Jim, I am with you completely in this and the other posts you have written on this issue, and I believe your words carry much weight precisely because of the position you are in physically. Terri Schiavo's case horrified me, that people could not discern the difference between turning off the life support of someone who is brain dead vs. actively starving someone who had a loving family who wanted to care for her. And, by the way, you're one of the most productive members of society that I know. :-) Barbara H. _http://barbarah.wordpress.com/_ (http://barbarah.wordpress.com/) In a message dated 3/26/2009 8:08:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jlu...@eskimo.com writes:
They are just going to throw those unused blastocysts away only because someone is making the choice to do so. After they are created they remain frozen indefinitely until a decision is made by someone to remove them from their frozen state. I've seen the argument be made that they are going to die anyway so why not use them to help others, such as organ donation. I started thing about that reasoning a few years ago. As someone who is only being kept alive by a ventilator breathing for me I began thinking that "someone" could decide that if I was taken off the ventilator I would die anyway so why not use my organs to better someone else's life. Someone might decide that my heart, my liver, my lungs would be better used by someone else who might be more important or more productive, less of a burden cost wise, to society. I am not an organ donor. Remember the Terri Schiavo case in 2005? It was a big topic on the vent-users list. Her husband claimed she was in a Persistent vegetative state, her family said she was not. The media kept saying they want to remove her from "life support". She was not on life support, she had a feeding tube. Big difference. A ventilator is life support. Her feeding tube was removed and she was starved to death because nutrition was withheld. It was very scary to everyone who is on life support they way people were fighting to get her feeding tube removed. If people felt so strongly about her being removed what about us? I believe that human life begins at conception and that those blastocytes should be protected until natural death. Use them what they were created for or keep them frozen (i.e. on life support). I don't think these blastocytes should have been created in the first place, if a couple can't have a baby without intervention then it's not meant to be. That's just what I believe. Obviously it's legal so the world doesn't operate the way I believe. Jim At 10:24 AM 3/26/2009, Westgold wrote: They just throw those unused blastocytes in the garbage, they end up in some medical waste dump somewhere. Would you rather than that, than see those cells being used to help cure a lot of horrible diseases? You say that you support organ donation -- isn't giving these blastocytes a chance to help save somoene's life similar to organ donation? Don't you think they would rather do some good with whatever life they have, rather than just be thrown in a dump? ---- Jim Lubin jlu...@eskimo.com _http://makoa.org/jim_ (http://makoa.org/jim) disAbility Resources: _http://www.makoa.org _ (http://www.makoa.org/) **************Free Credit Report and Score Tracking! Get it Now for $0 at CreditReport.com. (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220474599x1201401934/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.creditreport.com%3Fsrc%3Daolemail%26kwd%3Dmlftrtextlin k)
