Lecture 8: Manipulation of Development, Aging and Death

1. Lecture 8: Manipulation of Development, Aging and Death Now playing: Weird Al Yankovic “I Think I’m a Clone, Now”

2. Goals: 1. Define fertilization, conception, cleavage, implantation, embryo, fetal period, birth, maturation, aging & death. 2. Understand ethical issues of abortion and euthanasia: naturalism, deism, theism, pantheism & nihilism. 3. Apply topics to life, science & heath care. Assignment: Read: chapter 15, 38 Websites: http://www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/cm/euthan.htm http://www.religioustolerance.org/euthanas.htm http://www.religioustolerance.org/abortion.htm http://www.religioustolerance.org/cloning.htm http://www.religioustolerance.org/emb_rese.htm http://prorev.com/genetic.htm http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/cbook/chap2.html http://fertilethoughts.net/faq/asrm/screen.html http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/1995papers/satinover.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/april98/iq07.html http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/god_ethics.htm

3. What are some of the scientific, ethical, moral and societal challenges associated with Fertilization, Development, Aging and Death? Birth Control, fertilization, abortion, aborted fetal products, stem cells, manipulation of life, manipulation of death…

4. Pre-embryonic Period Fertilization -conception Cleavage Implantation Embryo

5. Development

6. Third Trimester Second Trimester First Trimester 6 5 7 8 4 9 3 2 weeks 1 week http://www.visembryo.com/baby/index.html

7. When does life start? Fertilization = conception Contemporary moral standards Abortion Scientific ideology The fusion of a sperm nucleus and an egg nucleus to form a complete set of chromosomes

8. Cortical Granules Acrosome Mitochondria Tail Egg Corona Radiata Zona Pellucida Fertilization- The Big Event Egg Sperm Nucleic Acid: DNA

9. When does life start? Cleavage Contemporary moral standards Fetal Products Scientific ideology Pregnancy = event where a single cell becomes a multi-celled “blastocyst”

10. When does life start? Implantation Contemporary moral standards Stem Cells Scientific ideology Event in pregnancy where the blastocyst embeds in the uterine wall to establish connections that will be used to exchange nutrients and waste.

11. When does life start? Embryo Contemporary moral standards Manipulation of Life Scientific ideology A multi-celled body that is dependent for energy and nutrients obtained from a mother (not free-living)

12. Growth Increase in number, size and volume of cells Development Emergence of specialized, distinct body parts, according to genetic programming and the environment of the uterus Age of survivability Age at which a fetus can survive outside the mother: currently 19 weeks 14 weeks 5 months 6 months Fetal Period Fetus: third month of human development until birth

13. Third Trimester Second Trimester First Trimester 6 5 7 8 4 9 3 2 weeks 1 week http://www.visembryo.com/baby/index.html

14. Birth

15. Birth

16. How do you know what is right? • Is this procedure immoral, banal • avarice, participatory evolution or • responsible health care? • Where does right and wrong • come from in health care & who • decides? • Does everyone everywhere • have access to this technology; • why or why not? • Who controls the technology, • and how was control awarded? • Follow the $ & the folks that profit?

17. “Participatory Evolution” A Banal Avarice: In private industry’s hands with a motive to profit where will we stop? • Abortion • Testing • Marketing human genes? • Selling aborted products? • Wall Street trading in body parts from cloned anencephalic babies? Human Morality $

18. Birth What is human? 1:18,000 births = Anencephalous (born without a brain) -GENES -CELL LINES -Stem Cells -BODY PARTS Commercialization of human parts

19. What about birth defects? Frequency Of Types Catastrophe survivors? Birth Defect Types Human Population less risk of cancer? Morals, ethics & $… With the capacity to fix them, what about those who can’t afford the fix? If life science can market 20,000 tests, who wouldn’t want them? What happens to evolution when man starts manipulating life/death? Trisomy 21 carriers = apparently never get cancer In the 1930’s and 40’s, we convinced ourselves to sterilize those with defects!

20. Human Lizards and salamanders can regenerate limbs and tails } -Burns Regeneration -Scars …perfectly! HOW????? Maturation …but imperfect

21. Facts about American Abortions Reasons for Aborting: • 92% of all American abortions are for “social • engineering” or “quality of life” reasons. • 8% of all American abortions are for the so called • “hard cases”: rape, incest, health of the baby • or threat to the health of the mother. Source: The Allan Guttmacher Institute

22. When should abortion be legal in America? Source: Gallup/ CNN/ USA Today Jan, 2003 • Abortion should be illegal in all cases = 18% • Abortion should be legal only to save the life of the mother = 85% • Abortion should be legal to save the life of the mother only in cases of rape or incest = 77% • Abortion should generally be legal during the first trimester? • 66% Yes 29% No • Abortion should generally be legal during the second trimester? • 25% Yes 68% No • Abortion should be legal at anytime during a woman’s pregnancy • for any reason = 10%

23. Population Control Lobby Because teens in other developed countries receive more education about sexuality and have more access to contraception and family planning services, they have much lower rates of pregnancy and abortion. For example, in the Netherlands, where teenage sexual activity is about the same as in the U.S., pregnancy rates are only one-ninth those of the United States.

