Stem Cell Research Stem cell research is a highly debated, controversial, sensitive topic. Too many people have skewed perceptions of stem cell research simply due to their lack of knowledge on the topic. The ignorant conception of stem cell research is human cloning, test tube babies, and mindless murder of helpless infants. This is not the case. The United States should be utilizing and funding stem cell research; it has miraculous benefit and is morally justifiable. With federal funding stem cell research could achieve its full potential. It is vital to medical advancement. To form an adequate view point of this topic one must first understand the basics. Human development begins when a sperm fertilizes an egg which forms a single cell that has the potential to create an entire living organism. This fertilized egg is totipotent which means it has total potential to develop into a fetus. A few days after fertilization these totipotent cells begin to specialize, forming a hollow sphere of cells called blastocyst. Inside the blastocyst is a cluster of cells called the inner cell mass. These inner cell mass cells are pluripotent meaning they can create many types of cells but not all necessary to produce a fetus. “Because their potential is not total, they are not totipotent, and they are not embryos” (Espejo). The benefits of stem cell experimentation are nearly unfathomable. Experimentation with human embryos was first developed to help infertile couples have children outside of sexual reproduction called vitro fertilization. “On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world's first successful "test-tube" baby was born” (Rosenberg). If the gift of creating a biological child for an infertile couple, while spreading hope to thousa... ... middle of paper ... ...esearch now, and start utilizing stem cell potential to the fullest. Bibliography Espejo, Roman. Human Embryo Experimentation. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 2002. Print. Kleeman, Elise. "December 2013." Discover Magazine. N.p., 1 Dec. 2005. Web. Kuhse, Helga, and Peter Singer. Embryo Experimentation. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print. LaFleur, William R., Gernot Böhme, and Susumu Shimazono. Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007. Print. Lenzer, Jeanne. "Have We Entered the Stem Cell Era?" Discover Magazine. Discover Magazine, 14 Dec. 2009. Web. National Institutes of Health. Stem Cells: A Primer. 2000. Web. . Rosenberg, Jennifer. "First Test-Tube Baby- Louise Brown." 20th Century History. n. page. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. "Stem Cells in Use." Stem Cells In Use. N.p., n.d. Web. 2013.
The journal article “Acorns and Embryos” give us a few basic points of whether or not embryos are actual human beings. One analogy George and Lee argue in their article is of the argument Michael Sandel has made by stating how “every oak tree was once and acorn, it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that I should treat the loss of an acorn eaten by a squirrel in my front as the same kind of loss as the death of an oak tree felled by a storm…” Sandel maintains that, by analogy, embryos are different in kind from human beings. But this argument cannot survive scrutiny. George and Lee also makes great points in relations to embryos being human individuals at an early stage of their development, just as adolescents, toddlers, infants, and fetuses.
People trust doctors to save lives. Everyday millions of Americans swallow pills prescribed by doctors to alleviate painful symptoms of conditions they may have. Others entrust their lives to doctors, with full trust that the doctors have the patient’s best interests in mind. In cases such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the Crownsville Hospital of the Negro Insane, and Joseph Mengele’s Research, doctors did not take care of the patients but instead focused on their self-interest. Rebecca Skloot, in her contemporary nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, uses logos to reveal corruption in the medical field in order to protect individuals in the future.
Stem cell research has always been a widely debated topic in 'social and political forums' ever since the case of Roe vs. Wade in 1973. In that case the Supreme Court gave women the right to have an abortion whether or not they have a medical reason to. Whereas beforehand 'they needed a medical reason'. This "sparked controversy" over stem cell research with aborted fetuses. For many of those in favor of using fetal tissue for research it has too much "potential" in the future of medicine in terms of providing cures for diseases and "". Those against fetal tissue research believe it unethical to take one human life in order to preserve another.
Conception is the action of conceiving a child or of a child being conceived. Every human being begins life as a single cell, formed when father's sperm fertilizes mother's egg. Fertilization normally takes place in the mother's Fallopian tube, which connects the uterus (womb) with the ovary. The uterus is the size and shape of a large pear: it is made of muscle and it stretches to allow the baby's growth throughout the months of pregnancy.
