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It boggles my mind that people still oppose this. I just don't get it. After having to listen to a coworker (who should know better) assert that this "still kills babies," I ended up discussing it earlier today with my Catholic theologian mother (who generally supports stem cell research).

Even ASSUMING that at a specific moment--when a sperm penetrates the ovum membrane, when the nuclei undergo mitosis, whenever--an almighty god sticks a soul in a fertilized egg, I fail to see how removing a cell from an embryo is any less ethical than a biopsy. With the proper technology (remember Jurassic Park?) you could create new humans from skin cells that fall off, hair that falls out, saliva even, not to mention ova women flush down the toilet every month. Is it a tragedy that these cells die without becoming new humans?
I've had to explain to too many pro-choicers that pro-life does not equal pro-as-many-humans-as-possible. It is ridiculous to complain that by taking one undifferentiated cell from another--and not even throwing it out, but using it for a very noble purpose!--one is creating a new possible life and then destroying it. Which brings me to my next point about embryonic stem cells in general, even using an entire embryo:

If a stem cell culture is successful, and the original stem cells become more stem cells, and those are grown into, say, a liver, which is then transplanted into someone, who does not reject it and goes on to use it in good health: please tell me at what point, exactly, these precious stem cells die. They don't. They are as alive as they ever were, and at no point does anyone involved in their development, differentiation and transplant ever intentionally cause harm to them.

ASSUMING those cells, as a liver, contain a soul identical to that of a fully formed adult, (I don't believe this, just to clarify, I'm assuming for the sake of argument) this soul is still not harmed unless you lament its inability to live up to its "potential" of becoming a complete human. Which involves...what? Living a certain number of years? Continuing the species? Having a generally happy life? Making someone else happy? Assuming even some ephemeral level of sentience, why is this any worse than being one of the millions of embryos spontaneously aborted every week?

Notice how all of these objections to stem cell propagation hang on the existence of a soul?

And lest we forget, since THE U.S. IS NOT A THEOCRACY, THE EXISTANCE OF A SOUL SHOULD BE PROVEN BEFORE THIS ASSUMPTION IS USED TO IMPEDE SCIENCE THAT IS PROVEN TO HELP PEOPLE PROVEN TO ALREADY EXIST.

what he said.

The fairy person part was where you were talking about some God putting the soul in the embryo. That doesn't have to happen for it to be a person.

I'm sorry, but cloning embryos for the research is just as bad. confused Why would a cloned embryo be any different from any other embryo? If it would grow into a human being if implanted, then it's a person. Otherwise, only one twin in identical twin situations would be a person. If you are specifically cloning only the undifferentiated cells, and it wouldn't become an embryo but rather a bunch of undifferentiated cells, that'd be different.

Also, just because there are embryos that are going to be destroyed doesn't mean that we should destroy them for this. I'm against their destruction either way. If it has to be legal and it's going to be done anyways... Yes, might as well make some use of their deaths. However, if I were to decide that, "Hey, I guess it's okay to use them for stem cell research," then that makes it look like IVF and the destruction of those embryos are okay. But it's not. The only reason stem cell research would be okay is that they are going to be destroyed anyways.

Then again, it's almost like desecrating their corpse. They never signed an organ donor card. They never gave their bodies to science.

Then I'm totally lost for the first two points, because you mentioned cloning and souls. confused You were saying that the reason people would be against this is mythical souls, which is exactly what Pro-Choicers say about abortion. If you meant that people would think that the single cell would have a soul, who would say that?

For the second part, yes they can be implanted, but what are the long term effects? Is losing that one stem cell going to cause them to be born prematurely, or underweight? Do we even know yet?

And I also commented on that: They -could- be implanted, but they aren't going to. They are just going to be destroyed later when no one decides to implant them.

Then that's just silly. confused But I still stand by that last sentence of mine: This is just to "make us happy," it doesn't change anything about the process. The embryo does not die from the removal of the stem cell, but it most likely -will- die later when they throw it in the garbage.

And speaking of which, has this ever been done; A stem cell removed, and then the embryo implanted in the womb? Do we even -know- if there are an side effects? It seems to me that removing a cell that early on would have a cascading effect on the embryo as a whole.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm saying: Creating a way to remove the cells without injuring the embryo helps nothing at all, as the embryo is still going to die anyways.

The way I took it when I read it was that it was still in the womb and that they have been doing this for a while. I could be wrong thought.

You're missing what I'm saying--that you're against the creation of spare embryos; there's nothing inherently wrong with taking a cell from an embryo.

I don't understand why there isn't a stronger pro-life crusade against multiple-embryo IVF. Maybe it's a religious thing, like they don't want to discourage people from having kids.... gonk