Week 2 Entry

I honestly don't exactly know where I stand with this idea of when life actually begins. I do believe it starts in the womb though. After reading the first article, I was having mixed thoughts about where I stood. For example, after reading that maybe life begins right when an egg is fertilized by a sperm..does it mean necessarily in a dish or actually in the walls of the uterus of a woman? I suppose life can begin there. In the end, you do end up with a child that lives and breathes just the same as any "normal" child that was conceived. In the article, it talked about other ideas that could alter one's opinion about when it begins including religion, politics, ethics and science. I thought it was interesting that they would think about religion playing a factor only because I didn't quite understand how it would play a part.

I thought this picture was pretty funny but it also made sense in a way. In terms of religion, people believed that life began at conception while politically speaking - it begins at birth.

With the second reading. Holycow. I never thought of killing embryos. At this point, I think of killing embryos as killing people. They never exactly lived a life, but they also weren't given a chance to basically. This article was from Douglas who said that as long as the parents of the embryos are okay with it, it's fine to destroy what they have created.He argues that the research, in the long run, would help prevent children from suffering in their later years. Parents would learn later on how to raise a family properly when they're ready. The article argues also that even though the embryo won't continue its role as an actual future being, it can save the lives of those that have a better chance of survival in the future. It doesn't mean that they won't have a role or a life, it just means that they're role is different from the rest. Douglas and Savulesc argue that it would only be immoral to use the wanted embryos for research. This line reminded me of how stem cell research uses human cells. What make an embryo wanted?