[geeks] Socialized medicine

[Arno Kletzander]

> No offense, but are you saying that abortion should be legal until we have fetuses that are a 
> transportable from one "baby carrier" to another? AFAIK, this technology doesn't exist (...)

Sorry, can't direct you to an English source right now, but the German Wikipedia has it under the name of "Embryotransfer" - the English page only deals with what takes place after IVF, but the German one describes that embryos conceived by breeding of females were successfully transplanted to other females in cattle and lab mice (and there seems to be a growing market for this service in horses as well). The only problem in Placentalia/Eutheria is that the transfer must take place in a very early stage (a few days after conception), before the embryo firmly attaches itself to the wall of the uterus and initiates the growth of a placenta. 

Vance Packard's "The People Shapers" (I hope that is the correct English title of "Die Gro_e Versuchung") has a chapter on reproductive biology which describes lots of crazy stuff - e.g. transporting fertilized sheep eggs overseas stored in the reproductive tract of a female rabbit for the flight - and even gives some thought to the idea that genetically modified animals (e.g. cows) might be used as baby carriers for humans in the future. Gross but...oh well.

Regarding the point of new technologies leading to legalizing/banning of other practices, I can understand that in a context where the regulation seeks to promote the "least evil" and the range of possibilites is widening towards "even lesser evil".

> If it's merely the capacity to develop that self-awareness that grants human rights, onanism should 
> be a capital crime.

And the Jewish and Christian religions regard it as such or at least did until very recently. This came from the medieval belief that the male semen is "human seed" which grows in the womb like plant seeds grow in the ground. If you look at it from a modern point of view and count in the female contribution, it becomes even worse: it would be morally wrong to "waste" an egg by not having it fertilized! (It is flushed out with the next menstrual cycle then.)

So long,
Arno
-- 
Arno Kletzander
Student Assistant // Studentische Hilfskraft 
Informatik Sammlung Erlangen
www.iser.uni-erlangen.de

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