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Breeding brainless humans still raises as much ethical questions as abortion and cloning does. Eliminating the potential for brain development deprives my clone

by samus 6y ago

Breeding brainless humans still raises as much ethical questions as abortion and cloning does. Eliminating the potential for brain development deprives my clone of a possibility of independent existence just as much as abortion does. Also, it's debatable whether it is ethical to decide differently between the fate of my clone and of my conventional offspring. My clone carries my DNA, but I'd argue it would grow up to become a rather different person than me. Even in a jurisdiction where abortion is legal, these above considerations cannot be considered to be clarified. Abortion represents a certain stance about the tradeoff between the rights of mothers regarding their bodies and of the fetus's right to live. The former completely disappears if the brainless clone is grown in a vat. It is replaced by the original's desire for health and a long life.

echelon 6y ago
> Eliminating the potential for brain development deprives my clone of a possibility of independent existence just as much as abortion does. This is a silly argument. Not reproducing during every ovulation and spermatogenesis cycle does the same. Likewise in your argument, cutting someone that is braindead from life support could be depriving them. Persons come about through learning and experience. Cells alone aren't persons.
- samus 6y ago
  > This is a silly argument. Not reproducing during every ovulation and spermatogenesis cycle does the same. This is actually, sort of, the point of view of many Christian organizations: sexuality is to be used for procreation only. > Likewise in your argument, cutting someone that is braindead from life support could be depriving them. The question is always about in which situations it is ethical to decide about the existence of another person. I'm quite optimistic humans won't ever achieve a consensus about this. Which is good - it means that we stay aware of those questions. Sorry about high-roading here - my point was that also in this case the ethic questions are not trivial because facilitating brainlessness is an active act during a similar phase of a human's existence as abortion. Because of this, I'm positive that jurisdictions allowing abortion will eventually allow growing brainless humans.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Honestly curious, can you name any one of the 80,000 Protestant denominations that believe sex is only for procreation? Am more familiar with the Catholic view: https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/catholic-teaching/upload/Unitive-and-Proc-Nature-of-Interc.pdf https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/...
    - samus 6y ago
      Martin Luther and John Calvin were firmly in the anti-masturbation camp. The modern stance of Protestant churches varies though. The German, Swedish and Finnish Protestant churches do not view it as a sin. Others do so though. As you indicated though, it's quite hard to paint over so many organizations with a broad stroke: http://mcsletstalk.org/seminarian-essay-contest/sexual-integrity-in-the-lutheran-church/ http://mcsletstalk.org/seminarian-essay-contest/sexual-integ... https://wels.net/faq/masturbation/ https://wels.net/faq/masturbation/ https://www.tenth.org/resource-library/articles/the-lust-of-the-eyes/ https://www.tenth.org/resource-library/articles/the-lust-of-...

by samus 6y ago

echelon 6y ago

> Eliminating the potential for brain development deprives my clone of a possibility of independent existence just as much as abortion does. This is a silly argument. Not reproducing during every ovulation and spermatogenesis cycle does the same. Likewise in your argument, cutting someone that is braindead from life support could be depriving them. Persons come about through learning and experience. Cells alone aren't persons.

samus 6y ago
> This is a silly argument. Not reproducing during every ovulation and spermatogenesis cycle does the same. This is actually, sort of, the point of view of many Christian organizations: sexuality is to be used for procreation only. > Likewise in your argument, cutting someone that is braindead from life support could be depriving them. The question is always about in which situations it is ethical to decide about the existence of another person. I'm quite optimistic humans won't ever achieve a consensus about this. Which is good - it means that we stay aware of those questions. Sorry about high-roading here - my point was that also in this case the ethic questions are not trivial because facilitating brainlessness is an active act during a similar phase of a human's existence as abortion. Because of this, I'm positive that jurisdictions allowing abortion will eventually allow growing brainless humans.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Honestly curious, can you name any one of the 80,000 Protestant denominations that believe sex is only for procreation? Am more familiar with the Catholic view: https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/catholic-teaching/upload/Unitive-and-Proc-Nature-of-Interc.pdf https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/...
  - samus 6y ago
    Martin Luther and John Calvin were firmly in the anti-masturbation camp. The modern stance of Protestant churches varies though. The German, Swedish and Finnish Protestant churches do not view it as a sin. Others do so though. As you indicated though, it's quite hard to paint over so many organizations with a broad stroke: http://mcsletstalk.org/seminarian-essay-contest/sexual-integrity-in-the-lutheran-church/ http://mcsletstalk.org/seminarian-essay-contest/sexual-integ... https://wels.net/faq/masturbation/ https://wels.net/faq/masturbation/ https://www.tenth.org/resource-library/articles/the-lust-of-the-eyes/ https://www.tenth.org/resource-library/articles/the-lust-of-...