[Skybird]

A "potential" is not already a "manifestation".

A minor, relatively unstructured bunch of cells is not more or less a human entity, as is a hair follicle. There are no nerves. No sensual organs. No brain. there is no feeling, no thinking, no perceiving, no intellect. These qualities must have left the mystic realm of "potential" and found entrance into the realm of material manifestation, before we can start talking of a human.

In a way a human is a complex structure of a huge bunch of cells. But that does not mean that every bunch of cells is a human.

Can't understand this endless debate about stemcell research. Artificial genetical selection to create designer babies for example is a far greater ethical challenge, with greater implications and problems to be considered. Or the vision of genetically designing babies in order to use them as biologically fully compatible organ- donators for their sisters and brothers - a horror vision.

But brandmarking stemcell research as a crime against human ethics? You could as well call masturbation a mass murder on cellular level.