Stem Cell Research and YOU!
 

So, there already was a stem cell thread, but that was about politics more than stem cell research in itself. Obama seems more stem cell friendly than his predecessor and although such research goes on in many countries, it's nice to see support for this research again in the US.

If you don't know what stem cell research is, I can do a quick, simplified summary. An embryo in the earliest stages of development is little more than a lump of cells. The cells haven't been given a job yet - and a job could be to be a skin cell, a muscle cell, blood cell, brain cell, liver cell - you get the idea. At that point before the cell has been given a job, it has the potential to become any cell in the body. It is a stem cell. As our bodies develop, we lose our stem cells as they develop into the kind of working cells our bodies consist of. Stem cell research is research into producing such stem cells to use them to replace damaged cells in the body. The best source for such stem cells is aborted fetuses which is where the ethical dilemma comes in.


So the question is how do you feel about it? Does it excite or infuriate any of you?


Me? I'm very excited of course :D I have quite bad hearing loss, particularly in my right ear, from exposure to loud sounds and there was an episode with a rifle shot that was just a bit too close to the ear which I don't want to get into details about, but .. there's good reason to believe my and other's hearing problems will be curable by stem cells in a couple of decades time if not earlier. :)

I'm actually assuming there'll be stem cells treatment for alzheimer when I get old although I could probably benefit from a stem cell injection in the brain now already. :p:

I say bring it on. My uncle was recently re-diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia, after being in remission for 15 years. And once somebody has passed the 5 year mark of being cancer-free, the chances of the same cancer recurring are pretty slim. But if it does come back it can be pretty serious. His doctors have said that if stem-cell technology was widely available 15 years ago, the cancer would probably never have come back. My uncle is getting a bone-marrow transplant right now and the doctors want to try and use some stem cells (from what I understand).

I think this technology is amazing and I support the research efforts because I know that scientists and medical doctors will be able to treat (and possibly cure) a lot of chronic conditions. I understand the ethical dilemma behind it though - that stem cells are coming from embryos and the umbilical cords of unborn fetuses - but there are a lot of people who liken this to a healthy person's organs being donated after their death.

I'm definitely all for stem cell research. Morally/ethically, I don't think utilizing stem cells for research is any worse than a guy masturbating and throwing his happy sock into the trash bin as far as potential for life is concerned. The potential for saving lives and improving the quality of lives weighs more to me when compared to what's being lost.
That said, I'm eager to see the progress that's made during my lifetime provided we don't have anyone in power with some fanatical moral dilemma about killing a couple cells while they discuss how they're going to shut the program down over a steak fillet.

I honestly support this, it could save so many peoples lives, and better those of others. :)

It's a wonderful thing that could benefit society in many important, groundbreaking ways and if it's not utilized to the fullest possibilities, it's a waste.

I think it could be really beneficial.
I want to see what other people have to say as well, since I'm not well educated in this subject.

I support stem cell research. An embryo is "non-sentient," lacking a structured and "wired" brain, and so using embryo cells does not bother me.

I also support a woman's right and choice to have an abortion when the fetus has not yet developed substantial brain wiring and thus presumably awareness, although I would like to reduce the incidences of unwanted pregnancies, such as through improvements in contraception methods and increases in contraception use by both women and men.

I wanna know who voted against.

^Just click the vote number and it will show you who voted which way.

True... I'm used to just seeing the voters right off the bat. I don't know why this is different.

Anyway, I really just wanted the person who voted against to input his opinion in the thread as to why he voted that way... Interested is all.

I completely support stem cell research. As you guys have been saying, the potential for saving lives far outweighs the petty moral debate that gets thrown at us. I've heard the argument that we will start harvesting embryos simply for their stem cells, but what people don't realize is we will eventually be able to create stem cells without the need for an embryo at all.

Omg! I never knew people could see what I vote! :laughing: ever.

Only in public polls.

It depends on whether they set it so that the votes are public or not.
If you can't see anyone else, they can't see you.
Something to check if you want to remain anonymous. ;)

^ I got excited and went round all the polls, most are private :(

But yay! to me finding out something moderately cool :D

Don't ever become a mod.
Once you find out all the little secrets, this place kinda loses its magic.
;)

Not that I regret it or anything. It's just... different.

I want to know the reasoning behind the vote against stem cell research. That person has not posted in the thread yet!

^ likewise.

As I understand it was that George W. Bushn't was against stem cell research he limited embryonic stem cell research. And it isn't that Obama is friendly towards stem cell research Obama is overturning a limit on embryonic stem cell research, which was put in place for ethical reasons.


