From: FutureQ (futureq@attbi.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 02:45:01 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Got into this in a cloning, stem cell, and abortion discussion with my
> Catholic parents. Mum is also in the medical field, so she's not
> biologically ignorant either. She was under the assumption that you'd
> be sharing a 'soul' with your clone, and was of the opinion that a
> fetus gets its soul at the moment of conception, but I asked if twins
> share a single soul. She said no, she didn't think so. I then asked if
> a fetus split in two immediately after conception to produce twins, or
> if it split x many cell divisions down the road from conception. She
> said it happens later, not until some number of cell divisions occur.
>
> So I concluded that twins (and therefore the rest of us) couldn't get
> their souls till at least x many cell divisions after conception. She
> couldn't dispute this conclusion at all. I then said that this also
> means that if stem cells are harvested prior to this x many cell
> division point, then there would be no danger of souls getting in the
> way of this operation. She agreed. I then said that if a fetus was
> aborted prior to this x many cell divisions, then such an abortion
> would not be murder.
>
> This, I think, is the point at which pro-lifers, pro-choicers,
> pro-cloners, and pro-stem cell researchers can share common ground.
>
Another argument I've found to work with regard to cloning is to suggest
that we do now have the technology to do the following. Suppose we know
for certain that a woman carrying twins cannot do so and survive. That
even one of the twins might not survive but that she could carry one to
term successfully. So we could then remove and freeze one embryo and let
the other stay and go to term and be born. A year later after the woman
recovers sufficiently we re-implant the preserved embryo and it is carried
to term and also born. It is genetically identical to its now older
sibling. What's the difference in principle of this to a clone/original
set other than a greater amount of time separating their births?
Regarding stem cell harvesting. We take a cow egg and denucleate it then
insert the DNA of an adult human, zap it with a charge and it begins to
divide producing stem cells. Should we then treat it as a "potential
human" and take it to birth? Then what... tell it its mother was a cow?
These almost chimeral (a true chimera would have cow DNA not simply some
small bit of tissue) stem cells will work but who in their right mind
would consider the cow egg made embryo to be really a "potential human"?
Regarding the religious and their archaic and superstitious ideas about
souls, they haven't read their bibles closely enough. It supports only one
spirit being, namely the umm, holy ghost. It says precisely that the all
knowing one allegedly took dust (insert matter) and breathed the breath of
life (insert biochemical electrical energy) into the dust and the entire
concoction then "became a living soul". So then the word "soul" really
means the entire package not some ethereal intangible separate-of-the-body
essence. It elsewhere says about death and souls that when one dies "your
love dies also" and that "you know nothing" among many other things to the
same effect. This to me means that the mind does not survive destruction
of the body/brain (dust), no ghosts or floating spirits or immediate trips
to heaven. This then can be used to point out that minus the dust (brain)
the mind does not exist. How then can a few cells, many many divisions
away from developing the brain, be a soul?
Of course to me the bible supports the worst invention of humankind. I
don't recommend it but I am quick to point out to its believers where they
have it wrong.
FutureQ
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