Over the past decade scientist and the U.S government have been debating about funds for stem cell research (SCR), the amount spent depends on who is in office. The Democratic Party fully supports SCR, but the Republican Party somewhat opposes the concept of SCR, arfuing it violates the Christian principle of life. As a result, this topic is considered controversial, but also beneficial if allowed. Despite the controversy, SCR should be well funded for medicinal use, because blank stem cells (SC) can be used to regenerate bones and muscle tissue, they can be used to control or even reverse neurodegenerative disease, and because they can be used for therapeutic cloning.
...ting embryos specifically for stem cell research should not be allowed. Continued stem cell research will benefit all of mankind with its promise of medical advances. Opponents’ concerns about destroying human life will be quelled because stem cells will be taken from already doomed embryos. The federal government will be able to regulate the research and ensure that it is lawfully conducted.
Reaves, J. (2001, July 11). The great debate over stem cell research. Time, Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,167245,00.html
As technology stem cell research intensifies, so does the controversy about whether such scientific progress is moral. In the past millennium to today the present stem cell research has become a controversial topic across the world. Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have unique regenerative abilities, allowing them to divide into specialized cell types. Understanding why these processes occur is essential to curing disease. Critics of stem cell research argue that the extraction of embryonic stem cells involves destroying an early embryo, equating the act of killing a human. Although stem cell research is a highly controversial topic, it is compulsory to continue stem cell research within ethical boundaries for the benefit of mankind.
Robertson, J. (2010). Embryo stem cell research: ten years of controversy. Journal Of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 38(2), 191-203. doi:10.1111/j.1748-720X.2010.00479.x
...oll(2010), around 33% of U.S. voters believe that taxpayers’ money should be spent on embryonic stem cell research and more than 50% of the voters disagree that taxpayers’ money should go the research(Roe, 2010). Hence, it is believed that government should not fund the stem cell research.
Travis, John. New Sources and Uses for Stem Cells, Science News, Dec. 2, 2000, p. 23.
Every human being in this controlled society is created on an assembly line in test tubes much like a factory. The first test tube baby in our world was born in Great Britain on the 25th of July 1978. They retrieved one of the mother eggs and placed into a test tub wear it was fertilized with a father’s sperm. The scientist then waited for the cell to divide in to 64 cells, then placed the fertilized egg in the mother’s uterus were it was successfully embedded, and then the baby was born about 9 months later. There are many more humans that have been conceived in this way. This is part of the ...
Anderson, Ryan. "Stem Cells: A Political History." First Things. First Things, November, 2008. Web. 10 Feb 2012.
Stem cell research should be allowed on adults but not on humans. Only allowed on humans who are willing to be a part of the stem cell research but no one should be used against their own will. Embryos should not be used for embryonic stem cell research. An embryo being used for their stem cells and then discarded devalues that human life. This follows along the same unethical issue as abortion. When stem cells are removed from human embryos, a unique individual dies. However, if abortion is legal in the state that this research is conducted than research may be conducted on only aborted fetuses. That would be an...
Test tube babies have long been stigmatized by society as the unnatural results of scientific dabbling. The words `test tube baby' have been used by school children as an insult, and many adults have seen an artificial means of giving birth as something perhaps only necessary for a lesbian woman, or a luxury item only available to the elite few. The reality is that assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have been helping infertile couples have children since 1978.1 The methods of in vitro fertilization, it's variants, and the other ART procedures are ways for persons that would otherwise have no hope of conception to conceive and, in a rapidly growing percentage of cases, give birth to healthy babies. As the technology has developed, the quality and range of assistance has developed as well. At present, the means of assisted reproduction and the capabilities of these procedures has grown at a somewhat dizzying pace. However, thought to the repercussions of the applications of ART are being disregarded to some extent while the public's knowledge and the understanding of embryologists and geneticists surges forward. It is possible given consideration to things such as the morality of these techniques, the unexplored alternative uses of these procedures, and the potential impact they posses that further development is unnecessary and possibly dangerous.