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Stem Cells, Babies and Us
North Miami Beach, FL July 1, 2001 Aaron H.
Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then, Opinions pro or con are welcome.
STEM CELLS, BABIES AND US
In the "GOD" (Good Old Days) we were born, sometimes got sick, lived and
then died. In these days we can look forward to intervention in many
different ways to cause birth to mean something more. It is now like being
born, eliminating the causes of sickness, expanding the meaning of living
and prolong life beyond expectations of death.
Intervention in one's life means something like this. You have drowned,
you have ceased breathing, your heart has stopped and to all who witness the
event you have died. There is someone, however, who turns you over, puts
your head to the side and presses down on your back. Water drains out of
your mouth and there is no obstruction in your throat. He then flips you
over and gives you mouth to mouth. This stimulates your system, you breath,
cough up more water and your heart resumes its beat. You are alive. This is
hardly the best example although there are so many times when people are
brought back from that endless tunnel.
But, can we afford to interfere with the life process endlessly? Right this
moment several families are hoping to save their barely living children by
breeding another to provide tissues that can halt the expected death
process. We have learned that "stem cells", produced by an embryo's
dividing cells to produce a living human being, can be used to "repair" and
"grow new organs" in those of us with failing parts.
There are those who say that aborted embryos and children who are born
without hope to live can save those of us in need. They are not alive and
are "thrown away". Their "stem cells" can intervene between life and death
for others. The blood in umbilical chords is invaluable for many reasons.
This with "afterbirth" is routinely discarded.
We can probably produce a whole line of mechanical and mixed machine and
living parts to suit requirements of those of us in need. Our technology,
our research and capabilities and our inventiveness have created a whole new
approach to mating flesh with machines. We, as a living generation, are in
striking distance to keep selected individuals in good shape and alive when
in another age they would have died off. It is a given, of course, that the
rich among us will be able to afford the cost. The process called "natural
selection" has taught us that if we allow defective individuals to die off
they will not pass on their weaker genes thus insuring that the fitter and
the stronger prevail. We daily intervene with this scenario.
The ethicists are concerned. The bible thumpers are concerned and the
environmentalists are concerned. The entrepreneurs are making money in the
race to provide those who can afford them, new parts and a contract to keep
you alive - possibly forever. There are frozen "corpsicles" stored in deep
freezers awaiting future cures that will bring them back to life in some
future time.
And yet, there are those of us who gladly await and perhaps would assist
our own "passing". The illnesses and cancers that make life a hell provide
the incentives to call in "death doctors" or travel to a state or country
that allow people to decide when they die.
Some among us have a need to create golems and Frankensteins. The androids
of the future are here already. E.T's. need not come. Our thinking machines
are helping us makeover ourselves into what once was a fiction story -
science fiction. What do you think? Carol's Evaluation:10 out of 10.
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