[extropy-chat] Bioethics Essay- Revised

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> Another point:
> 
> < Therefore we can clearly see that that unless
> one is to willing attribute the ability of Immaculate
> Conception to human scientists, then cloned embryos
> cannot possibly be people. If they are not people, why
> give them rights? >
> 
> Stuart thus appears to declare (via an unnecessary reductio few Xians
> are likely to take seriously anyway) that any cloned babies who
> develop from such embryos will be non-people without rights.
> I don't think tomorrow's delayed-twin humans will be very grateful
> for this argument.
> 
> This is quite different from arguing that blastocysts, embryos and 
> insufficiently developed fetuses are not yet *persons*, of course.

You would be surprised at what theologians believe. One of my other
dear cousins has co-authored a paper at Oxford regarding the history of
papal elections which has spurred some bloggy debate you might find
some interest in, particularly over the question of how the pope gets
his infallibility, either he gets it when he gets elected, or else the
Conclave gets the infallibility when they go into Conclave and thereby
transferrs it to the one they elect....

Of course, in keeping with the centuries long debate in the Church
between the power of the Council over the power of the Pope, John Paul
II liked the first option, while theologians of the council like the
second one... read the latest entry in my blog to read more on this,
the paper has interesting political implications for US party politics.

Both believe what they believe on particularly theological grounds.
Doing the same with stem cells and blastocysts and the mass of the
energy of the soul vs the mass of a blastocyst (which should be
measurable in vitro, by measuring the mass of a living blastocyst then
pureeing it and measuring its new mass. This is an experiment that
could be done by scientists today if it hasn't already (the data is
likely already out there unanalysed from other experiments)).

As a control, one could do the same thing with chimpanzee blastocysts
and dog blastocysts (as well as cat blastocysts to see if they have
nine times more soul-mass as a dog does to reflect their nine lives...).

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com