Quote from: Wilikon on August 07, 2015, 01:23:41 AM

Quote from: protokol on August 06, 2015, 08:56:26 PM

Few moral questions for the people in this thread that are opposed to these practices:

1) What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of dead babies for stem cell research, illegally on the black market, and a marijuana dealer selling dank weed illegally on the black market?

- In this context, let's assume that no women were solicited to abort a baby for the purpose of making money - they did so for personal reasons. Please justify your answer logically.

2) If no money is involved, apart from legitimate expenses (which I think is what PP is claiming), so the tissue is purely donated to stem cell research with no profit to PP, does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If the parts were being sold to other, less wholesome organisations (such as underground clubs where people eat fetal tissue), does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If it turns out that PP executives were (illegally I think?) exaggerating the expenses costs, and putting that extra money back into the organisation for care-related use (more clinics/better patient care/better clinicians etc.), would that be immoral? Would your opinion change for this question if the money went to more indirect activity, such as advertising and government lobbying for PP?

4) If it turns out that PP executives were funneling this expenses money corruptly into their own personal pockets (to buy Lambos etc, which is obviously fraud), do you think that this is worse than cases of fraud in other organisations, such as the recent LIBOR scandal, or ENRON scandal in 2001. Bear in mind that these scandals were orders of magnitude worse in terms of money lost by innocent people.

If you think that the (unproven) fraud in 4) is worse than the other scandals I mentioned, can you give some justification why, and who the victims are?

Please try and keep your replies succinct and free of too much emotion. I know this is an emotive subject, and I'm not trying to upset anyone by being logical about it even though I may come across as cold and "Spock-like". Just trying to get past the emotion and see who are the real victims in the scandal. Feel free to answer as little or many of these questions as you like.

1) The babies were still alive when they got cut up. Their flesh needed to be viable for research. Injecting any kind of poison would defeat the purpose of the sale of those babies. If you believe in the respect of laws, one of them forbids the use of ultrasound to move the baby around, still inside the womb, to harvest its parts. This is what the person on the video says. That part was already covered and well answered by a lady (I believe she is a woman, on the internet no one knows for sure)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1122310.msg12028727#msg12028727

What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of still alive babies for stem cell research, and gangs in india cutting little children so they look better for begging? Absolutely no differences.
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/04/gang-profits-from-maimed-child-beggars/

The babies were always going to die, whether they were technically alive is arguable, that depends on your definition of life. It's debatable whether the ultrasound is an issue at all, as I touched on earlier.

Jesus christ, you think there's no difference between slashing a 7 year old's penis and maiming him further (to exploit him to make profit for a criminal gang), and dissecting a dead fetus to get tissue for research to save people's lives?

That's shocking. You do understand that the maimed 7 year old has a whole life ahead of him, and the fetus has literally none, (the woman's decision, not PP's)?

I read a comment on a news site about the PP scandal, to paraphrase: "It's a shame that fundie Christian Republicans care more about saving fetuses than actual real-life children. And when a girl does have an unwanted kid, the Rebublicans refuse to give enough welfare to support it!"

I'm not suggesting you're a fundie christian republican, but it reminded me of attitudes such as yours.

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2) The Case for Adult Stem Cell Research
In recent years, new methods of cellular reprogramming have enabled the derivation of so-called induced pluripitent stem (iPS) cells, which seem to have the full powers of embryonic stem cells but are from adult body cells.
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/section.php?id=71

Bloodletting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting was believed to be the most amazing advance in medicine for centuries, until it became clear it was a useless barbaric tradition, or as scientific as alchemy. The same fate will happen to the barbarism of cutting up still alive babies. Why would anyone want to defend the past is beyond me...

Don't quite see how this relates to my question, but yeah the research into adult stem cell harvesting is certainly interesting. However they don't seem to have the potential of embryonic stem cells.

Quite why you talk about bloodletting, is a mystery to me. Are you trolling? Bloodletting was stopped because people realized it was detrimental and killed people. Stem cell research helps save people's lives and advance science.

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3.1) Like cannibalism, or eating the placenta?
http://www.webmd.com/baby/should-i-eat-my-placenta

The core of your questions is based on the belief that a baby is not human. Maybe you believe it becomes human as soon as it takes it first breath? Or maybe you believe post natal abortions is as justified as pre natal abortion? I do not believe a human, at any stage of its development, is a product, like weed in the pocket of an undercover cop. I am trying to answer based on my belief but going into that hypothesis is a moot point to me. Not a product, so no other possibilites to make money off baby body parts.

I meant cannibalism. My question cannot be based on any belief, the answer arguably could though.

See, It's hard to discuss with you because instead of answering simple questions, you speculate on my opinion and ask me more questions. If you just addressed what I said, it would make things easier.

Anyway, the definition of a commodity/product is simply something that has value to others. I posted a link earlier which gave instructions on how to sell a poo for $40. Do you also disagree with sperm banks? They are a stage in human development.

Your points are related to actual abortion, not what happens to the fetus afterwards.

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3.2) The fundamental of your question is "innocent until proven guilty, guilty being doing something like ticket scalping on a side to make pp better". Why would anyone be against cheating the IRS? How come they don't talk about what you believe they should be talking? No one forced them to say what they said in the videos. If you believe tax payers should pay more for pp then that is your position. What was that? $500M they get already? 0bamacare is supposed to do everything pp is supposed to do. PP does not need to exist, thanks to 0bamacare. Why would anyone be for government waste of money in purpose? I will never understand.

What? This hyperbole is unrelated to my question, and pretty unintelligible.

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4) If a baby is a product, or commodity in your mind, then I understand your need to compare what we see in the videos, and Enron. ..." in terms of money lost by innocent people. "
Baby being cut up for profit = innocent victims. If I use your example then pp is Enron, a profiteer selling the flesh, LITTERALLY, of innoncent people.

"Spock-like"
How many hearts does mr spock have?
Vulcans only have one, but it is located where the human liver would be

You are obviously not a... Vulcan...

No, I don't think live babies are commodities. But dead ones are, because they were aborted by the free will of the mother. They have value, and fit the definition of commodity. It's cold, but it's the truth.

Dead babies don't kill themselves after a life of suffering, as a result of fraudulent lenders repossessing their house (for example). That's why corporate fraud is on another level to what we're talking about here. Live long and prosper, don't die in a meth lab explosion because your mother couldn't support you.