Check it out HERE from the NYTimes, although this story is getting plenty of play elsewhere as well:

New Stem Cell Method Could Ease Ethical Concerns

By GINA KOLATA
Published: November 21, 2007
Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo — a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field. ...

One interesting result here: many people who are opposed to abortion believe that killing a fetus is tantamount to murder because it has the potential to become a person. Now, as many of us have predicted, each skin cell has the potential to become a person. So, if anti-abortionists are going to take their argument seriously, scratching your skin is tantamount to murder. Indeed, it is tantamount to many, many murders.

I should also add another clarification. Some may say that the skin cells don’t have the potential to become a person until they are modified into embryonic stem cells, so the ethical dilemma I raise is a non-issue for them. There are two responses to that evasion.

The first response is simply to say that, OK, at any rate they should be just as concerned about stem cells created from skin as any other stem cell. The ethical dilemma won’t go away for the extremists. (Although I would predict it would go away for virtually everyone else).

The second one is to note that “potential” is a very loose term here. Given modern science, under any reasonable definition, skin cells now have the potential to become humans. That potential involves some external variables, yes: the potential it has is dependent upon the modification being carried out. But the potential that an embryo has to become a person also involves external variables: if the body is going to spontaneously abort the fetus, or if the woman is going to have an abortion, then that embryo does not have the potential to become a person.

I agree, Doug, that some of them almost certainly will still complain that we are meddling in god’s work.  Of course, shouldn’t they also try to block the missionaries who claim that they are doing god’s work?

Occam

if killing a fetus is murder then having a miscarriage is involuntary manslaughter!

Since a dead spermatazoa or ovum is useless, it’s obvious that the concept of life beginning at conception is poorly thought out because the sperm and the ovum must be alive before then.  That means every ejaculation is tantamount to killing hundreds of thousands of potential humans, and each ovum that is allowed to die without being fertilized is killing one human.  It seems a rational extrapolation of the right-to-lifer’s philosophy, that the only acceptable behavior for humans in the face of god is to copulate, without any mechanisms that block conception, continuously, especially when the woman is in her fertile part of her cycle.  Those guilty of murder must be killed by those right-to-lifers who have annointed themselves god’s protectors.  That means every post-menarche female who hasn’t accomlished being pregnant every nine or ten months since then must be killed, Every male who has ever masturbated, engaged in nonvaginal sex or in vaginal sex when the woman wasn’t fertile must also be killed. 

Congenitally sterile males and females are acceptable, but, since the sins of the parents are visited on the children, all children whose parents were killed must also be killed. 

This would certainly solve our overpopulation problem.

Occam
Wordpad

Ha ha!  I get to play devil’s advocate.

In response to your post Doug, I don’t think you are stating the pro-life position fairly.  I don’t think pro-lifers interpret potential life as broadly as you say they do.  Skin cells can only replicate into a clone.  I understand that a clone, while a genetic copy, has it’s own consciousness.  However, the intended purpose of a skin cell is to be a skin cell, not become a person.  It is only through artificial manipulation that it can be converted into a clone.  A zygote/fetus/etc on the other hand was intended (by nature, God, what have you) to be a person.  There is a significant difference there.  I think your average pro-lifer would say that there’s no problem killing a skin cell but if you alter the skin cell to the point it begins developing as a separate, albeit cloned, person, then it would be unethical to kill the clone. 

Occam, as you probably know, the Catholic Church opposes contraception for the very reasons you mention.  They aren’t in favor of the widespread executions you advocate for failure though. Unfortunately, I think the Church bears some blame for the spread of AIDS in Africa for their misguided approach in other associated problems.  Once again though, I think it depends on how broadly one defines the term “potential” and I think many would say contraception in and of itself is not wrong. 

Occam I guess I echo the beliefs you described somewhat in that I have concerns about what geneticists will do.  Here I’m not talking about abortion.  The genetics field is moving fast and there are virtually no restrictions or guidelines for what is acceptable, much less legal.  Further, business has infiltrated and in many ways corrupted scientific research (see ED pills).  Business ethics (that which is profitable) may not be compatible with wider societal values.  The problem is that much of this is now done in secret so you don’t even know what is going on until it’s been done and the genie is out of the bottle so to speak. 

I could provide the sky is falling scenarios, bacteria designed to clean oil spills that go wild and kill everything in the ocean or something like that.  More likely though what would be done would just not be acceptable to many or most. 

I realize I have probably made a topic for a separate string.  Sorry.

Sir Nick, to prove involuntary manslaughter you must demonstrate that the mother (presumably the party you would charge) bore responsibility for the death through some act of negligence or some negligent failure to act.  I’m no doctor, but in most miscarriages, that would be a tough burden.

JRM5001 - 24 June 2008 10:01 AM

In response to your post Doug, I don’t think you are stating the pro-life position fairly.  I don’t think pro-lifers interpret potential life as broadly as you say they do.  Skin cells can only replicate into a clone.  I understand that a clone, while a genetic copy, has it’s own consciousness.  However, the intended purpose of a skin cell is to be a skin cell, not become a person.  It is only through artificial manipulation that it can be converted into a clone.  A zygote/fetus/etc on the other hand was intended (by nature, God, what have you) to be a person.  There is a significant difference there.  I think your average pro-lifer would say that there’s no problem killing a skin cell but if you alter the skin cell to the point it begins developing as a separate, albeit cloned, person, then it would be unethical to kill the clone. 

I dealt with this response in the balance of my post.

Has anyone addressed the issue of ‘parasitic twin’ (Abby and Brittany are pretty unique), what about the person born with the extra leg, arm, (or) head. Wouldn’t surgery to remove these potential humans be murder, by pro life standards? Wouldn’t removal interfere in ‘god’s work’?

While they do have the ‘potential’ to become a human, even if say.. you made a stem cell, you would have to introduce it to a certain environment and set specific conditions and push it to become a human, it wouldn’t just do it on it’s own. A stem cell is basically just a building block right? Logically that would make the entire argument moot. While I do agree it is in a very gray area to use an embryo, skin cells are just extra stuff we brush off every day.

Sshado - 24 June 2008 05:48 PM

While they do have the ‘potential’ to become a human, even if say.. you made a stem cell, you would have to introduce it to a certain environment and set specific conditions and push it to become a human, it wouldn’t just do it on it’s own.

True enough, but neither do any of us. We need a very controlled environment to become fully functional humans. Indeed, even to survive past infancy we need a huge support network. In that we are unlike most other animals.