24. War language? Racial Language? Life/death Language? • Mic • Wap • Nigger • Spic • Kike • Abo • Spook • Fetus • Embryo • Stem Cell • Fetal Products • Abortion • Euthanasia • Aborted tissue • Huns • Jerrys • Japs • Gooks • Rag Heads • Yankee • Turk Language is ImportantWhen does political correctness end and dehumanization begin?

25. Euthanasia Contemporary moral standards Euthanasia Scientific ideology What’s your stand? In the Greek language, eu means "good" and thanatos means "death". The meaning of the word is "the intentional termination of life by another at the explicit request of the person who dies." • Some terminally ill patients are in severe pain and experience an intolerably poor quality of life • The cost of keeping terminal patients alive diverts money, medicine and caregivers’ availability to non-terminal patients. • The financial burden for patients’ care upon their families may be prohibitive of adequate care

26. Aging Environmental resistance Master genes Programmed death -master genes = fountain of youth Free radicals and superoxide dismutase (SOD)

27. Environmental resistance contributes to aging: • Wrinkles • Joints -Connective tissue and somatic cells decline in regeneration rates • Skin elasticity

28. Master genes When secondary sex characteristics begin to develop, signals are sent from neurosecretory cells Master genes turn on and you’re programmed to die Are master genes the key to the fountain of youth?

29. Programmed death

30. Free radicals and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) Age spots Memory Loss Cataracts Arthritis Alzheimer's disease When a chemical bond is broken: the electrons can stay together (both go to one of the atoms and the other atom gets none) • electrically charged (the atom with the electrons is negatively charged and the one without the electrons is positively charged) and generally stay together or they can split up (one electron goes to each atom). • ion • free radicals (molecules with an unpaired electron). • highly energetic and seek out other electrons with which to pair and steal electrons in the process Antioxidants (also known as free radical scavengers) such as Vitamin E, Vitamin C, beta-Carotene and Selenium function by offering easy electron targets for free radicals.

31. Definition Death • Ethics

32. Definition of Death { Brain waves Sinus rhythm 1. Absence of life 2. Lack of sensation 3. No growth, reproduction or metabolism 4. Without normal function 5. Genetic inability to function 6. Lacking the “spirit” or “essential spark of life”

33. Ethics & Metaphysical Beliefs: Worldviews 1. Naturalism 2. Deism 3. Theism 4. Pantheism 5. Nihilism Some basic philosophical beliefs...

34. 1. Closed system Naturalism 2. materialism 5 senses, atomic particle nature of all things 3. we don’t exist as immaterial selves, either mental or spiritual, that control behavior--we are only matter 4. Life = blind chance, everything we are and do is included in the material continuum whose most basic elements are those described by physics 5. Life = no purpose 6. Man’s conscience = physiological/psychological response -- knowledge about what exists and about how things work is best achieved through the sciences, not personal revelation or religious instruction When we die, what's next is nothing; death is an abyss, a black hole, the end of experience; it is eternal nothingness, the permanent extinction of being

35. Deism 1. design is found throughout the known universe and this realization brings Deists to a sound belief in a Designer or God. 2. God created the universe 3. God did stuff and then left it to run on its own. 4. “The Blind Watchmaker” 5. Anti-supernaturalism: Miracles do not occur 6. “the Bible, though it contained important truths, was not divinely inspired; many important Christian theological tenets -- the divinity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the theory of atonement for sins -- were the results of superstition or invention and had to be rejected.”

36. Theism • Design found throughout the known universe and this • realization brings Theists to a sound belief in a God. 2. Open system or Universe 3. God was active creator and sustains current life and the Cosmos 4. Miracles occur, but are not disruptions in nature they are synchrony in nature. 5. God communicates with man; moral realism: what is right and wrong is independent of what any person thinks is right and wrong. 6. Man is unique in creation

37. Pantheism 1. universe = ever-changing totality of being, past, present and future; self-creating, self-organizing, and inexhaustibly diverse 2. All matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which people are an inseparable part 3. People should cherish, revere and preserve in all life’s magnificent beauty and diversity (human and non-human) 4. moral realism: believe it is an objective fact that some kinds of actions are ethically right and others wrong, and what is right and wrong is independent of what any person thinks is right and wrong. 5. God is identical with the real world. God is all and all is God. God does not transcend reality but is imminent in reality, or rather, all reality is in God. Death is a return to nature of our elements. Our actions, our ideas and memories of us live on in the world, according to what we do in our lives.

38. Nihilism 1. The belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated 2. “Death is nothing.” 3. “There is no God.” 4. “I could be wrong.” Just tell me what a disordered universe would look like. I can't imagine it would be any different than this one

39. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. --Isaac Asimov(1920-1992) Russian/American Science-Fiction Author, awarded 7 Hugo Awards, 3 Nebula Awards (among others), 14 honorary doctorates, 1997 Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inductee

40. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. Humans did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. All there is, is the Cosmos. All conditioned things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence. God is dead and therefore, man is free. There are innumerable definitions of God because His manifestations are innumerable. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity. I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.

41. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. Humans did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. – Chief Seattle All there is, is the Cosmos. –Karl Sagan All conditioned things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence. -- Buddha God is dead and therefore, man is free. -- Neitzche There are innumerable definitions of God because His manifest-ations are innumerable. -- Mahatma Gandhi There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. -- Albert Einstein Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity. -- Mother Teresa I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me. –Jesus Christ