and I run us both off the cliff without their consent, I've committed murder.
I completely agree that the sky-rocketing rate of abortion in the black community is the result of lack of responsibility brought on by liberal policies, but the fact remains that millions of black babies are being killed. The numbers are exceeded only by those perpetrated by other socialist/communist policies.
If you acknowledge that the rate of abortion in the black community is the result of lack of responsibility on their part, then it IS NOT GENOCIDE. That is a label used deliberately because of the emotional charge it carries. The implication being that a race other than black is deliberately targeting them. Which facts do not support.
Question for you..............
Why does it matter what race is being aborted???
Either abortion is wrong for all, or it is right for all.
You cannot pick and choose your morality based on race.
Race is a human social construct, not species differentiation.
Oddly enough, I dislike abortion, but my reasons are far different than yours.
Have you looked at what we call "culture" today? Do you see high moral attitudes, the portrayal of heroes, or grand positive ideas? If you do, don't tell me that you didn't have to seek it out with difficulty before finding anything of that description. Possible exception of suggestions from the Gulch or similar sources. In other words, our art is deteriorating even faster than our politics.
beginning of human life is arbitrary.
with todays and tomorrow technology, we could create and/or "continue" the life of each sperm and egg so they could all be considered "sacred"
(cue Monty Python...). Conception is just as arbitrary as individual sperm or eggs, first cell divide, blastula development, nervous system and complexity, etc.
This every changing shade of gray area should be delegated to the person with the eggs, sperm,
and/or both.
If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin? Once it begins, no one has the right to arbitrarily end it simply for convenience sake.
What I find especially troubling is how many who favor these horrific vivisections of a living being are able to compartmentalize, avoiding any scintilla of compassion. If a child within days of breathing open air is only "fetal tissue," at what point does that being have the right to be called human? Some "pro-choice" (I have to laugh at that label, because these people are against the choice of a woman to bear live children) folk have actually said a mother shouldn't be tried for murder if she kills her child before its first birthday, because many infants don't survive that first year anyway (France doesn't count infants that die during the first year in their infant mortality figures, using this same logic).
I have no problem harvesting organs from the brain dead (lots of motorcyclists to provide those organs), but I'm sure most of us would not enjoy having those organs taken from us when we're alive, aware, and unanesthetized.
" to prolong the torture of that unborn child" -- Typically, the fetus is killed first by a puncture through the head before it is removed. Whether upper, lower, or any other part is crushed after that or not, really does not matter from the point of view of "prolong[ing] the torture of that unborn child.
"If a child within days of breathing open air is only "fetal tissue,"' -- Again, abortions (legal ones) are not performed on fetuses/babies/children that are "within days of breathing open air".
"Some "pro-choice" (I have to laugh at that label, because these people are against the choice of a woman to bear live children)" -- Since when did the "pro-choice" camp prohibit or was in anyway against "a woman to bear live children"?
"have actually said a mother shouldn't be tried for murder if she kills her child before its first birthday" -- Don't know where you're finding a fringe group like that, but I'm sure that one can always find fringe groups, if he look hard enough. I seem to be coming across a fringe group that insists the the Universe is 6,500 years old...
And I'm not too clear on the significance of the motorcyclists to this issue...
Yes, Pro Choice is a code word for Pro Abortion, but you're jumping a huge divide here by saying that Pro Choice (or Pro Abortion) are against giving birth, even if most of PP's business is doing abortions. No doubt many of PP boses and employees have children...
As to a "prominent women's rights' figure in the UK" -- yep, you got a fringe group!
The point that I was trying to make was not to either support or not support abortions. My point was the form of argument or discussion that you presented.
Link, please?
(in dollars) out of their billion-dollar balance sheet...