There are adult stem cells and embryonic stem cell. Human embyonic and aborted fetuses stem cell research is unethical, period. Just because they don't look like a fully formed adult does not mean those experiments does not violate the natural law. From what I heard adult stem cells provide positive results, sceintist really don't need to experiment on human embryos.

Edit: Since you did not differentiate between adult and embryonic stem cell research I wil not vote.

Not true at all. Adult stem cells do indeed have similar qualities, but are limited to becoming cells of their tissue of origin. They are also incredibly hard to grow in culture and are also scarce in an adult. Embryonic stem cells have the potential to become any cell in the human body and are much easier to grow in culture. This is why I mentioned we will eventually find a way to produce them without the need of an embryo at all.

I can understand the moral dilemma here...but there will be abortions whether we like it or not. Why not honor that potential life by allowing it to provide life to someone else?

One ethical argument against using embryos would be that it violates Kant's categorical imperative to not use others as a means to an end.

If one feels this is an important ethical stand, then the question becomes this: how do we define "others" and which "others" matter? In other words, which organisms have "moral standing?"

For example, consider medical knowledge gained through Nazi experimentation on child and adult victims: medical ethics may require (if I recall correctly) that the results of those experiments should *not* be used to add to the pool of human knowledge, because humans were used as a means to an end, which many view as unethical.

If someone feels an embryo has moral standing, then that person would probably similarly oppose any use of embryonic cells, regardless of the potential or actual benefits to others of doing so.

As a vegan, I often find the concern for minute embryos perplexing and speciest (speciesism being the belief that one species is better and more valuable than another), since many people who oppose the killing or use of embryos are not moved emotionally at all by the slaughter of fully-functioning, thinking, feeling, healthy, adult, non-human animals, whose sentience (sense of awareness) is, oh, probably 1 trillion times that of a human embryo, if not more.

^

I can totally see where those who oppose this are coming from, as I said. What I was pointing out, though, is that many women in the US will abort their fetuses. As it is, those fetuses are then simply "disposed of" (excuse how blunt that sounds). That fetus was going to be killed regardless of what our country's stance on stem cell research is...why not use its stem cells, then? As I said, honor the embryo in such a way that it can provide life to another, despite not getting a chance at life itself.

With enough research, we won't even have to worry about it. For now, though, we have to get the cells from an embryo.

Someone who opposes the killing or use of embryos might argue that the best way to honor those embryos is to burn and bury them and not use them for anything.

Using an aborted, soon-to-die embryo to help others might be seen as being similar to harvesting organs and tissues from an old patient, without that person's permission, since the person is going to die soon anyway. If you inject sleep medication and then harvest the organs when the patient is asleep, the patient won't even be aware of what's happening. A practical choice, but perhaps not ethical by most ethical standards.

I like ethical debates! :) You, too, duga?

Of course I wouldn't condone harvesting stem cells from an aborted embryo unless permission was given by the mother. I feel any argument past that is your typical right vs. left squabbling that will never be solved.

I would never support outright stem cell harvesting, though. That would be horribly wrong.

If you read the post carefully, you'll see it says "simplified, quick" summary. You'll see I've stayed away from terms like totipotent and pluripotent and how they describe different kinds of stem cells. You'll see I used the term "brain cells" and not "neurons" to make it simpler to understand what I mean. My goal was to communicate in the simplest way what stem cell research is and how it can benefit us. There's an obvious compromise between communicating something efficiently and being informative and in my initial post, I was trying to be effective.

I assume if anyone needs more information about stem cells, they can ask in the thread.

The fact there are "adult" stem cells with much less potential than embryonic ones wasn't something I thought of as interesting because that's not what the controversy is about and we're obviously gonna want to do research on the stem cells with the highest level of potential.


I like ethical debates as well, although much of philosophy seems so flaky and opinionated compared to the natural sciences I'm used to :p: Anyways, I think in life and death situations like helping survivors after a car crash and what abortion in a sense is, it's typical to use a utilitarian approach. The reason is so many ethical standards or ways of thinking are not able to account for different people and their lives having different worth. Utilitarianism does this and says someone's worth and how much ethical consideration they deserve depends on their capability of feeling pain and pleasure, their ability to emotionally experience the consequences of your moral actions. As a moral being, your job is to cause the most happiness/reduce the amount of suffering in the world.

