[extropy-chat] ?Embryos? created without paternal chromosomes

[ben]

er...

What i'm not sure about is, if anybody is daft enough to think that a 
fertilised egg is equivalent to a human life, why should they not think 
the same about an egg that has been 'fooled into thinking' that it has 
been fertilised?

You could say "because it cannot develop into a human". But that's only 
true because we don't yet know how to get it to develop into a human. 
What if we could? I'm sure it's possible, even if we don't know how at 
the moment, to produce a parthenogenetic human from such an egg. Does 
this mean that as soon as we do know how to do this, this procedure will 
suddenly become morally unacceptable? Does that mean if scientist X 
knows how to do this, they are doing something morally wrong, but if 
scientist Y doesn't, they aren't?

Also, does it mean that if you do fertilise an egg, but ensure that it 
cannot develop into a person (say, by tinkering with its cell surface 
proteins so that it couldn't implant, or by some other means), that 
would be morally acceptable?

What will the pro-lifers do when we have the ability to take a single 
somatic cell and turn it into a person? Every cell a potential life! 
Brushing your teeth would be mass murder! (or would it? perhaps the 
'magic moment' of ensoulment only happens when sperm enters egg. Or when 
scientist throws genetic switch?).

I can see the 'pro-life' position fragmenting into a thousand different 
opinions as the technology advances, and these difficult questions tie 
their tiny minds into knots.

Actually, i have a more serious question. There must be people who don't 
take the 'ensoulment' issue seriously, but still think that it's wrong 
to create an embryo then destroy it. What is the basis of this? If the 
objection is not based on supernatural grounds, what is it based on? I'm 
not clear on why somebody who knows that it's just a ball of cells, 
still thinks it's somehow special (more special, i mean, than a drop of 
blood or a lump of meat).

ben