Stem Cell Immoral?

Stem Cell Immoral?

Take a life to save another is the motto for scientists pushing stem cell research on. Stem cell research is the study of "stem cells" which are cells found in the inner mass of an embryo. So what's all the commotion for these microscopic critters? Scientists believe that the cells can heal some diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's by putting them in a patient.

The cells are highly adaptable and can slowly heal or replace dead or infected cells in the body. But these pros overlook the cost of obtaining the cells. Death. In order for the cells to be examined in a Petri dish, the donor will not be able to survive. Plus the scientists' donor of choice has brought up more controversy. Embryos. Humans life forms that are destroyed in the name of science.

According to the religious orthodoxy, an embryo symbolizes life, and the fertilization process of the embryo is symbolic as well. Thus many pro-life advocates have protested this procedure.

"When we begin making those kinds of judgments, we've gone well past our authority. It's not morally right to experiment on jail populations or death row inmates. Why then let scientists kill human embryo's to advance science? My problem, and that of pro-lifers and the pro-life community, is that we believe life begins at conception. If you bypass that concept and create a human embryo, indistinguishable from the conceived one, you're still there."--Matt Bartle, author of the bill prohibiting human cloning

Across America there are over 400 labs called in-vitro clinics, and at these places scientists reproduce embryos specifically for stem cells. There are 400,000 embryos frozen and ready for testing. 400,000 potential lives. 400,000 humans without a say on what their fait will be.

"According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the average cost of one round of IVF in the United States is $12,400, which health insurance may or may not cover. Retrieving eggs from a woman's ovaries can account for as much as half of the cost--and most of the inconvenience--of IVF. Before egg retrieval, a woman has to take expensive medicine to make her ovaries produce more mature eggs than normal. The drugs can cause side effects like bloating, nausea, diarrhea, and sometimes severe enlargement of the ovaries. Then a doctor retrieves the eggs from the woman's ovary with a small needle, usually while the woman is sedated."--Frozen Generation

If an average kills a baby then it is murder, but if a scientist kills a baby and says it's for research, there is no penalty.

"I think it's a way to sell the item. Even if it were the fact, the ends don't justify the means. Just the idea that through research into the process we would be harvesting stem cells from human embryos for this purpose ends the life of this human for better quality for another--it goes against all underpinnings of moral society."--Matt Bartle

In 2001 President George W. Bush gave a speech limiting the number of embryos That would be federally funded.

"As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist" I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines " where the life and death decision has already been made", This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research" without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life."--George W. Bush

With that note all Bush really did was state that stem cell research would not be federally funded. They could still be privately funded by companies, but the government just cut their ties with stem cell.

A coalition of disease foundations, science advocates, and Hollywood celebrities turned to the voters of California, and November 2004 approved to Proposition 71, a bond issue that allows the state to make available as much as $3 billion for embryonic stem cell research.

Following the California bond issue, the governor of Wisconsin proposed spending $750 million through a public-private partnership in stem cell research. The governor of New Jersey also established a stem cell research facility based at Rutgers University that will receive $6.5 million in state funding, and $3.5 million in private funding. Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Texas are now also promising to put research money out on the table.

"The National Institutes of Health reported in late February that at least 16 of the 78 approved stem cell lines had died or failed to reproduce in their lab environments, making them useless for research, and that a majority of the rest would likely come to the same fate. When a colony of stem cells crashes, or dies, it cannot be replaced under Bush administration policies that contain restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The restrictions allowed research on existing stem cell lines derived from material from aborted or miscarried fetuses but would not allow more to be developed in the same manner. Many of the approved stem cell lines have developed cancers or genetic abnormalities akin to genetic mutations that make them useless for research or therapy."

--Patrick