Do embryonic stem cells have souls?

Question

When a fertility clinic makes 7 or so different embryos for impregnating a women, they dispose of the other 6 that aren't needed. Are they murdering souls?

Answer 1

stem cells are part of embryos

embryos, just like fetuses, just like infants, just like toddlers, just like children, just like teenagers, just like adults, just like elders, are human beings

whether or not they have souls is immaterial

the fact that they are human beings means that it is immoral to sacrifice embryos for their stem cells

just like it is immoral to cut off a baby boy's foreskin to harvest the fibroblasts in it for research

the fibroblasts, and the stem cells, are first and foremost for the use of the human beings from which they came

it may be unethical to take embryos donated by mothers who have aborted their pregnancies because the mother may have partly or wholly based her decision on the idea that the embryo's stem cells will benefit research.

what is the foundation of research ethics though? - that the research participant's safety is upheld above any and all potential advancements in scientific knowledge.

this includes not killing the participant, and therefore it is unethical to use stem cells from embryos whose mothers have aborted them based in whole or in part on the idea that this will benefit science.

Answer 2

First of all, souls don't exist. There is absolutely no scientific evidence for them...your "self" (your thoughts, personality, etc) is in your brain, and after this ceases, so does the concept of "you."

Second, from this article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/20/MN58092.DTL
"Out of all the embryos created by sexual intercourse, roughly 3 out of 4 do not last long enough to produce a baby. About half of the fertilized eggs are lost even before the woman misses her first period following conception."
In IVF, doctors only reproduce what is done naturally, creating more embryos to better the chances of pregnancy. These extra embryos would die naturally anyway. To call an embryo a "future person" is just ridiculous.

From this article:http://mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com/2005/06/in-vitro-fertilization-and-stem-cells.html
"I go into this level of detail because, despite all that effort, none of those embryos ever turned into a real, live baby. So perhaps you'll understand why I can't agree with the "life begins at conception" crowd. If conception were all it took, I'd have more than one child today. Those collections of cells had the possibility of becoming a human being if a lot of things went right, but most of the time, something doesn't go perfectly, and the embryos fall to implant. Or they implant in the wrong place. Or they implant but fail to continue to develop. Or you can even end up in a kind of limbo for a month, with some indication that maybe something is happening, only to find a month later when an ultrasound can be done that whatever was happening in there, it wasn't a baby growing in the uterus.

So, yes, I'm in favor of stem cell research using left-over, unused IVF embryos. There's enormous potential to save the lives of actual, living human beings, at the cost of embryos which, yes, have some potential to become human beings, but are very unlikely to do so. The alternative is to throw away those unused embryos.

I have a hard time understanding why some people are opposed to using these unused embryos, unless they are also opposed to IVF in general. Maybe they just weren't aware of how IVF worked; maybe IVF will be their next target. I have read some comments expressing unease about IVF once people learned how the process worked. I think one important factor to keep in mind is that in nature, in unaided conception, this process happens regularly, too. That is, not every fertilized egg implants, not every embryo survives, and often this happens without any awareness that there was ever a fertilized egg."
"The rhetoric opposing the stem cell bill essentially equated these left-over embryos with real human beings, as if there's no difference between an 8-cell embryo and you or I. It's an interesting definition of a human being, I suppose, but not a very realistic or practical one. Why stop at fertilization? Why not treat sperm and eggs as real live human beings? 8-cell embryos aren't really much closer to a human being than an unfertilized egg.

An 8 cell embryo is like a lottery ticket. Just like a lottery ticket gives you a chance at a pile of cash, an embryo gives you a chance at a human being. But an embryo is no more a human being than a lottery ticket is a pile of cash."

Answer 3

despite if or no longer that's immoral should not be the priority. did you recognize that person stem cells are already used to treatment many medical circumstances? so some distance, toddler stem cells have not performed a factor different than instantaneous newspapers to theorize that they'd substitute the worldwide in some years. you in addition to would could ask your self why, if toddler stem cells are the substantial to curing each thing (or a minimum of various issues), why maximum inner maximum medical companies have not started their very very own examine. the respond is: via fact toddler stem cellular examine isn't as powerful as person stem cellular examine, and not as rewarding.

Answer 4

It's hard to say what is moral or not i think if their using an embryo that being destroyed anyway should be used to help another person.
I don't think think they should be be doing things that are immoral.
I don't like the fact that they want to start cloning humans.

Answer 5

God has not yet made this answer known, but consider:
The reason God gets so irked at adultery and fornication and murder, is because people are messing with the sacred power of a human life, and since embryos technically are human, I myself would equate it.

Answer 6

The stem cells no but I believe that the embryos they harvest them from do.

Answer 7

Neither embryos, nor stem cell have souls. Neither do you and I though.

Answer 8

Yes. And everytime you brush your teeth or comb you're hair, you wipe away thousands of living cells. You are murdering souls all day long you heartless killer.

Answer 9

No one has a soul. there is no such thing. so to answer your question more spicificaly, no stem cells do not have souls.

Answer 10

According to Dubya they do have souls, even though they are very tiny souls.