Stem Cell Research

Stem Cell Research

Think back to the fateful day when Christopher Reeve fell off his horse and was paralyzed, the once strong "superman" was thwarted by paralysis. Diseases and accidents ruin many lives, like Christopher's, but victims' misfortune could be purged or greatly lessened if stem cell research was allowed. Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the ability to develop into any cell. A large percentage of Americans oppose stem cell research because they believe it is ethically wrong, but their view point keeps them from realizing the medical potential of the research.

Adversaries of embryonic stem cell research claim that human life begins as soon as an egg is fertilized and think that an embryo is a human being. They believe that any research that destroys human embryos is morally wrong (AAAS), which is why they have limited to no support of embryonic stem cell research. But recently there have been several major breakthroughs in stem cell research that does not require embryos, a major reason why people do not support the research. Very recently scientists have developed a to create embryonic stem cells from only skin cells. This breakthrough could constitute new treatments for disease. The new technique reprograms adult cells, giving them properties of embryonic stem cells, which can develop into any type of tissue. The goal is the same as with embryonic cells, to speed up medical research (Ritter). There have been very successful treatments using adult stem cells. Two young women, victims of a horrific automobile accident, were paralyzed; they were able to walk because of transplantation of their own stem cells. Another case involved a cancer victim whose jaw had been removed; it was re-grown using adult stem cells from his own bone marrow (Davenport 19).

Several facts arise from stem cell research and application of it. According to Mary Davenport, the growth of more primitive embryonic stem cells is more difficult to control and leads to tumor development. When foreign embryonic tissue is used on a patient, it can potentially lead to problems with immune rejection of the tissue, a problem not encountered in using a patient's own adult stem cells (18). Millions of women donors will be needed to provide eggs. Two-hundred and forty-two eggs are required for one stem cell line. Some women have even developed complications and have died from egg harvesting. Most women, if they knew this information, would never agree to egg harvesting (Solenni 76).

The opportunities and benefits that stem cell research will provide are overlooked by many people. Embryonic stem cells are important to medicine and science because of their aptitude to develop into any other type of cell (Devitt 12); such an application is mind-boggling, and virtually limitless The discovery of reprogramming stem cells makes it likely of change the direction of research. However, scientists say it is too early to abandon studying embryonic stem cells. Scientists believe that the controversy encompassing embryonic is setting the field back five years. It is even possible that the new findings are probably the beginning of the end for that controversy (Ritter). The first applications of human embryonic stem cell technology may be drug improvement and discovery. The capability to grow specific cell types allows testing chemical compounds. The study of human development benefits from embryonic stem cell research. The earliest stages of human development have been difficult even impossible to study. Research offers insights into developmental events that cannot be studied directly in humans or fully understood through the use of animal models (Devitt 13).

The argument supporting stem cell research is an easy one to make. Supporters of embryonic stem cell research indicate that in the natural reproduction process, human eggs are commonly fertilized but are unsuccessful to implant in the uterus. A fertilized egg, while it may have chance for human life, cannot be counted as human life until it has been implanted in a woman's uterus. In vitro fertilization clinics regularly create more embryos than are needed and the extras are then discarded. Supporters claim that it is not morally wrong to use these embryos for possibly life-saving biomedical research. But opponents withstand this argument saying that research still condones the destruction of embryos