STEM CELL LANGUAGE ERRORS

A lady recently wrote to the local paper arguing
that stem cell research involves killing a child.
This is a widely held view, with neither truth nor
logic in its corner. Clearly, a cluster of cells that
can be frozen for years and stored cryogenically
without harm is not a baby. You can't do that
with a baby. So they are not the same, by any
stretch of the wild imagination!

The confusion comes in using the word "human"
in different and misleading ways. It is often used
as an adjective to describe tissue as human. It
can also be used as a noun to refer to a person as
a human. Mixing the terms leads to this logical
error: an embryo is living; an embryo is human,
ergo an embryo is a living human being!

No, you could do the same thing with an appen-
dix, or any other human part. It's called the fal-
lacy of composition. Here's another example:
That dog is mine. That dog is a mother. Ergo:
that dog is my mother!

The reason you can freeze embryos is because
they don't breathe. They have no lungs, or heart,
or blood or brains. In fact, there's a lot of essen-
tial human stuff they don't have. So they aren't
fully humans! How could you be, without any of
that human stuff?

An embryo is a fragmented, or partial human:
the DNA part. Otherwise, it's a cluster of cells
with a lot of potential. What dies in stem-cell
research is that particular potential. But it gives
birth to further potential for saving other lives
that are already fully functioning, but without
the research will die. It's a trade-off, isn't it?
With no easy answers of simple definitions. Be-
ware of simplicities: they may lead us astray.

Note: I'm only defending the use for stem cell
research of embryos that would otherwise be
discarded and thrown away.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net