Do you support (embryonic) stem cell research and your opinions about it.?

Question

I'm writing a persuasive essay on embryonic stem cell research and I need to know some opinions of both sides.

Answer 1

I support it fully, and believe it has enormous therapeutic potential. We're not there yet, but further research has the potential to generate treatments for a whole host of diseases.

Regardless of whether or not you believe that an embryo is alive (I believe it isn't yet - it's just a ball of cells and incapable of the experiences that make a person a person), countless numbers are destroyed all the time.

When a couple goes through in vitro fertilization, several embryos are made and implanted at once, to increase the chances of one successfully developing. The leftover embryos will be destroyed anyways, so why not use them to potentially save lives? The same holds true in the case of abortions. The embryo has already been removed, so why not use it?

I do believe it would be unethical to use them after a certain point of development, but that is a complete non-issue. At that stage, the embryo is not useful for stem-cell research. Anyone who paints a picture of stem cell researchers as baby-killers has absolutely no understanding of the reality of the situation.

Some people try to hype the availability of existing stem cell lines or other types of stem cells. These lines only have limited usefulness, as cell lines acquire mutations and abnormalities over time, making them unstable and no longer representative of true stem cells. As someone who has personally tried experiments with these cells, I know that they are poor substitutes for the real thing.