STI/STD Testing & Treatment
STI Tests, Women and Men 3,728,111
Genital Warts (HPV) Treatments 42,933
HIV Tests, Women and Men 697,680
Other Treatments 584
4,469,308
Contraception
Reversible Contraception Patients, Women 2,129,855
Emergency Contraception Kits 1,590,133
Female Sterilization Procedures 821
Vasectomy Patients 3,749
3,724,558
Cancer Screening and Prevention
Pap Tests 492,365
HPV Vaccinations 38,535
Breast Exams/ Breast Care 549,804
Colposcopy Procedures 37,683
LOOP/LEEP Procedures 2,273
Cryotherapy Procedures 920
1,121,580
Other Women’s Health Services
Pregnancy Tests 1,148,249
Prenatal Services 19,506
1,167,755
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Abortion Services
Abortion Procedures 327,166
<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Other Services
Family Practice Services, Women and Men* 41,359
Adoption Referrals to Other Agencies 2,197
Urinary Tract Infections Treatments 52,947
Other Procedures, Women and Men*** 26,805
123,308
, doc. We have been over run. As they say here in the gulch - manana en la manana. Gah!!!!!
Now you have to ask yourselves: how long has this been going on?
I make no secret. I say it's human from the moment a zygote forms. That the law does not treat it that way, leads straight back to the ancient Roman practice of exposure-at-birth.
We now know that EKG can detect brain activity as early as six weeks, and premature babies can survive much earlier that thought.
If life doesn't begin at conception, someone please prove to me when it does.
Do you remember the brouhaha when she said, "After all, Nathan, the theory of evolution is only an hypothesis?"
Sex has known potential consequences.
If you're driving your car alone and decide to run off a cliff, that's your prerogative (your body, your car). If, however, you have a passenger in the car and you run both off the cliff without their consent, you've committed murder. The car was your vessel, but it was carrying another life.
She is not a slave to the unborn baby, but instead is enslaved by and to the meddlers who claim moral superiority and insist their values are the only valid ones.
If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin?
Until you define what you mean by "life begins", your question has no value because it can not be answered.
So, until it's answered, I again ask, when does life begin?
Setting aside the question of when a fetus becomes a child, when life begins, or any of the other differences.
Driving a car off a cliff with a passenger is murder for them and suicide for you. That is two deaths, not one.
Western societies have 2 extremely strong taboos about the taking of human life.
One is murder - the unlawful killing of another human.
The other is Suicide - the taking of your own life.
For your analogy, that would require the person driving the car off the cliff to jump the hurdle of both of those strong taboos at once. Something that movies like Thelma & Louise aside, only occurs rarely.
That is a major flaw in your analogy.
To many people a fetus is not considered a child until after it is born.
To many other people the line is at the third trimester.
To still others the line is after the 1st trimester.
To others (like you) the line is conception.
Where the individual draws that line is the real heart of this issue.
To someone like you the car/cliff analogy works because of where you draw the line.
To many others the analogy does not work because they would not consider the abortion a murder, based upon the development stage.
This of course, ignores the suicide aspect of you driving the car over the cliff in the first place. I think its likely a safe assumption that you are against suicide strongly, based on your position on when life begins.
So tell me does the car/cliff analogy still work for you, even though you would be committing suicide in the process?
I don't like abortions either, you might be surprised how little we differ on that. The difference is that I consider it Immoral to force my beliefs on others.
We all own ourselves and have free will.
I refuse to compromise those two principles.
Therefore I do not force my beliefs on this issue as requirements on others.
Does the suicide aspect alter the suitability of the analogy for you??
Force the woman to bear the child.
Force the woman to abort the child.
Let her choose.
Which?
I acknowledge the force being applied to the fetus, but I also acknowledge that the mother has rights, included protection from force.
On my balance, the mother as a fully developed being is entitled to more protections than a potential being.
Your position weighs the scale the other way.
Well, the theory of evolution predicts transitional forms that we have never found. The Missing Links stay missing. And it also predicts constant improvement in life, and that also has failed.
BTW - If anyone can recommend a book that logically explains evolution, please post it. I want to follow the most logical point of view, and I wouldn't mind being proven wrong. (It would certainly make my life easier!)
And in addition, four percent of the earth's mass escaped the earth--to persist as the meteroids, asteroids, comets, and trans-Neptunian objects of today, and the subglacial oceans of Europa, Ganymede, and Enceladus.
