Jim,
I have even more respect for your view now that you have explained it
in such a personal way. I haven't changed my own view but I love
getting to wear the other persons moccasins (I'm Christian and my
best friend is Buddhist). I'm thrilled at how well this discussion
has gone (can we talk about race next... just kidding)
Mindy the Artist
On Mar 26, 2009, at 8:02 PM, Jim Lubin wrote:
They are just going to throw those unused blastocysts away only
because someone is making the choice to do so. After they are
created they remain frozen indefinitely until a decision is made by
someone to remove them from their frozen state.
I've seen the argument be made that they are going to die anyway so
why not use them to help others, such as organ donation. I started
thing about that reasoning a few years ago. As someone who is only
being kept alive by a ventilator breathing for me I began thinking
that "someone" could decide that if I was taken off the ventilator
I would die anyway so why not use my organs to better someone
else's life. Someone might decide that my heart, my liver, my lungs
would be better used by someone else who might be more important or
more productive, less of a burden cost wise, to society. I am not
an organ donor.
Remember the Terri Schiavo case in 2005? It was a big topic on the
vent-users list. Her husband claimed she was in a Persistent
vegetative state, her family said she was not. The media kept
saying they want to remove her from "life support". She was not on
life support, she had a feeding tube. Big difference. A ventilator
is life support. Her feeding tube was removed and she was starved
to death because nutrition was withheld. It was very scary to
everyone who is on life support they way people were fighting to
get her feeding tube removed. If people felt so strongly about her
being removed what about us?
I believe that human life begins at conception and that those
blastocytes should be protected until natural death. Use them what
they were created for or keep them frozen (i.e. on life support). I
don't think these blastocytes should have been created in the first
place, if a couple can't have a baby without intervention then it's
not meant to be. That's just what I believe. Obviously it's legal
so the world doesn't operate the way I believe.
Jim
At 10:24 AM 3/26/2009, Westgold wrote:
They just throw those unused blastocytes in the garbage, they end
up in some medical waste dump somewhere. Would you rather than
that, than see those cells being used to help cure a lot of
horrible diseases? You say that you support organ donation --
isn't giving these blastocytes a chance to help save somoene's
life similar to organ donation? Don't you think they would rather
do some good with whatever life they have, rather than just be
thrown in a dump?
----
Jim Lubin
[email protected]
http://makoa.org/jim
disAbility Resources: http://www.makoa.org
