[Puffer Fish]

Prepare for another bizarre abortion thread involving sci-fi and bioethics.

I was watching a recap of the plot of the 2009 film Splice, when something struck out.

Recap of Splice

Two scientists, a man and a woman, decide to splice together human DNA with the DNA from multiple animals, even though their bosses at the research company denied their proposal and clearly told them not to.
The man scientist's initial plan is to just develop the creature into a fetus, and then abort it.
Then they can dissect the body parts and perform a study on it.
However, as the creature keeps growing in an artificial womb, the woman scientist has a change of heart and wants to let it keep on growing.
They end up letting the creature keep on growing into a young child.

Now, obviously after that all hell ensues, they've created a monster. But the future consequences of what they did are not immediately apparent to them at the time.

It later emerges in the story that the human DNA they used originated from the woman scientist's own eggs. She didn't tell her partner, the man scientist.
So when she saw the half-human baby creature growing in the womb, her motherly instincts took over and she didn't want to kill it, as they had originally planned.

Well anyway, here's the bioethics issue:

It would obviously be very controversial and ethically questionable to start manipulating human DNA like this and then bring a child into the world.

However, if there is nothing morally wrong with abortion (like pro-choicers frequently and often claim) then it raises the question of whether there would be anything wrong conducting genetic experimentation on human beings, so long as you were planning to abort them before they reached some certain gestational age of development.
Because they're "not really human beings", so it should be okay to experiment, right?

However, pro-choicers say they believe the woman should have the choice, that whatever choice she makes is right, and that it should never be too late for her to change her mind or change her decision. And pro-lifers believe life is never the wrong choice.

So a question: In this sort of situation, would it be okay for the woman to choose life?
Even knowing she had messed around with nature at the point of conception and created a possible monster, that she could bring into the world a child who would likely be totally messed up and abnormal.

And if this is wrong, what part of it is wrong, exactly?
That she chose to perform genetic manipulation involving human DNA to grow a fetus?
Or that she changed her mind and decided not to do the abortion?

I would say that if either of these two are right, it seems to blow a hole in some of the usual pro-choice arguments we typically hear.

Is human experimentation in embryonic stages wrong? If so, why is that the case? Is it because the fetus is a person and has rights not to be experimented on with crazy genetic manipulation?
Does it have to do with potentiality of the developing human being?
(Even though that potentiality is only a possibility, and the intention that was set out with was to abort it before it goes into further developmental stages)

[Godstud]

FFS, it was a silly sci-fi horror movie. You are reading way too much into it. Why not talk about Godzilla, too!


We're nowhere near any sort of scenario that you are thinking about.

[late]

However, pro-choicers say they believe the woman should have the choice, that whatever choice she makes is right, and that it should never be too late for her to change her mind or change her decision.

Nope.

[Odiseizam]

We're nowhere near any sort of scenario that you are thinking about.

how would You know, dont be in hurry with Your judgement, experimenting with chimeras is almost one century old attempt, did later some weirdo humanist overlooked any ethical reasoning, surely, the question is how successful were such "underground" experiments!?

probably step by step everything will be revealed, now is just advertised for the scientific realm so academia could be conditioned in time because " illness fight excuses" [1][1] to accept future moral compromises, after all there are eugenic elites that dream for superhumanity, if they started to juggle with gmo then in right time as transhumanists they would not hesitate even publicly to raise chimeras!

for now we are just nowhere near cyborg-chimeras, or who knows!? what is more frightening is the fear that because war science humanity could arrive even to that point, brain of a dolphyn in a human body with mechanical limbs etc. alike combinations!

[Godstud]

Sure, @Odiseizam, dismiss my opinion, but I think yours is extremely bizarre. Comparing what some mad scientists did a century ago isn't an argument, either. It's distraction. It's downright insanity to suggest such a thing is even of interest to all but a few lunatics.

[Odiseizam]

@Godstud I wouldnt say just some, that is just blatant public example due to communist unshameful humanism, probably on west there were many that were working underground, and probably it would be extremely bizarre opinion if wasnt mengele in ww2, some say he even survived and continued his eugenic research [1]

btw how come You got me as supporter of such lunacies? I was trying to disprove Your loosen logic based on naive belief that we are nowhere near such scenarios!

[Godstud]

Humanism is Communist?

I stand by what I said. I am not naive. I am a realist.

[ingliz]

chimeras

Human-Pig Hybrid Created in the Lab—Here Are the Facts. Published in National Geographic, January 26, 2017.

[Potemkin]

how would You know, dont be in hurry with Your judgement, experimenting with chimeras is almost one century old attempt, did later some weirdo humanist overlooked any ethical reasoning, surely, the question is how successful were such "underground" experiments!?

probably step by step everything will be revealed, now is just advertised for the scientific realm so academia could be conditioned in time because " illness fight excuses" [1][1] to accept future moral compromises, after all there are eugenic elites that dream for superhumanity, if they started to juggle with gmo then in right time as transhumanists they would not hesitate even publicly to raise chimeras!

for now we are just nowhere near cyborg-chimeras, or who knows!? what is more frightening is the fear that because war science humanity could arrive even to that point, brain of a dolphyn in a human body with mechanical limbs etc. alike combinations!

As soon as he gained the power to do so, Comrade Stalin put a stop to this nonsense.

Even more, Ivanov’s patron, Nikolai Gorbunov, was condemned during Stalin’s purges, which hastened Ivanov’s downfall. Arrested in 1930, he was sentenced to five-year exile in Kazakhstan, from which he never returned.

[Odiseizam]

As soon as he gained the power to do so, Comrade Stalin put a stop to this nonsense.

yes Stalin was biggest anomaly in the international eugenic skim, in my opinion nazi germany was risen just so western empires could remove him as sovereign, now what happened after his death is debatable!

[Odiseizam]

Humanism is Communist?

I stand by what I said. I am not naive. I am a realist.

yes communism is direct nuseffect of humanism as every other ism in the last century, empirical economical philosophy!

You are naive, when You see gmo is normal common trend in case of plants, wjy You are pretending that we live in ethical times and there are no risks someone to push own ludicrous ideas, if You noticed recently transhumanism is rising on level of religion!

[Godstud]

I guess I left my tin foil hat at home. I am not about to believe these wild statements of yours, today.

GMO plants have helped out humans a lot, in producing better crops to feed more people. The arguments against them are pretty weak.

Transhumanism? Why is that a bad thing? Is enhancing human intelligence and physiology a bad thing?

Ethics have always been something that not everyone aspires to follow. That's nothing new.

I am not naive. You are fear-mongering and ranting.

[Odiseizam]

yes You are, otherwise You'll be at least mild literate on gmo, not that You must, but when accepting widespread monocultural seeds then its obvious that later Youl'll be ok with genetic splicing and little later like that even ok with chimera experiments!

Your stance on gmo and transhumanism points to big overlooking of risks if we know that thre are too many scientific or mammonistic extremists in these times, what makes them potentially dangerous and powerful is the common ignorance to any risk that they present!

my arguments would be fearmongering if they were not backed by sources, but Your ignorance is plain arrogance that eventually if became trend will lead to degeneration of human kind at best, and due to splicing juggling dont wonder if even in humans zombification will ring the bell too! I know all this sounds too good to be true, but to many nazis were also just another european party until they have sensed their presence!