bioethics of fetal experimentation in conjunction with abortion

Discussion in 'Abortion' started by kazenatsu, Oct 13, 2020.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Prepare for another bizarre abortion thread. This one concerns sci-fi and bioethics, but it does touch on abortion.

    I was watching a recap of the plot of the 2009 film Splice, when something struck out.
    Two scientists, a man and a woman, decide to splice together human DNA with the DNA from multiple animals, even though their bosses at the research company denied their proposal and clearly told them not to.
    The man scientist's initial plan is to just develop the creature into a fetus, and then abort it.
    Then they can dissect the body parts and perform a study on it.
    However, as the creature keeps growing in an artificial womb, the woman scientist has a change of heart and wants to let it keep on growing.
    They end up letting the creature keep on growing into a young child.

    Now, obviously after that all hell ensues, they've created a monster. But the future consequences of what they did are not immediately apparent to them at the time.

    It later emerges in the story that the human DNA they used originated from the woman scientist's own eggs. She didn't tell her partner, the man scientist.
    So when she saw the half-human baby creature growing in the womb, her motherly instincts took over and she didn't want to kill it, as they had originally planned.

    Well anyway, here's the bioethics issue.

    It would obviously be very controversial and ethically questionable to start manipulating human DNA like this and then bring a child into the world.

    However, if there is nothing morally wrong with abortion (like pro-choicers frequently and often claim) then it raises the question of whether there would be anything wrong conducting genetic experimentation on human beings, so long as you were planning to abort them before they reached some certain gestational age of development.
    Because they're "not really human beings", so it should be okay to experiment, right?

    However, pro-choicers say they believe the woman should have the choice, that whatever choice she makes is right, and that it should never be too late for her to change her mind or change her decision. And pro-lifers believe life is never the wrong choice.

    So a question: In this sort of situation, would it be okay for the woman to choose life?
    Even knowing she had messed around with nature at the point of conception and created a possible monster, that she could bring into the world a child who would likely be totally messed up and abnormal.

    And if this is wrong, what part of it is wrong, exactly?
    That she chose to perform genetic manipulation involving human DNA to grow a fetus?
    Or that she changed her mind and decided not to do the abortion?

    I would say that if either of these two are right, it seems to blow a hole in some of the usual pro-choice arguments we typically hear.

    Is human experimentation in embryonic stages wrong? If so, why is that the case? Is it because the fetus is a person and has rights not to be experimented on with crazy genetic manipulation?
    Does it have to do with potentiality of the developing human being?
    (Even though that potentiality is only a possibility, and the intention that was set out with was to abort it before it goes into further developmental stages)
     
  2. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Your wannabe Fascist-in-Chief is loudly BRAGGING about the TREATMENT he received for his Covid-19 INFECTION.

    That treatment INCLUDED drugs that were DERIVED from FETAL TISSUES!

    Your wannabe Fascist-in-Chief might NOT have survived WITHOUT those drugs given that he is in a HIGH RISK group.

    The HYPOCRISY is OBVIOUS!
     
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  3. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Science fiction, fairy tales, make believe do not make an argument.

    What ""seems to blow a hole in some of the usual pro-choice arguments we typically hear.""" ?

    I didn't see anything that should destroy women's right to bodily autonomy.
     
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  4. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your post is totally off-topic here.
    In addition to that, I will quickly say that these human cell lines can now easily be obtained without having to harvest fetal tissue, so the line of cell culture that was originally derived from fetal tissue in the 70s is indistinguishable from newer cell lines that are not.
    I'd say it's pretty much a moot point now. We are talking about human cells grown in a petri dish, and where the ancestor cells originally came from.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I didn't say it would do that. I said it would "blow a hole in some of the usual pro-choice arguments we typically hear".

    Do you need me to explain how it does that?
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
  6. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you want, I could give you some examples of how this sort of situation could exist in real life.

    This is a bioethics dilemma that does not only exist in science fiction.

