Embryonic Vs. Adults

Every year many couples are unable to concieve and bare a child. Most of the couples turn to adoption for the chance to raise a child as their own. Several face the fact that they will never have a child and go on living their lives they way they have always lived it. But some of them go to in-vitro fertilization clinics. Because of the process it takes to become fertile from one of those clinics, many embryos are left over. Many of these embryos are used for stem cell research.

Not many people know exactly what stem cell research is and what actually takes place during this type of research. To be able to understand what stem cell research intells and to have an opinion about the ethics that deals with stem cell research, there has to be a knowledge of what a stem cells are and where the stem cells come from.

A stem cell is a primitive type of cell that cen be coaxed into developing into most of the 220 types of cells found in the human body. These types of cells start to form each part of the human boady, from organs to bones, and from nerves to tissues, at the beginning

state of development. The genetic make-up of each human is determined at conseption and the embryo starts to grow and form into the type of cell it will become.

Couples that decide to get pergant through in-vitro go to a clinic that specializes in this process. The woman is given special medication to mature several of her eggs that located in the ovaries. This step has to be done because the woman only produces one mature egg each month. More eggs are needed to given the couple better odds of bcoming pergant. Then the eggs are removed and put in a sterile dish. Then sprem is removed from the man's testis and put into the same dish the eggs are. This causes the sperm to unite with egg and this process produces embryos. After this part of the process is completed, five to seven embryos are then implanted into the uterus of the woman. The success

rate is so low, they have to put at least five eggs in at one time to raise the chance of the woman getting pergant. Several hundred embryos are left over, and what happens to them.

Half of these embryos are destroyed, and half of them are frozen in liquid nitrogen, this process is called cryopreservation. Severa of the embryos die during the freezing process. Some of the embryos are saved for the donor couple incase the first time didn't work. Some of the embryos are given to other couples that are unable to even produce