Let me ask you this- is a brainless baby still human? Well, some bioethicists have decided that genetically engineering a brainless fetus is one way to ethically obtain stem cells. I lol'd when i heard that in lecture(scribes) this week. seriously, lets go knock out some genes in an embryo so that it grows up without a brain. thus, this fetus is not a human. therefore, we have a free pass to harvest its stem cells. personally, i would be too scared to be in the same room as a brainless fetus that i created. creepy. as for my opinion on the ethics, i would rather take donated egg and sperm and make my own 8 cell blastocyst for my source of stem cells. yeah its a slippery slope. but designing a brianless fetus, jeez, i really dont think thats a better alternative. but it is still an interesting question. is a brainless fetus considered "human?" (definition of human is of course up to u) lets set some guidelines here. lets say that this mutation occured naturally, so that the purposeful intent of creating a brainless being (playing god arguement) is irrelevant. For anti-abortinists out there, is it still wrong to abort this brainless fetus? for religious folks, can this brainless fetus be reincarnated (buddhist) or go to heaven/hell (christian)? As a reward for racking your brains with this deep and ponderous philosophical conundrum, i present to you peach and ginger pancake with honey-whipped butter. i want to also say 100% maple syrup, but i dont want to hype things up just cuz. yeah, it was as delicious as it looks. 
i ate it last weekend while back in sf visiting the buns (miss u already): 
huy was also happy to see me. suspiciously happy. so happy that the synonym for happy comes to mind.  | 