    I would have thought you would have been able to figure that out.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If it is true that a woman should be denied choice, in certain situations.
    If it is true that her choice can be clearly ethically/morally wrong, in certain situations.
    If it is true that a woman should not have freedom over "her body" (and by that I am including her developing offspring).

    If it is true that it is a human being, which, while it might not have the right not to be aborted, has the right not to be genetically manipulated and experimented upon.

    To state what should be COMPLETELY obvious, these are all types of reasoning you would need to be able to justify a scenario like this as wrong.

    Although with you, FoxHastings, judging by your past radical abortion views you have expressed, maybe you don't think any of this is wrong?
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
  8. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Yup! That will be interesting :)

    Yu haven't come close yet !
     
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  9. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    I would have thought you could figure out that it has nothing to do with women's right to bodily autonomy or laws pertaining to abortion BY NOW.
     
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  10. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    LOL! My "radical abortion views" ??

    ...and what, to you is "radical"...women having rights like you have !!??? Is that what's "radical" to you?? LOLOL
     
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  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So did the woman scientist in this (fictional) situation have the right to do what she did?
     
  12. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    It's FICTION....and why should I answer any of your questions when you don't answer mine.

    This will be another RADICAL thread where facts override any point...(if there ever was one).

    ..and your question has nothing to do with abortion.

    ...and what, to you is "radical"...women having rights like you have !!??? Is that what's "radical" to you?? LOLOL
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
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  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've already explained to you that the concept I am describing is not fiction. Would you like me to point you to some more real life examples?

    Is it too hard for you to deal with a fictional hypothetical, even though the ethical principles are still the same as they are in numerous real types of situations?

    Oh, I would say it does. It gets at the ethical principles that underlies the issue of abortion.
    When you can see how these same principles work in a different situation, it can help you better understand how these principles should work in a situation we are concerned about.

    If your argument doesn't seem to work very well in a different situation (no matter how unlikely or fictional), then that really pops out as a red flag that maybe your argument doesn't really work in the situation of a regular abortion.
     
  14. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You know, FoxHastings and Derideo_Te, what I should have done is say that would address your posts, but not on the first page.
    Because it has now been 12 posts down, and not a single on of them has really addressed the issue in the opening post.

    It's almost like you two don't really have a counterargument and were just trying to deflect, with a bunch of whataboutism, on the very first page.
    Like maybe you think you can "win" the argument by just quickly derailing the thread.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2020
  15. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    I didn't HAVE an argument in this thread....what "argument" are you talking about?

    You post something and then just SAY, "I beat your argument"...when you didn't provide facts or a POINT

    You haven't made a POINT (as usual).


    Your OP doesn't PROVE anything about abortion...nothing...there is NO argument..

    Just UNanswered INCONVENIENT questions like:

    What, to you is "radical"...women having rights like you have !!??? Is that what's "radical" to you?? LOLOL

    WHEN are you going to """blow a hole in some of the usual pro-choice arguments we typically hear".""


    Haven't seen any holes yet :)
     
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  16. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    UH, your OP was "whataboutism" :)
     
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  17. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Wrong again!

    Your TOPIC is as follows;

    "bioethics of fetal experimentation in conjunction with abortion..."

    That means that the topic INCLUDES the use of fetal tissue in ALL experimentation REGARDLESS as to WHAT drugs are being DEVELOPED.

    Your attempt to confine your topic to only abortion related fetal tissue is a patent attempt to AVOID having to address the REALITY that there is BLATANT HYPOCRISY when it comes to the USE of the DRUGS developed from fetal tissue.

    I can understand WHY you are trying to AVOID dealing with that HYPOCRISY but it is TOPICAL because you STIPULATED it in your topic heading.

    Unfortunately you have a documented track record of disingenuously attempting to IGNORE the INCONVENIENT truths that EXPOSE the FALLACIES in your OP's.

    This is just another of those OP's and having the FALLACY exposed is part of what having civil debates are all about.

    YOU do NOT get to CENSOR others when your OWN topic INCLUDES the CONTENT that EXPOSES the fallacy that you are trying to promote.
     
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  18. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    :applause:
     
  19. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Yup!

