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

[Brett Paatsch]

Ben wrote:

> 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?

One needs to consider that other area of social activity where
definitions matter a lot - the law. Things like "murder" and "human life"
are defined in law to have specific meaning that is not always the same
as the meaning used in ordinary lay conversation where words are
used more loosely. 

> 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.

Right !
 
> 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?

The bizarre thing about bioethics debates around stem cells is that
most of the population and most politicians are debating without 
really understanding the underlying science. So what is happening
is that the real ethical debates don't or happen in the forums that
actually matter - the parliaments. 

I find this a great pity because almost everyone that has an ethical
concern about "human life" is speaking usually ignorantly (I don't
say this pejoratively - who has the time to stay current in this area?)
from a position that is fairly understandable, and in some cases might 
even be quite noble or at least laudable, if they only had taken the
trouble to know what the hell they were talking about before they
decided to try and tell everyone else what they "ought" do.

What passes for ethical debate in the main forums of society that
decide policy these days is not real debate or exploration of issues
- its mere positioning. And shot firing from entrenched positions. 

>  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?

You mean a bit like what happened with the Dolly the sheep cloning
procedure where a cell (or the nuclear material) from a sheep
mammary gland was reprogrammed using factors that happened to
be in another cell.
 
What will happen? We will probably have another round of 
arguments and ethical handwringing and political shannaigans. 

Politicians cannot lead public opinion in the bioethics area unless
they understand what is going on it that area at least enough to talk 
intelligently to their constiutuent that rings them and demands they 
take some action that the constituent wants.  


Unless there is something radically different between sheep and 
humans that we don't know about (something biologically significant
rather than merely politicially or "ethically") then biological science
has already (with the Dolly procedure) moved beyond the simple
time when human life could be discussed meaningfully an intelligently
as if it took place on just one level - the level of the whole organism.

>  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?).

Murder is a legal term. Currently brushing one's teeth is not murder.
It is not ever likely to be necessary or prudent to make it murder
but dumber things have happened in the history of lawmaking
when politicians don't understand the area they are making laws
about. 
 
> 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).

I'm not such a person in that I don't think the embryo is particularly
special but I do think that human society probably would be better
off having more informed and regular reviews of abortion for instance
as the balance of when it is ethical to abort changes with technology. 

I can respect those people who are ignorant of recent developments
in biology but are concerned about human life as they understand it
being commoditised.  

Civil societies are based on members having rights that draw from a 
reservoir of member responsibility. People are used to thinking of
membership coming with being human. That will not work in the 
future. We need to have a better look at what membership or 
levels of membership will be based on. 

It is possible, logically possible to have different levels of rights
(legal rights) giving to different classes of being. We currently
grant some rights to animals. We could grant some rights to 
"unborn" homo sapiens at different stages too. And probably
should to be ethically consistent and rational about things. But
we can't do that effectively until people know what they hell
is being talked about.

People seem to think that their votes and voices don't matter.
Yet in democracies they do matter - they actually determine
the reality we live in. Voting and arguing stupidly or badly
has a consequence. The politicians are not in charge of the
system they are almost at much at the mercy of the system
as any other single voter. 

Ditto scientists and commercialisers. 

Brett Paatsch