There He Goes Again

[Max]

There He Goes Again
Ronald Bailey vs. the embryo.

By Patrick Lee & Robert P. George



eason magazine science writer Ronald Bailey is at it again - zealously searching for an angle from which to declare that the developing human embryo is something other than what the science of embryology decisively reveals it to be: viz., a whole living member of the species homo sapiens - a human being - in the early stages of its natural development.

Bailey had previously tried to argue that human beings in the embryonic stage are of no more value than somatic cells (such as skin cells), on the grounds that we have, or soon will have, the technology to generate human embryos from somatic cells by joining them to enucleated ova and administering a certain type of electrical stimulation. As we pointed out in reply, his reasoning was fallacious: One might as well argue that a sperm cell is equal in value to a human being because, when joined to a human ovum, it can generate a human being. The fallacy lies in ignoring the fact that in each case cells (sperm and ovum, or somatic cell and enucleated ovum) can be joined in a process capable of generating an entirely new and distinct entity. That entity - unlike somatic cells, sperm, or ova - is a complete human organism possessing the epigenetic primordia for self-directed development from the embryonic through the fetal, infant, childhood, adolescent, and adult stages of development with its unity, determinateness, and identity all fully intact. The sperm and the ovum, the somatic cell and the enucleated egg - none is a whole human organism; each is functionally a part of the larger male or female organism. But the human embryo is a whole (though, of course, immature) human organism. Even in a condition of dependency, it is not functionally a part of any larger organism. It directs its own organic functioning and possesses the active power to develop itself to the mature stage of a human being - requiring nothing more than nourishment and a suitable environment (as human beings do at every stage of development) for self-maintenance and growth.

Now Bailey has come forward with an even less promising line of argument. He now claims that because the change can go in reverse - because (possibly) from a human embryo we can obtain a stem cell and from this stem cell we can obtain a human ovum - it follows that "an embryonic cell is no more a complete human being requiring legal protection than any other body cell."

Of course, if by "embryonic cell" he meant stem cell, then this would be true - and also utterly irrelevant to the moral debate. Stem cells (including embryonic stem cells) are not human beings. The self-integrating human organism (whether in the embryonic, fetal, infant, child, adolescent, or adult stage), not his isolated cells, is the human being. It is the embryonic human being, like human beings at every stage of development, that deserves legal protection. But, in truth, by "embryonic cell" Bailey means the human embryo. And the fallacy is patent: We already knew that from a human being, even a very young human being, we could obtain a human ovum. Now we find that perhaps (no one is sure yet) we can obtain an ovum from a stem cell obtained from a human embryo (or, perhaps, from a stem cell obtained from umbilical-cord blood, placental tissue, or adult bone marrow). Bailey seems to think this proves that embryos are mere collections of certain kinds of DNA. But his inference is specious. If it does turn out to be possible to obtain ova from embryonic stem cells, all that will merely show that we can obtain a certain type of part (a female sex cell) from an unexpected part (a stem cell) of a whole (a human embryo). Why anyone would infer from this that any of these parts is equivalent in value to a whole, living member of the species homo sapiens in the embryonic stage of development is more mysterious than the genetics involved here.

- Patrick Lee is professor of philosophy at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.







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http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-lee-george052203.asp

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-lee-george052203.asp

[Acid]

"The (...) human organism (whether in the embryonic, fetal, infant (...) or adult stage), not his isolated cells, is the human being."

When one is human can be regarded from differing angles. One for example seemed of the opinion our ancestors turned human with the development of verbal language.

If one were just to argue from that base, then before what the neuros might call Wernicke's and Broca's are formed out far enough the young person might not be regarded as human.


Embryonic development is widely regarded to resemble the developmental history of our ancestors.

Simplified developing into a cell cluster.
Differentiations into differing cells,
for example which make later the skin,
which make the belly organs, and (if I recall right) around the 16th day the neural tube, forming into the brain at the 18th day starting to grow into headbrain stuff,
and by the end of the first month several brain sectors are already there.

