YOU CAN'T THAW A BABY

[FOTD]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090422_16_A1_OKLAHO207627

For the first time in my life , I am really proud of my Chamber.

MOE RONS! This is what happens when you cut education.

If an embryo was a baby, you couldn't freeze it and then thaw it out to use. Even a comedian like Bill Maher knows this.

Can we cut and run from the idiots who refuse to honor our constitution by mixing religion with government. Oklahoma went from land of the red man to theocratic rule in just under 100 years. A bunch of losers. Ever wonder why our Chambers are afraid of this idiocy passing? It will force all the educated people and all those desiring a higher education somewhere else.

[waterboy]

What I don't understand is Peterson and others like her who insist on selectively using their arguments. If life begins at conception and these embryos have the protection of law, why aren't they trying to stop fertility clinics ever even creating then freezing the unused embros? Or is that their final target? To eliminate an entire industry whose purpose is creating life?

To go after the frozen embryos that are no longer "life" seems kind of strange logic.

[sgrizzle]

Shouldn't the thread title be "You can't THAW a baby" (even more technically, reanimate) because technically you CAN freeze it.

I normally side with the same group of people who are against embryonic stem cell research but not in this case. The whole reason they are protesting is that it is one way to get a stab at the abortion issue. Has nothing to do with stem cells.

[MichaelBates]

Shouldn't the thread title be "You can't THAW a baby" (even more technically, reanimate) because technically you CAN freeze it.

Actually, you can. State Sen. Mike Mazzei has three children who were frozen embryos once upon a time. There are even agencies that handle embryo adoptions:

http://www.nightlight.org/programs_SnowflakesFrozenEmbryoFaqs.html

[sgrizzle]

Actually, you can. State Sen. Mike Mazzei has three children who were frozen embryos once upon a time. There are even agencies that handle embryo adoptions:

http://www.nightlight.org/programs_SnowflakesFrozenEmbryoFaqs.html

AOXMAFOD was talking about AFTER birth.

[Conan71]

[TheArtist]

A good part of all of these arguments hinge on using "fuzzy words" and phrases. Words that have multiple meanings. You can start a discussion and use a word one way, then end up using the word in another,,, and easily lose track. Unless you decide exactly what a particular word means in a particular context, its impossible to have a rational argument that gets to any truth.

"Human life" Do not destroy or kill human life.

If I have my back molar removed, would I not be destroying human life? My back molar is alive is it not? Its human is it not? Its certainly not "dog life" lol. 

I would even say that a back molar is more fully human, has more "cell differentiations" nerves, blood vessels, bone, etc. than a blastocyst.

The difference is of course that a tooth, cant (at this time) become... well what? A human? But, isn't it human already? See how words that are not precisely defined and understood that way by everyone can get slippery. Its that element which is often used in rhetoric to mislead, even unintentionally.

Intentionally or not it often follows this route...

State a truth. (makes you sound authoritative and right) "people applaud"
State a half truth that people want to believe. (or don't precisely understand) "many applaud and smile, others go, Hmmm? "
Then its an easy, slip into the lie, or complete misunderstanding. "many cheer while others get very worried"

Those who do not wish to find the truth, fear defining their words. 

[rwarn17588]

Actually, you can. State Sen. Mike Mazzei has three children who were frozen embryos once upon a time. There are even agencies that handle embryo adoptions:

http://www.nightlight.org/programs_SnowflakesFrozenEmbryoFaqs.html

Which overlooks the fact that the supply of frozen embryos vastly outnumbers the people who are adopting them.

So ... are you advocating outlawing fertility treatments that create all these additional embryos?

Or do you advocate simply throwing them away as they do now, instead of using them for potentially useful research or treatment?

[Townsend]

Frozen baby mommoths have been found.  You can definately freeze a baby.

If this is signed and the Tulsa Dam money is not I will have a freaking come-apart in my head...c'mon common sense...rear your head.

Let's move forward, never backward, upward, never downward and constantly twirling toward the future.

[cannon_fodder]

Kudos to the chambers.  The stem cell debate is one made up by the Christian right.  There is very little to actually debate.  

The basic argument against stem cell research is that it "destroys" a human life.  Ignoring my disagreement with the statement, fundamentally it STILL fails.   Show me one person who had a fetus aborted or an embryo extracted to use for stem cell research that otherwise would have done whatever was needed to turn it into a viable person.

"Honey, I'm so excited for our baby to be born."

"Oooh sorry Husband, I wanted to support stem cell research so I had an abortion."  

or

"I'm glad we got the fertility treatments and am excited to finally have children!"

"Well too bad.  I know we paid thousands of dollars for the treatments and to create embryos, but I donated them to science."

