Stem Cell Research
Introduction:
In an NPR.org health blog Richard Harris reminds us that eighteen years ago, scientists in Scotland took the nuclear DNA from the cell of an adult sheep and put it into another sheep's egg cell that had been emptied of its own nucleus. The resulting egg was implanted in the womb of a third sheep, and the result was Dolly, the first clone of a mammal. Along with Dolly came an outcry of ethical and moral concern. Since Dolly, researchers have been using embryos and eggs from women to try and recreate the process.
I. Research should not be funded by taxpayers dollars because those taxpayers may not agree with stem cell research, and all of the moral and ethical questions that arise from it. Stem cell research has come a long way from the use of embryos, and eggs of female donors, to the use of adult stem cells.
A. Using adult stem cells is a technique, which produces "induced pluripotent stem cells," (iPS) it skips the step that requires a human egg cell.
1. Some may say that adult stem cells are less fraught ethically. This is not true.
2. I will tell you why embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research should not be funded.
II. It's true that stem cells have proven to be beneficial with all the possibilities they hold to cure diseases.
A. There are still many ethical concerns involving stem cell research
a. Does life begin at fertilization, in the womb, or at birth?
b. Is a human embryo equivalent to a human child?
c. Does a human embryo have any rights?
d. Might the destruction of a single embryo be justified if it provides a cure for a countless number of patients?
e. Since embryonic stem cells can grow indefinitely in a dish and can, in theory, still grow into a human being, is the embryo really destroyed?
i. This last question is the biggest concern because it can lead to scientist experimenting further with the embryos and doing whatever they please with it.
2. David A. Prentice, founding member of Do No Harm- The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics said, "Destroying living human embryos for research violates the basic tenet of the healing arts: 'first do no harm.' It is ethically wrong to harm or destroy some human beings for the potential benefit of others."
3. There is no definite answers to these questions. They can't be proven only justified and generalized, so is it worth risking the life of a soul; of an innocent unborn baby to do stem cell research on embryos?
B. What is unethical with using adult stem cells?
1. There is one major issue that arises from using adult stem cell research...
a. Adult stem cells are known as iPS cells. These cells have the potential to develop into a human embryo, in effect producing a clone of the donor.
III. Human cloning could be next on the agenda of stem cell researchers and this is exactly the direction research is taking us.
A. Paul Knoepfler at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine is excited about this advance from a medical point of view. But he says this does mean we could be getting closer to being able to go beyond cloned cell lines to cloning an entire human being. "I don't think that's coming anytime soon, but certainly this kind of technology could be abused by some kind of rogue scientist," Knoepfler says.
Conclusion:
Stem cell research is a slippery slope. Many nations have already put legislation in place that bans human cloning. At what point does stem cell research end? Who gets to decide when enough is enough? The potential of it is endless and no one really knows if the direction it is leading is good or bad. Do we really want to get so far into research that could be morally and ethically disastrous in the end? All it takes is a few rogue scientists to do whatever they please with stem cell research to have it go awry. These ethical and moral concerns are why it should not be funded.
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