With a picture of a chimpanzee embryo 4rth month, and a smaller of a human, if I recall right someone first assumed the chimpanzee embryo is a human embryo. Pinkish skin, and looking highly similar.


Although I don't know, I assume in that age several of the systems I regard as human systems are not there also in an embryo of our ape kind.


So if not primarily taking personal systems,
but just human systems, might be rather late.


"It is the embryonic human being, like human beings at every stage of development, that deserves legal protection."

One could as well say, that it are all embryonic beings and who they later become
at every stage of development deserve legal protection.


(If only taking for example human brain systems our mammal ape kind has,
that others do not have, might take till rather late in embryonic development.

Simplified first come oldtime systems,
then middletime systems,
and then newtime systems, historically development-equivalent I assume partially to the time our ancestors turned human.
Which was compared to the whole rather late.
So most of the systems are older dated.

My self for example I date in older settings to quite old time, and more like now, Middle Time.
Middle Time starts a bit before mammal and has the main timing within mammal.)


So it could be as well argued, if just taking human systems as relevant,
that persons of other kinds do not have,
as embryonic legal protection factors,
that these would in the start not be there for many months.


If taking personal systems, then it would apply for many of us kinds.


Instead of a strange "double moral",
this might be first considered.

[Acid]

It reminded me of, when on some trips or other drug stuff I sensed to alike leave human more.

I assume this is to do also with me being MBD from birth on,
and with a concussion having damaged the system I call front and the language structurer.


The dominance then, simplified, seems to shift more towards Middle Time systems.
While various New Time aspects are alike more off.


So my self, whom "as Urwesen" I regard to be more of Middle Time (and partially from Underwater Time)
simplified (and I guess not entirely correct) with some drug stuff alike corks in synapses, seems to at times go to higher segregational levels from other systems.

Several of the New Time systems with that can be sensing rather off with me then.

When I reach the higher autist stages there,
I can sense rather off with verbal systems.
Persons who are not autistic, might at times wonder about various called autists being counted simplified as non-verbal.
These newer systems might be either not interlinked at the time, or damaged, or with the language structurer on settings, where this one is on older settings, and not newer useful for brabbling. Or at least to me the latter can feel like that.
Alike that if I wish to reach from a non-verbal stage brabbling mode again, that first shifts from what feel alike older settings, need to be completed in systems settings and correlations, to be able to brabble again.


Among the New Time stuff I count systems as what the neuros might call Wernicke's, Broca's on more modern whatevers,
neocortex and cingulate gyrus systems sizes,
and partially sector specializations there;
and the 6th emotion generator (to do with laughing).

The second emotion generator (active for example when a woman is at upset shouting), might be also counted with New Time systems,
but not all New Time systems I count as just pertaining to human.


So if actually just taking what simplified might be counted as human systems, these do not seem very many.
I assume this is also obvious from the atrocious crimes and perversions in neuro.


Affe = monkey, ape.

"In this Affen-kind it is soandso in the brain,
and that one also,
in that also,
THEREFORE we can assume it is so with us."


So all of these would have to be left away with protection laws,
if orienting just on what is really only human.
Which seems not that much.

[Acid]

TIMERS WITH EMBRYONAL EXPERIMENTS


I currently regard there to be several timers,
IF at all a debate is
till what time embryonic experiments are regarded as ethically not that much "un-O.K."
(and if not straight regarding embryonic experiments as utterly wrong):


1. The start of the brain.

2. Energetically interlinked activities of the brain stem as simplified a steering central(s cluster) starting.

3. Development of "limbic" self central stuff.

4. Energetically interlinked "limbic" self's activities starting.


(The fourth I regard as even more relevant than the second. Irregardless of whom of us kinds.)

[Wise Young]

It is interesting to me why this problem exists primarily in the western culture but much less so in eastern cultures. For example, in both Chinese and Indian cultures, the concept trying to define when a human becomes a human is regarded by many as absurd. For many, a sperm or an egg is not the same as an adult human in terms of potential or actuality. Likewise, a fertilized egg that fails to implant in the uterus is not mourned to the same extent as a child that dies after birth. Wise.