The lack of critical thinking that gives rise to a book like this is why some people want to legislate what women Should do with their bodies.
The theory of evolution remains a theory, precisely because the "missing link" remains unproven. This is a challenge for many reason, but not the least of which the expected abundance that should exist given the numbers that would have been necessary to the transition to occur.
Further, why did the transition stop? Presumably, evolution from one species to the next should still be occurring.
I'm certainly open to evaluating new evidence as it's found, but for the "theory of evolution" advocates to simply discount those that subscribe to intelligent design as crackpots or devoid of reason on this subject is somewhat disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
The evidence is already in.
We're expected to believe that something as basic as a pencil requires a creator, but the most complex system in the universe happened by random chance.
I subscribe to intelligent design.
"Week 6 - Your baby's face is taking shape, which is something sweet to think about as you race to the toilet to pee again.... Also taking shape this week, her kidneys, liver and lungs, along with her little heart, which is now beating 80 times a minute..."
Or using the infant tissue for conversion into stem cells. Someone (Jbrenner maybe?) linked a story about that process some time back. They have developed, or are experimenting with a process to convert differentiated tissue back into stem cells.
It's more pipe dreams to justify killing unborn children.
This is no different than the argument that because we don't have modern studies on the beneficial effects of certain hallucinogenic drugs in the treatment of various ills such as alcohol addiction, PTSD, etc. because we prohibit them we shouldn't allow them to take place.
This is particularly relevant, because during that same time frame, umbilical stem cells and reprogramming of adult cells have both yielded tremendous discovery.
Let's go to the driving analogy. What you are saying is that we should never allow new drivers licenses to be issued to people because they haven't proven new drivers can drive safely. Your argument is thus that we should not allow new drivers who have never been allowed to legally drive because they can't show they can drive.
It doesn't matter the subject, the basic structure of your argument is fatally flawed. In your case you are saying we shouldn't allow the research because it hasn't produced results because we don't allow it. So, how can the results be legally obtained if to do the research is illegal?
I don't know if there are benefits to the given research or not - and frankly neither do you. You can't know it. Basically your argument could be boiled down to "we shouldn't allow it because we don't allow it now" in it's best form.
If you are unwilling to admit the fact that you're insisting that illegal research be done to show it's usefulness (or lack thereof) before allowing it then you are not capable of having a rational and reasonable discussion on the subject. Which is fine, it just means that our conversation on this subject or in any where you behave in this fashion will cease or not happen in the future. No harm, no foul.
If you were an investor and you had a billion dollars, would you invest in the one which had already generated success dozens of times over or the one which to date had only one success and had associated ethical debate which would immediately kill 50%+ of your potential market?
Third, Their should be a cut off point, that's very clear...and again, medical issues are a different story. This whole feminine issue lacks conscience and is driven by unhealthy misconceptions, hubris and I wouldn't be surprised if it's tied into 'Global De-population' agenda by those that do not value Conscious Human life. These creatures value the earth more than humans and can not create the necessary values to clean up the mess they have made! Post Script: If an abortion is rightfully warranted then the donor parts and stem cells should be donated...shipping cost at the expense of the receiver.
It's a testament to the Gulch, that even when discussing a topic a contentious as abortion that, the tone is respectful and reasoned.
We're hear of our own free will and spirited debate ensues.
I read this story yesterday, and it scared the hell out of me. It's not that abortion advocates don't know that it's a baby. It's that they don't care. Much like Atlas, people would rather ignore reality than accept it. (And yes, I know Rand was pro-abortion)
Just my point of view.
Arguing about the morality here as opposed to the clear illegality of it is not terribly useful. Regardless of your position on abortion, the activities described here are clearly against the law. Prosecute the criminal activities. The rest is largely ideology.
But, the issue of when life begins is mission critical to determining when a life is being taken.
There is no evidence offered which says the abortions were illegal, thus that is not a crime you can charge the involved parties with. Theft, however, is because they took body parts that were given to another party. Conspiracy to commit fraud and fraud itself may also be appropriate.
This particular thread between you and I is done. You're not interested in the details, simply pushing your ideology so no rational discussion to be had here either.