Download Stem Cell Research (List positive/negatives of

Stem Cell Research (List positive/negatives of ESCR and ASCR on board.)
-Stem cell research is important. Stem cells can do two things: make more stem cells like itself, or make
more specialized cells that the body needs to heal (e.g., new red or white blood cells, liver, cardiac,
pancreatic cells).
There are two kinds of stem cell research:
One kind of stem cell research is embryonic stem cell research.
-The cells of an embryo are pluripotent, that is, they have the potential to develop into almost all the
tissues of the human body.
-This could be helpful in curing or treating many kinds of conditions and diseases, including stroke, spinal
cord injury, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, burns, heart disease, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis.
-This research the Church does not support because to harvest the stem cells of an embryo you must
destroy/kill the individual child1.
- as a human person the embryo deserves to be treated with respect.
- killing one innocent human being in order to (potentially) benefit another human being is
wrong.
-2nd, the embryonic human being are “scientifically manufactured and produced” by uniting sperm and
egg in a laboratory petri dish, rather than through the loving act of a mother and father.
- often “spare/excess embryos” left over from in vitro fertilization that a mother does not intend
to gestate are destroyed, bought, sold, frozen.
-the argument goes: since the embryos will die anyway, why not try to bring some scientific or medical
good out of their destruction.
- imagine adults with fatal diseases or inmates on death row who are equally “doomed to die,”
but we cannot use them for our purposes as if they lacked humanity.
- Nazi’s used same rational for experimenting on live Jews saying they were
going to die anyway, and their life was of little consequence to the great good
such experiments would bring.
-Further, some scientists believe ESCR is not very promising for actual cures, despite the hype.
-ESCs has provided some limited medical benefits despite overinflated hype.
-if it was so promising (the research has never been banned – just federal funding under
certain Presidents), why hasn’t private money flowed into it, making tax dollars
unnecessary?
1
ESCs are harvested from the bodies of embryos at approximately day five of human development. At day five the
embryo’s body takes the shape of a hollow sphere (the embryo at this time is called a “blastocyst”). The blastocyst
has an outer cell layer and an inner cells mass (picture a basketball with a small group of marbles clumped
together on the inside). The cells of the inner cell mass will eventually differentiate into the varied tissues of the
person’s body; and the outer cell layer will develop into the placenta and other support tissues. But it is important
to understand that at this point, both the outer cell layer and inner cell mass constitute the embryo’s body. The
inner cell mass can be understood to be the embryo’s internal organs. These cells are what we call embryonic
stem cells and have the capacity of pluripotency; they are coveted by ESC researchers precisely because of their
pluripotency. Just as harvesting all the internal organs of an adult would kill the adult, harvesting the stem cells of
an embryo kills the embryo. Stem Cells for Dummies Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-25472?I=english
(2009-03-24)
-such cells (in laboratory animals) tend to grow into a disorganized mass of tissue, a teratoma,
becoming a lethal tumor, as well as being rejected as foreign tissue by the immune system of
the patient receiving them.
-In addition, adult stem cell research (ASCR) have been very productive in providing the cures and
health benefits.
-ASCR would also include stem cells from newborn babies and from umbilical cord blood.2
-ASCs are multipotent: they can develop into several different kinds of body cells.3
-ASCR is providing real cures and improved health
- to those suffering from Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, sickle-cell anemia, heart
damage, corneal damage, and dozens of other conditions.
-These adult stem cells are readily available from human fat, tissue and blood.
-use genetically compatible cells from their own bodies, not prompting an immune
system response.
-Then why doesn’t everyone back the more productive adult stem cell research rather than embryonic
stem cell research that is unproductive, and kills an embryonic child?
-One huge reason is a lack of respect for human life. People struggle to see the embryo as a human
being with the “right to life.”
-Secondly, embryonic research (per their spokesperson) would make the public “more comfortable”
with human cloning.
-(Michigan’s current human cloning ban, was passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.)
-In human cloning, the DNA from the nucleus of a person’s body cell is inserted into an egg whose own
genetic material has been removed, with the egg being stimulated to begin embryonic development.
-The resulting cloned embryo would genetically be an almost identical twin to the person supplying the
body cell. It could be killed as an embryo to harvest ESCs.
-Thus, human cloning can be done to create an identical twin (as an embryo) to be destroyed to provide
stem cells genetically matched to a patient, so the cells will not be rejected as foreign tissue.
-Human life in all its stages is a basic and fundamental right, without which one cannot enjoy any other
right or freedom.
-Thus, it must be protected, even when another important right clashes with it.
-Further, it is never right to do evil that good may come of it. The end (a good goal or purpose) does not
justify the means (or any action to achieve our goal).
2
“They are called ‘adult’…because the tissue in which they’re found is differentiated tissue (as opposed to the
undifferentiated tissue of an embryo’s body). Most are only capable of differentiating into the tissue type or
related group type of the tissue in which they’re found… Although some ASCs have been found with the capacity
of pluripotency.” (http://www.zenit.org/article-25472?I=english)
3
Multipotent stem cells are capable of differentiating into the cells of a cell group type, e.g., blood cells)