Do you support stem-cell science?

Question

Why, or why not?

Answer 1

It depends on where the stem cells are harvested from.... dead fetuses/embryos I don't really support, but from umbilical cords and such I do.  I don't know too much about the whole process, but from what I understand there are a lot of benefits so, why not right?

Answer 2

No. The world is overpopulated.

Answer 3

Yes.

There are two kinds of stem cells - embryonic stem cells (aka "pluripotent stem cells") and adult stem cells ("multipotent stem cells").

Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos at the 4-8 day stage, when the embryo is nothing more than a hollow ball of cells. The source for these embryos for human ES cells is "leftover" embryos after IVF treatment:

when a fertility clinic perform IVF, they often are left with extra embryos that are not required, because the woman has acheived a successful pregnancy. These can be frozen and stored in case the couple wish another child - but they can only be kept for 5 years, because the risk of abnormality increases after then. So at 5 years, they would have to be discarded - and they therefore have NO possible future life. Furthermore, there are not even any nerves in the embryo at this stage, so there is zero suffering involved. And finally, they are only ever harvested for ES cells with the express permission of the parents. I see no difference between this and parents giving permission for their child's organs to be used in transplant after he/she dies in an accident - except that ES cells have even *more* potential to alleviate suffering than organ transplant (though more research needs to be done to realise that potential).

The major advantage of these "pluripotent" cells is that they can differentiate into *any* cell type of the adult body - so can theoretically be used to replace *any* damaged or diseased tissue, and might be used to treat a huge range of different diseases and disorders.

Adult stem cells (which includes the umbilical cord stem cells, BTW) are isolated from a fully-developed person. They are "multipotent", so they can differentiate into several different cell types (the cord blood cells, for example, can become any blood cell type, but not nerves or muscle; mesenchymal stem cells can become muscle, fat, bone, and cartilage cells, but not immune cells or nerves).

They have the potential to help several disorders, but not all. And there are many cell types which we do not know of a stem cell population for.

Obviously, the use of adult stem cells does not pose the ethical issue of destroying a life. But their use is much more limited than ES cells.

Finally - i should mention the "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells" (IPSCs), which are normal adult cells that can be treated with a cocktail of substances and "converted" into ES cell-like pluripotent cells. These have great potential for therapies, but their discovery is new and much work remains (a lot of which will require the use of ES cells to perform). For example - the cocktail to transform the cells currently includes cancer-causing viruses, which obviously cannot be used in any medical therapies in future. A greater understanding of ES cells might allow other methods to be developed - but obviously ES cells will be required for that.

Answer 4

Well yes and no. If research is to be done using human embyos then certaITNLY not! However, there is an alterantive. Genetic engineers can use adult steam cells. I am totally fine with this. I do no however believe it is both ethical or morally right to use a real human embyo that could may well have turned into being a human..

Answer 5

no, bcos everyone thinks that they are going to be here forever.... that everything needs to be perfect and life on earth is everything.... I mean its up to anybody who wishes to do this, but I do believe that our lives are chosen for us and changing them wont teach us anything we may need to learn in life.. ie... bad liver, if we fix everything, then how do we teach future generations to look after things cos they will think everything is fixable..... all mistakes, all actions are fixable when they are not...

Answer 6

I am in favor of any medical research that holds such promise for cures for some terrible medical conditions.