Au+Yeung+Wai+Kit

Wia Kit Au Yeung

Michael Jones and Gail Benick

CCT205

5th February 2009

Stem Cells Research: Life or Murder With the progress of medical technology, it was only a matter of time an issue such a stem cell research would question the line between tissues or life. Stem cell research would be one of the most important medical research in our generation. Stem cells research can have enormous medical benefit to everyone, it has the potential to create treatment of a variety of diseases like cancer, Parkinson's, diabetes and many more. The ethical problem with stem cell research is the nature of the science, stem cell is cells obtained from human embryo, so where is the line between human tissues and human life begins. The controversy with stem cell research is an ethical debate based on the creation of human embryo with intent to destroy. Opponents to the research is leading us a down a path of immoral choices where we are devaluing the life of one human being to save the life of others. The problem with stem cell research is the question of creating and destroying human embryo equal to killing a human baby or dose it equal to cutting your figer. To understand the ethics behind stem cell research, one much understand what is stem cell research, what are stem cells, what befits dose it have and what is wrong with it. First of all what is a stem cell, well stem cells are cell found in an cellular organisms, that have the ability to grow into any differentiated cell. Differentiate cells are cells that are specialized cell type, they are cell whose roll in the body are defined and have defined function, for example a blood cell is to transfer air throughout the human body. There are three types of stem cells, the multipotent cell, the pluripotent cell, and the totipotent cell. The multipotent cell is an undifferentiated cell that can grow into any differentiated cell of a particular type of tissue, these multipotent cells are presents in the body throughout its life. Multipotent cells can only develop into the type of tissue that is it already in, for example a blood multipotent stem cell can develop into different blood cells but it cannot develop into a liver cell or heart cell or any other type of cells. The pluripotent cell is an undifferentiated cell that can become or grow into any differentiated cell of any tissue, these pluripotent cell are only present during approximately the second week of human development when the entity is still an early embryo. Pluripotent cells can create any type of tissue, so a pluripotent stem cell can develop into any cell you want or need it to be. The totipotent cell is an undifferentiated cell that can develop not only any tissue but into an entire organism, these totipotent stem cell are present only during first few days after fertilization. Totipotent cells have the ability to produce all the different cells in an organism, this stem cell is essentially the basic building blocks of a new organism. The three types potency cells are linked with each other, since they are all potent cells, totipotent stem cell can create pluripotent stem cells in which can create multipotent stem cells. Stem cell research focus on pluripotent stem cells, this is mainly because totipotent stem cells are too difficult to extract and multipotent are too specific, so the only viable choice left is pluripotent. To obtain pluripotent stem cell involves destroying the embryo with our current level of technology, so to continue the research in pluripotent stem cell it would require us to create embryos with the intent of destroying them for the sake of advancing the frontier of medical science and the benefit of mankind. The reason stem cells research is so interesting to medical researchers is because stem cells can be manipulated to become replace damaged cell in a human body, and help repair damaged tissues. Stem cell research is not all about extracting cells from embryos, it has many different fields of research, this includes genes research and multipotent stem cell research. Even though I stated earlier pluripotent stem cell research is the main focus because it can grow into any differentiated cell of any tissue, multipotent stem cell can also help people medically. An existing use of multipotent stem cell therapy is the bone marrow transplant used to treat leukemia, doctors extracts bone marrow which is essentially stem cells from the donor, then injects it into the patient to help with the leukemia treatment. While other research in stem cell includes why stem cell differentiate into the cells they are now, this is genes research and it can help researchers understand how the genes get turned on inside each cell. Then researchers can apply this understanding back to multipotent stem cell to create tissues we need to heal our body, instead of using pluripotent stem cells from embryos. Since multipotent cell exist in the adult human body, if researchers can “reprogram” them to grow into the appropriate cells they can be used in a more variety of medical treatments. The opposition to stem cell research argus that researching stem cells from human embryo is equal to murdering a baby. Once a sperm and an egg is merged, from that moment on a new life a new life is born. And destroying that embryo is equal to murder and should not be this practice should not be allowed to continued. The opposition also argues the methods to obtain the stem cell is similar to abortions, and since abortions are immoral not to mention illegal therefor stem cell should be immoral and illegal too. To obtain the cells required for the research, the scientist need to create an embryo, and to achieve that they need to fertilize an egg with a sperm. By fertilizing an egg the researchers are creating life for the purpose of destroying it, because onces the embryo reach a certain stage they researchers extracts the pluripotent stem cells they want, by extracting the pluripotent stem cells the embryo is destroyed in the process. Creating life just for the purpose of destroying it, is to de value life it self. Claiming one form of life is more important then another is going down a morally challenged path to some very questionable ethics. Would sacrificing one healthy human being to save five sick people be a reasonable sacrifice, this same logic would then be applied to extracting stem cell from an human embryo to heal another person. The counter argument to stem cell research is killing unborn babies, but the pro stem cell argument is that embryos are not babies yet. The embryo are created in laboratory by fertilizing an egg, this man made embryo would never grow into a baby without inserting it into a women's womb, and even if it was inserted there would only be a 25% chance of a success. With our current level of technology growing a human baby from an egg and a sperm is simple not possible with out putting it into a womb, so using those embryo that would never become babies in the first place would not be immoral, and rather it would just be growing cells for the sake of scientific research. Since an embryo is an combination of sperm and an egg, and those two are not consider to be “alive”. Destroying an embryo is equivalent to destroying the sperm and egg which is exactly same as cutting your hair, they are all human tissues which make destroying or cutting them the exact same things. Another argument is since abortion is consider illegal and non moral, by extension abortion is a termination of the embryo or fetus. This rule would simply apply to embryos created by man, since termination a pregnancy is immoral which includes destroying the embryo or fetus is also immoral. According to a paper written by Robert Wachbroit, who is pro stem cell research clams the anti abortion group have two proposition argument, “1, the conflict is between a women's right to control her own body, particularly her pregnancy, and the fetus' right to live” and “2, abortion is seen as an intervention in the normal couse of events” (Genetic Prospects. Robert Wachbroit essay) Robert shoots down both arguments stating that both cases is not applicable to stem cell, since embryos are grown in the laboratory and not in a women's womb this nullifies the first argument. While the second statement is stating an intervention in the normal course of events, Wachbroit argus that lab grown embryos wont develop into babies unless it is put in a women's womb. So they would not be interrupting anything because the embryo wont grow into anything. The issus with stem cell research is on a very thin ethic line, it depends on your views on human life and where or when dose a sperm and an egg combined together would equal a new life. This is all a very technical issue and both sides of the argument has their point of view on the issus. With one side considering an embryo the beginning of life while the other side consider it just human tissue with great potential to cure many different disease. While the opposition argus stem cell research is devaluing human life which would lead human kind down a slippery slope. Is the greater good more important then the individual or is everyone equally important, these are the questions that surround this topic. Bibliography Gehring, Verna V., ed. __Genetic Prospects__. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Incorporated, 2003. "The "Political Science" of Stem Cells." __Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics__. Ed. Kevin S.J. Fitzgerald. 05 Feb. 2009 . Snow, Nancy E. __Stem Cell Research : New Frontiers in Science and Ethics__. New York: University of Notre Dame P, 2004.