ziggy,
"the moral history of mankind is more important than its medical history"?
Please clarify if you would.
Are there limits to medical pursuits on moral or ethical grounds? If not then the medical history of mankind is more important than the moral history.
Josef Mengele believed that there was no moral or ethical dilemma in the research he did. Many of the researchers who do medical research on animals for the benefit of humans presents no moral or ethical dilemma. Many of the practitioners and researchers of embryonic stem cells see no moral or ethical dilemma in creating and destroying human embryos for research or for human theraputic treatments. John Edwards himself stated that he supported human theraputic cloning, and John Kerry co-sponsered a bill in the Senate that would explictly allow the creation of human embryos BY CLONING, if they are destroyed within 14 days.
So the question is "what if it is determined that 14 days is not a sufficient time by which to create and harvest the necessary embryonic stem cells, for proper theraputic benefit in humans?"
"What if it is determined that implantation of cloned embryos into human wombs, and then aborted after six months creates the greatest human medical benefit?"
"What if it is determined it is medically best to actually birth these humans derived from cloned embryos, and then destroy them to harvest organs?"
There very well be a great many medical benefits that can be derived from embryonic stem cells, but that is FAR from being determined. Even given that the possibility exists, are you prepared to do morally ambigious or ethically repugnant things in the hope that we will see someday see some breakthrough in human medical therapies?
