What's so bad about stem cell research?

Question

Did you know that the human embryo (where the stem cells come from) are only three days old and have about 150 cells in the them, called a blastocyst. Compare that to a fly, that has 100,000 cells in their brains. The blastocysts don't have brains or even neurons.

The arguement is that these blastocysts are potential human beings. But everytime to wipe your nose you are killing potential human beings, you are killing cells. How is this any different? Or what about when someone dies, and we "harvest" the organs to help others.

Stem cell research can save MILLIONS of lives and end alot of suffering on this planet. How can SAVING lives be so bad?

Read "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris. A must read!!!

Answer 1

some evangelicals fear that humanity is getting to be to smart and scientifically advanced.

Answer 2

The cells that come out of your nose will never and cannot ever become a living being. In contrast, every human being began life as an embryo. These are not just potential human beings, these ARE human beings at the earliest stage of development. The main problem with embryonic stem cell research is that these stem cells spontaneously create tumors when transplanted into compatible hosts. This is why embryonic stem cells have never been used for human therapy, and probably won't be for many decades to come (if ever).

Answer 3

I'm with you on this one. I don't think that people in general have a problem with the idea of stem cell research, I think it has been made so controversial by the proposed method of attaining these valuable stem cells. To my knowledge there are 3 categories of stem cells that can be used: embryonic stem cells, derived from blastocysts; adult stem cells, which are found in adult tissues, and cord blood stem cells, which are found in the umbilical cord.

In a developing embryo, stem cells are able to differentiate into all of the specialized embryonic tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing specialized cells.
The only way to attain the embryonic cells (arguably the most valuable - because they can develop into any tissue within the body) is through utilising an aborted fetus - herein lies the moral (and often religious) dilemma.
People think of lovely little babies being slaughtered for their cells and that just isn't the case, Abortion as a medical procedure can (and should) only be performed within the first 8 weeks after conception (12 weeks max - or first trimester) when the embryo is still in it's "sea-monkey" phase - not a baby...more like a tumor.
The fact is that if a woman choses to have an abortion for whatever reason, then why not let something good come of the valuable matter within her - let's face it, it's going to be discarded anyway!
In its preliminary research and testing stages, Stem cell research has proved to be overwhelmingly successful in aiding in the repair of damaged spinal chords and other nerve endings in lab rats. It's true that stem cell research has the potential to change millions of lives and indeed end much suffering. Just think, it could be you who benefits from stem cell research one day, don't be so quick to condemn others by imposing your religious or moral beliefs... think of the good it could do in this world...

Answer 4

The biggest problem comes from the fear born of ignorance. Most people have no idea about early human development. Most of them would convulse if you told them that at the point of the most valuable stem cell harvest, the embryo is completely indiscernable (except through DNA analysis) from a starfish embryo or an embryo from any other animal on Earth. People mistakenly believe that "life starts at conception" and don't even know that the cells that create a woman's eggs or a man's sperm actually migrated from the mother making my grandchildren alive even as my children are in utero. One of the worst travesties in our country is the horrible deficit in science education. Our young people graduate high school barely able to read and with almost no ability to accurately describe most major tenants upon which all scientific knowledge is based. Many in this country actually believe that cloning could yield in a half-goat, half-man or some other monstrosity or that clones are somehow inhuman instead of being just a human baby. Stem-cell research and the medical breakthroughs it is sure to yield are not bad, and have little potential for horror, unlike the Manhattan Project. I guess Frankenstein's monster will always haunt our scienctific endeavors.

Answer 5

The amount of cells is irrelevant.A heavy man has more cells than a teenager.But murder is murder,we don't punish that killer of the man more heavily.
The blastocyst has the potential to become a human being.A skin cell from your nose, left alone,will not develop into a baby.A blastocyst will.
Organ donors have given their permission for their remains to be used.It's voluntary,and the person is already dead.It doesn't destroy life.
Embryonic cloning (deliberately cloning embryos just to harvest cells later) is legal in my country.Making life just to kill it.What a moral nation we are.
We can already use stem-cells from adults,as well as ones from the umbilical cord.
As for IVF,I am against that too.

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/harrisletter.html

Answer 6

I'm torn between these two answers
I live in Missouri and voted yes on stem cell research because I see the point you are making, plus it makes the religious nut jobs mad and Missouri is full of them. (We gave the nation Ashcroft)

My thing is though, there are too many people in the world and I'm a little confused as to people wanting to prolong life and keeping it overpopulated.

Answer 7

Alot of people believe the myth that stem cells come from abortion clinics. They do not. They are made in a lab-similar to test tube babies.
Regardless, it doesnt matter. As soon as Bush is out of office the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research will be lifted. Even if another republican wins office he wont block it. Congress will push it through and the next president wont veto it. Some of the republican names running for president such as Giuliani are for stem cell research.
Bush wont be president forever people, alot of the things he stands for will be gone in a few years.

Answer 8

It is all politics.

Stem cell research has found that animal stem cells (especially from pigs) are almost as good as human stem cells and much, much cheaper.

Pro-lifers and pro-choicers have dragged this important health discovery into the moral arena just so they can fight about it.

It is like the movie Citizen Ruth (with Laura Dern: about a pregnant woman who is addicted to drugs). The 2 sides are so busy fighting over the mother's womb that they neglect the woman herself.

Answer 9

Would you also agree with a woman having children and selling them? Having them, just to sell them? Stem cell research is an indignity no less than the mutilation of a corpse, but you'd probably agree with that also. If you don't get it then you're already too far gone!

Answer 10

The key point really is that these embryos would otherwise be thrown out.

It is very, VERY odd that in vitro fertilization is uncontroversial, yet stem cell research is.

All stem cell research does is make use of the discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization. Those embryos would just be flushed down the toilet anyway!

Answer 11

1. Boogers can't become a baby. That's how it's different.
2. Organ harvesting is from someone who's alread dead.
3. They found out they can get the stems cells from umbillical cord blood. Did no one hear this when it was in the news???