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Jhud -> RE: Genetically Modified Human Embryo (5/13/2008 4:14:15 PM)
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I think harvesting organs from prisoners (against their will) should be forbidden. On what basis? It is part of my personal system of ethics. I think it's wrong. I don't see how I can answer your question with anything other than 'ethics'.
Well, again, you 'personal' system of ethics is only useful here if you are the king, or if it is based on some objectively identified common foundation by which we can derive some understanding of ethics that can be universally applied. You seem to be confirming that neither is true, so it is no different than saying 'my science says...'
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There are many accepted guidelines that govern the ethics and legality of human research. Possibly, one of them already covers the case under consideration. Possibly, two of them offer differing opinions on the situation. Possibly, none of them address it, and it will have to be addressed by committees of ethicists, scientists and politicians. The exact same kind of people who drew up those other guidelines, and following the exact same process.
Ultimately (in the US) our political representatives will probably vote whether to adopt a particular set of rules governing this kind of research. No doubt, each will make his or her own moral reflection on the issue.
Well, again, pointing to current 'guidelines' is as worthless as pointing to the current color of the President's tie. You can't say on one hand that 'this isn't a matter of science, but ethics' and then have guidelines drawn up by groups of scientists.
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How is this case any different from stem cell research, cloning, test-tube babies, or any of the other ethical quandaries that science has placed in our laps? Society debates the issue, ethics are proposed, morality is argued, laws are passed, protests are held, laws may be changed or modified.
Exactly!!! In almost everyone of these cases the prevailing sentiment has invariably turned on the presumed scientific benefits or the temporary desires of the person in charge. There is longer an 'ethical ' concern.
There is no 'moral' basis by which the science community operates or is constrained - in less than a decade, every one of these issues, including the creation of modified embryos, including chimeras, will be inevitably accepted.
And the reason is, because the arguments that you have made, which are reflective of those emanating from the science and secular communities, are so anemic, so spineless, so lacking in robust objective criteria for determining the great moral considerations of our day, that they inevitably fall under the tread of any scientific initiative no matter how offensive it might be to our notion of what it means to be human.
Atheists and their weak, amoral, religious fellow travelers have so gutted the substance of the notions of ethics and moral considerations that they are effectively worthless. This is why you are utterly incapable of eking out the even a minimal argument against the practice of modifying human embryos, other than the barely thought out, "I just don't like it". Pathetic - it's like watching Neville Chamberlain oppose the scientific establishment while giving ground at every challenge.
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