Firstly, thanks again for the clear reply - It's refreshing to read posts which state the author's points clearly, without emotional hyperbole.
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.
They're lying to the women (saying the parts are just tissue, yet believing them to be human organs). They're harming the women (more than necessary) to collect the tissues.
Well, I would argue that what the doctors
call the tissue/human organs is irrelevant, (seeing as the women already know that by having an abortion they will be killing the baby, and their decision is not based on what happens to the fetus afterwards). It seems your point relates more to the actual decision of having an abortion, not what happens to the fetal parts afterwards.
Technically, the parts are both tissue, and human organs - tissue is a scientific term for a collection of cells, in this case cells from a [dead] human baby. So both terms, in my opinion are accurate. The problem that you're getting at I think, is that abortion law is based on the fetus not developing to the stage of a "classical human", one that can feel pain, have thoughts etc. Although it is a valid point, I don't think it relates to what happens to the baby parts after abortion - the law states that babies can be aborted before they develop to a certain point, and PP follow these laws. I don't see any moral issue with them using the wrong technical terms for fetal organs.
If you disagree with abortion in general, or the stage at which a fetus is legally allowed to be aborted, then this is a separate issue; not related to how PP treat the fetal tissue after abortion.
Now, your point about harming women is more serious. Are you saying that clinicians are putting patients in more physical pain than necessary, to increase chances of extracting better quality fetal tissue, without the patients consent? That would be unethical IMO, but not so if they warn the patient in advance, assuming the patients have agreed to donate the fetal tissue.
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?
No, I think it's pretty obvious, they're still lying to the women and harming them more than necessary.
Again, I don't see the problem with what they call the tissue, whether it's baby/human/stem cell tissue. It's not really lying because the term is just semantic, the women already know that their baby will die, and if they desire, donated to stem cell research. But as I said, I wouldn't agree with a woman being harmed/hurt more than necessary without their consent. If there is evidence of this, I would condemn the practice.
In fact, I think that all aborted fetuses should be donated to stem cell research. It seems crazy not to use stem cells to help other people in need, when it's such an amazing resource to help people with degenerative diseases, and to grow new organs for people.
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?
That would add
another moral objection. Some women may not like it if they found out their fetus was being eaten, or used in some religious practice.
I agree that this adds another moral objection, I think it should be up to the woman having the abortion where the fetal tissue goes after the procedure.
OK, you do understand that the
cell lines used in the
research of flavour enhancers bought by Pepsi from Senomyx were from an baby aborted in 1972? Let me try and explain how far away this is from simply drinking fetal tissue:
- A baby was aborted in Holland in 1972
- A specific type of cell was taken from the kidneys of said baby
- These cells were cultured, eventually producing a cell line called Human Embryonic Kidney 293
- The original cells went through many changes (genetic transformations) before becoming HEK 293
- This cell line is used in many beneficial applications, such as cell biotechnology, especially in protein research
- Senomyx used this cell line by adding receptors to the HEK 293 cell that detect taste.
- This allows them to test many flavour additives very quickly, to see if they taste sweet or savoury etc.
- The flavour enhancer in Pepsi would have been tested on this cell line, but this is the only contact with the cell line it would have
- There would be no more contact with the cell line before the flavour enhancer is used in consumer products such as Pepsi
It's similar with vaccines, some were developed with similar cell lines derived from aborted fetuses from 20+ years ago. But they don't contain cells from an aborted fetus. Don't worry, you are not eating or being injected with bits of dead baby!
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?
Yes, the lying, and tricking people and hurting them more than necessary is still there.
Fair enough, you don't think that this is an "everybody wins" scenario? It seems that the labs get their cells (to advance medicine and save more lives), and the patient gets their premium care.
However, I do have an issue here with an underground market, which may well favour bigger/richer institutions. I feel if there
is a market for this type of commodity, the smaller guys may get pushed out, leaving only the bigger, possibly more corrupt guys (Glaxo/Bayer etc.)
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?
I suppose both had to do with lying to others, and putting them out and harming them (in different ways), so logically very similar....
However, I personally believe that killing a baby is a sin, so I think that lying to someone to get them to commit a sin is much worse. Because the women have to live with it, the fathers have to live with it, and it all might have been avoided if the PP employee had not lied to try to get an outcome.
I know some may say it's not a lie to call a baby a fetus, but here's the thing....
Killing babies was considered murder, that's why they had a court case about it. The only reason they allow the killing of tissue (babies) is because the law calls them fetuses and tissue, not babies. According to the law it is only murder when the intact baby is delivered. These PP employees are purposefully getting the intact babies, for one. But even in situations where they're not, they are calling them human organs etc. They know it's a human, and yet they just killed it to get it out. They're purposefully telling the women that it's just tissue, but they know better. That's a disgrace and immoral.
I understand and respect your opinion, although I mostly don't agree. Your justification is basically the same as earlier, stating they were "lying to others" (the harming I'm unclear on, so I won't comment on that)
My view is, the seriousness of an act of fraud should be based on the personal/societal harm inflicted by said fraud. And I'm sorry, but even if PP was committing what they're accused of, I don't think it's in the same league as, say, the ENRON scandal in terms of suffering of innocent people. Literally no-one is being victimised (apart from possibly the dead fetus, and maybe stem cell research facilities).
Your comments, such as " it all might have been avoided if the PP employee had not lied to try to get an outcome." imply that solicitation was involved. This is not the case, as far as we know, all patients were treated because they had a
personal reason for the abortion. Whether the PP employee calls it a fetus/baby/lump of cells I don't think has an effect on the final decision. After all, the woman made an appointment to have an abortion by her own free will.
I assume your quite a religious person? I'm not religious (I guess I class myself as an agnostic-atheist/humanist), but I can identify with the fact that most religions advocate peace and condemn suffering for the human species. Your last paragraph resonates with me - I can see that you have a strong sense of preserving life, which I admire.
However, you continuously reference the semantic terms the employees use (as if their terms are influencing the patients decisions) , and you need to understand that the women are going here of their own free will. They want an abortion for whatever reason, and I think we should respect that. In fact, I think that abortions help humanity as whole, by keeping population down and limiting poverty.