Well you're finding the problem with research that are a few steps short of fetus, where there are many people in this world who don't even consider a fetus = human life. As some one who supports/(well atleast think it's a woman's choice) abortion, I personally don't consider a fetus a sentient being. However, I would concede that I would be uncomfortable if they start expanding tests to fetuses. However, stem cell researches right now bears no moral issues to some one like me.
And the Korean scientist don't debate the ethics of stem cell research? Are Korean scientists soul-less bodies just bent on research? It seems like you feel only US scientists, or western scientists, struggle with this morality of stem cell research. and that they are the feel willing to 'ask' the tough questions about life. How do you know that the Korean scientists haven't thought about what they are doing? They've probably thought about it more than you have, a hundred-fold more.
All scientists are prone to cross grey areas for the sake of progress. Hwang Woo-suk is a brilliant man. He probably has ideas on how to clone a primate but will publically claim its impossible out of ethics. Some will follow his lead. Others will maximize his breakthroughs. I'm not trying to paint a black and white picture with rhetoric of soulnessness. Some Japanese and Chinese traditions still count age from the start of conception. A period of mourning usually follows miscarriages. Yet abortion is still as casual as buying a Big Mac. I just feel Asian cultures have a stronger utilitarian perspective that is willing to sacrifice a number in order to maximize gains for the state. Many American scientists share that viewpoint, but our public has been more willing to question that compromise.
I agree.. Also in China, some scientists have paid women to commit abortions so they can harvest the stem cells of the embryo.
U.S. Scientist Quits Stem-Cell Alliance By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter November 12, 2005; Page A5A A prominent U.S. scientist is withdrawing from an international collaboration to create human embryonic stem cells. Gerald Schatten, a cell biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, said he was severing all collaborations with the laboratory of Dr. Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul University. Dr. Hwang, a veterinarian, has drawn international applause for leading the first effort to clone human embryos and extract their stem cells. Last month, he announced the formation of the World Stem Cell Foundation, an international alliance aimed at spreading that technology. Dr. Schatten, who was to have led the organization's board of directors, says he is now severing collaboration with Dr. Hwang, due to questions over the source of human eggs used in a 2004 cloning project, and errors in a 2005 paper coauthored by the scientists. A 2004 news report in the journal Nature said at least one female laboratory worker had provided eggs for the project, an allegation that Dr. Hwang has denied on several occasions. Under U.S. rules, collecting eggs from women working on a cloning project would be considered unethical. In the original paper, published by the journal Science last year, the scientists said the eggs all came from anonymous donors.