    FICTIONAL whataboutism to be precise.

    However as soon as we expose the OP topic to REALITY like women's RIGHTS and the ACTUAL use of fetal tissue the result is a hissyfit.

    :roflol:
     
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  20. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Do either of you care to actually address the opening post? I'll take it that you do not.
     
  21. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But not automatically right or wrong - that would depend on the specific details and circumstances.

    Morality is a function of intent and predictable consequence, not the action in and of itself. Abortion as an abstract concept is amoral. How, when and why it happens determines the morality in any given circumstance. Killing an adult may or may not be moral depending on circumstances. Having sex may or may not be moral depending on circumstances. You go on to describe a specific set of circumstances which will be entirely different to those of many actual pregnant woman deciding whether to proceed with their pregnancy and therefore the moral questions are also entirely different in each and every case (real or hypothetical).

    It isn't automatically wrong. Genetic experimentation on "born people" isn't automatically wrong. In both cases I'd suggest there would be a very high barrier of efficacy, safety and necessity but it could theoretically be justified. I'm personally not convinced that barrier could be reached in relation to intentionally making a woman pregnant for the sole purpose of experimenting on the foetus and then aborting it though.

    Well "wrong" is very much a matter of opinion but we all generally have the freedom to make "wrong" decisions in our lives without any formal prevention or punishment.

    Not "OK" in my opinion but if we'd allowed a situation to reach that point, the pregnant woman would have to have a significant (and almost certainly, final) level of say. That'd be a major reason why I don't think this kind of experiment should or ever will happen.

    Of course, you'd have the same question in the case of a natural pregnancy where the development of the foetus is found to be so flawed as to make it impossible for the child to have any meaningful life if they were taken to term. There are some abortion opponents who would deny one even in those circumstances but assuming you're not one of them, that would suggest that in these circumstances the abortion itself wouldn't be the immoral act, the immoral act would be intentionally (or negligently) creating the situation where a woman would be in that position.

    As is so often the case, abortion isn't the "right" option, it's only a least worst option in a situation with no "right" answer at all.
     
  22. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Maybe, but I think you can't look at these two decisions in isolation.

    Otherwise you're basically saying "I'm going to totally mess up my fetus because it's just a fetus, and it will get aborted before it turns into anything"
    and then
    "I'm going to abort now because I f(*)(*)(*)ed up, and it wouldn't be fair to the baby to not abort it now"

    There's a big problem if those two lines of reasoning don't get reconciled together.

    Yes, it's true, each of the two lines of reasoning might be logical, on their, by themselves. But that is not necessarily still the same case when they are combined together.

    You created the circumstances whereby you had adequate reason to need to abort later.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2020
  23. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So do you believe what these scientists did in this fictional movie "wasn't wrong"?


    If that's too hypothetical and abstract for you, what about a woman who binge drinks during earlier pregnancy, with the rationale she's just going to abort later?

    (But if she does later change her mind, she'll likely give birth to a child with fetal alcohol syndrome, which can be a permanent lifelong condition)
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2020
  24. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Do you intend to answer those pertinent but inconvenient ;) questions on your opening post and subsequent comments ?

    I'll take it you do not.




    WHEN are you going to """blow a hole in some of the usual pro-choice arguments we typically hear".""
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2020
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  25. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I never suggested we should. I don't even see them as two decisions since the stated plan is abortion from the outset. The fact remains that the moral questions surrounding the hypothetical experiment are more about the idea of the experiment itself than just abortion. That is just one aspect of it. The moral questions surrounding natural but unwanted pregnancies are entirely different, regardless of the fact that the option of abortion is one aspect of that too.

    Yes, and you highlighted where the core moral issue lies in that scenario.

    Overall it would be wrong, but that's my personal opinion. There are different and wider questions as to whether such behaviour should be limited, prevented by regulation or criminalised and I don't pretend to have all the answers to that.

    There would clearly be lots wrong in that odd scenario, depending on the specific circumstances, but any fundamental moral position on the concept of abortion wouldn't be one of them.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2020

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