There’s no question that embryonic stem cells have the ability to divide and specialize. Making teeth? Heck, they turn into whole human beings, if you treat 'em right. The question is whether the implantation of such cells in people with certain diseases will help their condition…and whether that would be a property unique to embyonic stem cells (the obtaining of which must, of necessity, result in the embyo’s termination) or if it’s doable with adult stem cells as well (which need not result in termination of life).
It’s folly to get so caught up in the excitement of new potential avenues of research that it a) blinds one to ethical concerns of others, and b) makes one so resentful when others raise ethical concerns that one resolves to pursue this line of research even though other, less ethically troubling lines still hold some potential.
I certainly understand your point(s) but am unable to agree. As far as the use of fetal stem cells, I have not heard of anyone claiming that abortions need take place simply to harvest the cells. On the contrary, my understanding is that researchers have only planned to use cells from abortions that have/will happen for the mundane reasons that they always have. Given that situation, I fail to see how ethical concerns arise at all.
OTOH, I could see where successful demonstration of fetal stem-cell therapy would tend to keep Roe vs Wade in place, an outcome the religious zealots would dislike.
The idea of abandoning adult stem cells in favor of fetal stem cell research is not my point at all. On the contrary, my own belief is that both lines of inquiry should proceed as rapidly as possible. If, in fact, fetal stem cells are worthless or can easily be replaced by adult cells then then the entire conflict is moot. I have no preference for fetal vs adult stem cells and truly have no idea whether either of them will result in workable cures. What I do most strenuously object to is having religious leaders control the direction of scientific research, something they are generally not competent to do.
In correction to my own post above, and to the OP, the NIH has actually been funding stem cell research. What happened was that Bush limited government-funded research to 14 cell lines and their derivitives. The timeline of stem cell research is here, and the funding statement is here.
The problem faced with Bush’s decision is that some of these cell lines have not differentiated, meaning that they can’t be used to study how stem cells develop into organs. If that is accomplished with other cells, tens of other cells from different sources would have to be tested to provide statistically meaningful data indicating that such action is a basic function and not unique to that cell line.
Adult stem cells may also have potential, but we don’t know enough about them yet, and despite cmkeller’s claim, it has not been shown that adult stem cells could be cloned into another individual, nor is it likely at this point. Making teeth and bones with adult stem cells does not say much about what fetal stem cells can do, as teeth and bone tissue is far less complex than cardiac tissue, which is in turn less complex than liver, kidney, pancreatic tissues or neurons. In addition, fetal stem cells can be acquired from left-over embryos created as part of IVF. They do not have to come from aborted embryos.
Because to someone who is opposed to abortion, accepting that “it will happen anyway” is no excuse to support an act they see as murder. Everyone who’s already born will die eventually as well. That’s how these folks see embryos which have yet to be discarded…even if that’s the ultimate intention of those who have power over them.
Certainly those who are opposed to abortion…and they are not all religious zealots…would not appreciate anything that tilts public opinion away from their point of view. Bet they also see it as murder. As the moral equivalent of killing someone to “donate” an organ to someone else.
I’m sure it’s not. However, people like the OP and several of those who followed seem to see embryonic stem cell research as some sort of holy grail and those who have ethical objections to the destruction of embryonic life as directly responsible for the deaths of diseases that speculatively might have been cured by the results of said research - even if there are other avenues to pursue.
Vlad/Igor:
I make no such claims. I’m merely pointing out that your examples of people (presumably already-born people, as one of them is your father) who appear to be benefitting from stem-cell therapies are not deriving said benefits from embryos, but from adult cells, willingly donated and donation non-fatal to the donor.
To one who opposes abortion and thinks that life begins at conception (or at least allows for the possibility that this is so), destroyong IVF left-overs is no different from aborting in-utero pregnancies.
These embryos are stored frozen, but even as such, they will lose viability. Even if we keep all embryos created as part of IVF, who should pay for the expense of maintaining them? It is possible that some embryos could be donated to research in the same manner as one wills one’s body to science, or donates organs in the case of brain death. I would see that as ethical and worthy of federal funding.
Different issue entirely. Definitely an issue that will need to be dealt with at some point in time, but completely separate from whether the government should be funding the use of their cells.
But people who will their bodies to science or make known, before their incapacitation, the circumstances under which they’d like their body used, have done so of their own free will - and have only allowed such after their body is of no use to them. To the half of Americans who believe life begins at conception (or have enough uncertainty about the beginning of life that they’d consider it worthy of protection just in case), the embryo is a distinct individual, unable to express its will, whose ability to survive is not yet at an end. And from that point of view, to fund such research would be tantamount to funding murder.
It had better be sooner than later. These embryos left over from IVF procedures didn’t ask to be created as excess for IVF, and neither did they ask to die slowly in liquid nitrogen. As long as we are speaking retroactively in hindsight, how can we know for sure that a given embryo wouldn’t want to help save another life, or be an active part of curing a disease, given the alternative of dying at -321 deg F? If we have the obligation to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves, why must their answer always be in agreement with our beliefs? Is it possible that we can execute what they might want but that runs counter to our own beliefs? Embryos are also under the legal guardianship of the parents that produced them. Should the right of the embryo trump the right of the parent to decide the fate of that embryo?