Why are they banning stem cell research when it could help so many people?

Question

Its like the government is condemning anyone who can be helped by this to death.

what is wrong with some of you people! an embryo is not a living thing! its a zygote! its a collection multiplying cells! if you love it so much then love cancer too (a collection of multiplying cells)

Answer 1

It Bush idea and he dumb ..he need to be out of the white house ..
we all need the stem cell research going ..I like for them to find cure for deaf or hard of hearing to be able hear without hearing aid ..

Answer 2

I think that they should stop banning it. What is going on is that there are THOUSANDS of zygotes in storage doing NOTIHNG. These are the excess zygotes of people who tried to get IVF. Now the thing is that most of these people are not interested in having these zygotes implanted. Of course, if they decided to just throw them away, they would have to consult the parents of these zygotes. In all honesty, it all boils down to what these parents say. They can do one of 3 things... they can decide, ok, implant them (which is NOT an easy process... I saw someone go through this whole IVF procedure already, and then again, they may already have all the children that they want) OR they could say, well I'm not going to use the cells anyway, but I don't want you to use them... (would they have a funeral for a glass vial?) or they can say, ok, these zygotes are not going to have any chance of life as a human, you may use them for research (which I believe is the best option available ONCE they are not going to use these zygotes. Chances are that no one else is going to choose a zygote randomly and say that they would like to have that baby).
Yes, there are other places in the body where you can get stem cells, including the hair and the bone marrow, but those cells would have still been exposed (for want of a better term) to life for however so many years already. There is no telling what effect that could have on them... in that the "purity" of these cells would be affected. However, with regards to the zygote, which is made from a gamete which lay dormant for years (ovum) and one recently made (sperm), the quality and the potential for this stem cell is much greater.
Stem cell research will NOT lead to abortion. In fact, by the time a woman knows she's pregnant, the unborn child will be waaayyy past the time that they could harvest stem cells... The most that it would do is make more women take hormones to produce more eggs (which would be new) and make more men jerk off to produce sperm (they already do that, and that's no big deal!)
The zygotes are there, folks, let's not let them just go to waste.

Answer 3

There's always a question of morality when you are opening up a new branch of science like this. Embryonic stem cells save a life at the cost of another, although I read that they have recently perfected a method of extracting stem cells without killing an embryo. Still, taking cells out of something that's trying to grow naturally is usually not a good thing in terms of a developmental sense.

The second reason is that not enough politicians are scientists; they only think about embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells differentiate into four different subtype stem cells. At least one of these subtypes can be extracted from hair, and another from tooth roots.

ADDITIONAL DETAIL RESPONSE:

"what is wrong with some of you people! an embryo is not a living thing!"

Uhh...yeah it is. Cells are living things, by definition. Not trying to be rude, but comparing ordered a normally-multiplying embyo to cancer cells is rather irrational. Think, please.

Answer 4

Reasons include fear of the unknown, negative perception of scientific developments and political point-scoring by many people with a view on embryonic stem cell research. The people "banning" research or wanting to do so are not one and the same. The people who could be helped are not one and the same either. It is easy to focus on the people taking positions for or against but not those who could be helped by work already done and work that could be done. No scientific development is free of self-interest and none is perfect in solving real-life problems but think about how slowly or unevenly things known to damage health (e.g. smoking cigarettes) and take life (e.g. guns) are banned. There is quite a lot of science (and self-interest too) behind these things too.

I wonder why research cannot be conducted with safeguards reflecting concerns of many sides of the debate and an open mind - how can one be so certain about what is supposed to be unknown?

Answer 5

Because stem cell research is a big controversial subject. There are many ethical problems.

"Embryonic stem cell research is particularly controversial because, with the present state of technology, starting a stem cell line requires the destruction of a human embryo and/or therapeutic cloning."

Answer 6

THANK YOU Psychokoshi1!!! That's the big untold secret about stem cell research, is that there are multiple ways to extract them from adults. However, since our atheistic, godless, death-loving, science-worshipping culture would love to "advance" human knowledge and kill innocent life, why not do it all at once?

Anyone who supports stem cell research at the cost of human life is a God-hating murderer. Period.

Answer 7

I think there is a concern that a life might be sacrificed in order to harvest stem cells; for example, from embryos.

Answer 8

If you say that "an embryo is not a living thing.." it will be if you give it time, it will turn into a fetus.
In general, if scientists know that there wont be any unethical/immoral conduct that all religions abhor, then why can't they convince the world?

Answer 9

Because if they stop banning it people will use it as another reason to support abortion.

No matter your stance on abortion, if stem cell research is allowed then it will be that much more difficult to make abortion illegal.

Answer 10

u really have the answer, if you really think about it. check this out if people are not dying, this world would be really full. I know its really sad, I wish they would not ban stem cell research.