Someone find someone who has actually done this.  I highly doubt any human life has been prevented from reaching its potential because of stem cell, or any other research.  There are hundreds of thousands of abortions a year and probably an equal number of embryos discarded - and for 8 years none have been used to support stem cell research yet it continues. So it doesn't seem like that would be a driving force.   If I am missing an angle, point it out to me - but it just doesn't make sense.

The argument therefor is:   It is better to throw embryos or fetuses into the trash than to use them in an effort to save human life.

I don't get how anyone can agree with that statement.  Even if God tells you to value an embryo as a human life, wouldn't it then be better to utilize it to support human life rather than throw it away?  If you are arguing that every embryo, sperm, egg, etc. MUST BY LAW be utilized to create human life - then the argument at least has logical merit.  Short of that it is a break in logic.  

And if you are arguing is indeed for laws that say your religious views should dictate all aspects of fertility, I'd like to point out that I disagree with your religious views.  What your God or Gods tell you to do has no bearing on me.  My punishment will be to rot in your loving God's hell, volcano, or to be reincarnated as a lesser life form.  Our government shouldn't enable your God to dictate my life.

Oklahoma is doing its best to assume the thrown as the backwater of the Western World.  Representatives going on homophobic tirades, constant efforts to insert creation myths into science classrooms (but only Christian ones), constant worries that the State might grant civil unions to "the gays," placing religious icons at the Capital grounds, and banning stem cell research for Jesus.  Mississippi would be so proud.

I remember in the Bible how Jesus tried to change Roman law to force everyone to live the way he saw fit.  Yep.  Jesus was always forcing people to do things that he thought was right and condemning people for practicing their own beliefs.  In fact, I think most of his actions could be summed up as "I'm right, you're wrong, so I'll just make you do what I say."  Sounds like what I read.

The only benefit of banning stem cell research is for religious people to feel righteous for forcing their beliefs on others.   Most likely the same people will happily take whatever treatments are developed from the ongoing research and then thank their God for a healthy life that they fought hard to prevent in His name.  Funny how that works?


I assume Senator Mike Mazzei, like all people who seek fertility help at this level, had a rather large number of embryos created.  Then, depending on the age and health of his wife, they had a number of embryos implanted.  Generally 2 - 5 (at $13000 a pop, people want it to work).  Then, depending on how many "took" the number was culled to one or two.   Since Mike has triplets I will assume he didn't follow the recommended practice and that they had 3 implanted and 3 births resulted.

However, it is still likely (if not inevitable) that the clinic created more embryos than 3 in their effort to get 3 viable embryos.  As many eggs are harvested as possible, many of the good ones will be fertilized in an attempt get "good ones" to take.  Usually 5-10 "embryos" are created in an effort to find enough Grade 4 or higher embryos to implant (lower than that and success rates are very low).   

Depending on your beliefs, life is destroyed at each step.  Some eggs are not good enough to fertilize and are discarded, some of the fertilized eggs are not good enough to develop and are discarded, and some the "embryos" (in my NOVICE understanding, they are not really embryos at this point) are not good enough to implant.  THEN, if the couple is lucky, they end up with too many viable to implant (under 35, 2 is the ethical guideline to implant).  And often when implanted they still don't produce viable humans.  And what of the additional embyros that are viable and not implanted?  Frozen forever or should people be forced to utilize them?

So who gets to decide at what stages its murder?

[feel totally free to correct my fertility knowledge.  I looked it up previously but am no expert]

[FOTD]

Actually, you can. State Sen. Mike Mazzei has three children who were frozen embryos once upon a time. There are even agencies that handle embryo adoptions:

http://www.nightlight.org/programs_SnowflakesFrozenEmbryoFaqs.html

How does this guy have any remaining credibility?

[rwarn17588]

How does this guy have any remaining credibility?

Why is adopting a frozen embryo equivalent to losing your credibility? If you wish to do so because of moral reasons, I don't have a problem with it. It's your choice, after all.

[FOTD]

Why is adopting a frozen embryo equivalent to losing your credibility? If you wish to do so because of moral reasons, I don't have a problem with it. It's your choice, after all.

wrong guy....

[waterboy]

Mazzei apparently participated in an exercize that involved disposing, or freezing, the unused eggs and embryos to end up with triplets. That is the hypocrisy with this group. If it is life, then save it at all stages, not just when it is being used for stem cell research. They seem to think that its okay to keep these embryos frozen in some sort of purgatory for ever, just don't use them to improve others lives or destroy them. Weird.

[nathanm]

Actually, you can. State Sen. Mike Mazzei has three children who were frozen embryos once upon a time. There are even agencies that handle embryo adoptions:

http://www.nightlight.org/programs_SnowflakesFrozenEmbryoFaqs.html

I see you can't grasp the difference between "baby" and "embryo." I thought writers were supposed to have good command of the english language.