The Controversy

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The Controversy

    Scientists think human embryonic stem cells can be the building blocks of regenerative or reconstructive medicine. The reason being these cells have the potential to grow into any type of tissue and could treat or cure diseases such as diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's. But the cells cannot be obtained without destroying human embryos, which opponents of the research say is tantamount to murder.

    The controversy over stem cells has interested and attracted many people from different aspects of life. Adult stem cell research has not ignited much controversy but the research and production of embryonic stem cells has different view points depending on which aspect of life you look at political, religious and medical.

Political

What is the US law about embryonic stem cell research?

On August 9th, 2001, President George W. Bush announced that federal funds may be given for research using human embryonic stem cells if the following criteria are met:

  • The derivation process (which begins with the destruction of the embryo) was initiated prior to 9:00 P.M. EDT on August 9, 2001.
  • The stem cells must be from an embryo that was created for reproductive purposes and was no longer needed by the parents of that embryo. this means that people who cannot have children normally decided to create embryo for implanting into the mother's womb but then decided not to so the embryo would have to be killed anyway.
  • These parents have agreed to let the embryo be used for stem knowing what the process entails and knowing this they have agreed to the donation of the embryo and they were not bribed with money to give up the embryo.

Religious

    Religious views are divided. This becomes a moral values question. We as moral law abiding citizens need to decide how we should act toward an embryo, and whether we should recognize differences between embryo at different stages of growth and circumstances (an embryo in a mother's womb vs an embroyo in a lab that will never be implanted into a mothers womb). Humans believe it is a sin to kill another "person" and we need to answer the question of what we should classify as "persons". If we think that not every embryo should be classified as a person then some Protestants have given a moral defense of "humanitarian" embryo use. This means that they support use of embryo for purposes of improving the life of humans.

    In contrast, the popular Catholic view is against the use of embryo for resrarch. As is well known, the official teaching of the Roman Catholic church is opposition to the use of embryos for any purpose. In this opinion we should treat every embryo as a person an it is our duty not to kill. Therefore experiments with stem cells that kill embryos could be justified only if it were argued that it is sometimes ok to kill another being in order to help a large number of people. However this is an uphill argument within any moral view. There are catholic views on using embryo if it helps mankind.

See http://www.isscr.org/public/ethics.htm for more information on the above

 

Finally- Cloning!