To use a practical example, if you are the only paramedic at a scene of an accident and there's a young man and an old man both about to die and you can only save one of them, then you have an moral dilemma. Many ethical standards say both these deserve the same amount of consideration on your part and so they can't really help you. Thinking utilitaristic, you could easily argue that you should save the younger man because he likely has more capacity to feel happiness and suffering (the old man might be senile or have alzheimer f.ex) and is more likely to live a happy life and when you take everyone else affected by your choice into consideration, you may think saving the young man is the choice that causes the most happiness or reduces the most suffering in the world.

Most of us are not pure followers of one moral standard only and I'm not a utilitarist, but I accept it's arguments when it comes to abortions and stem cell research. Fetuses do not require a lot of moral consideration on their own because they are, when compared to the average human, little able to feel happiness or suffering. In a moral dilemma concerning abortion, you should prioritize the mother and her happiness/suffering over that of the unborn fetus. If abortion maximizes her happiness or eases her suffering the most, then abortion is the right moral course of action.

From a utilitaristic point of view, a fetus which is dead doesn't require much ethical concern at all. If you don't know if using it in stem cell research will cause suffering but you think it is likely to cause "happiness" in the rough shape of advances in medical treatment, then using them for research becomes the right moral action.

Also, from a utilitaristic point of view, using data from holocaust victims is not a problem if you can maximize happiness/reduce suffering that way. Using a non-utilitaristic argument, I guess you could also say it would be sad if they died for "nothing".

Mind you, duga, I'm playing "Devil's advocate" here, because I support a mother's choice to have the embryo in her body killed, after which I feel that both parents' permission should be needed when dictating what happens to their offspring once out of her body.

However, I think people who oppose killing/murdering a very undeveloped human organism might argue that the crux of the problem is that permission was not gained from the killed/murdered individual, who had the potential to develop greater awareness if left unharmed. They might argue that the ethical thing to do would be to let that individual grow until its potential for future awareness comes to fruition. If one wants to gain permission about what to do with someone, shouldn't one wait until that person "wakes up?"

Yep, there is no "right" or "wrong" in ethical views, although there are ethical fallacies we can attack. Science is much simpler in some ways (and sometimes much more boring, which is why I'm typing this and delaying going to work!). ;)

Agreed. This is the main moral approach I use for determining if a being deserves my ethical consideration. However, when Utilitarianism violates what I perceive as someone's rights (to life, etc.), then I pause and reflect more. For example, if you had to kill one person to save five, I don't know if I could do it. I wouldn't want to take an action that directly harms someone.

Like in this example, I would save the young man. Non-profit organizations face this sort of issue all the time: do you use your limited funds to get food or resources to some children who live in an easily accessed city, or to children who live out in rural areas, which are more costly to reach. And, unfortunately, you have to choose because you can't save both sets of children. It's like a scene, Tore, that haunts me in the movie Sophie's Choice, in case you've seen that movie.

I have the same view.

I'd say a fetus who is dead doesn't require any ethical concern.;) When I'm dead, someone can flush my ashes down the toilet...I don't care!

The issue in embryonic stem cell research, though, is whether benefitting from someone else's loss (of its own life) is ethical. I think people who oppose abortion and embryonic stem cell research feel it is wrong to ignore that this little, living being has the potential to develop greater awareness.
I would counterargue, when talking with someone holding this view that "potential" is what matters, that every cell of my body could potentially be used to clone me, so all cells have that potential and thus potential alone isn't a precise enough criterion to use to determine if some group of cells should be protected.

Also, fertility clinics go through a lot of fertilized eggs that don't successfully attach to a woman's uterus, yet I don't hear opponents of embryonic stem cell research decrying the death of fertilized eggs/embryos that occurs during assisted reproduction. Do people complain about fertility clinics because of the embryos who die there?

Use of Nazi experiment data is still controversial and I feel mirrors somewhat the controversy over embryonic stem cell research, since both ethical issues involve how to use something from humans who have been killed. Here's an interesting article written about it in on Jewish Virtual Library website created by an American-Israeli group: The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments

We need some people who strongly oppose this. So far everyone seems to like it except Alfred, who didn't even post anything. I want a debate!

afaik he is a christian and doesn't believe in having reason behind belief

Definitely this x100000. Safe sex needs to be fuc‎king PREACHED in schools today.

How about something concrete instead of some abstract "natural law"? Who defines it? How is it enforced? Not to mention that there are indeed differences between the two..

What one considers immoral one considers fine. And that's one reason arguments over stem cells are usually so nasty, because one side is waving around scientific evidence while those on the opposite end are screaming about ethics and being morally clean.

Wait a second. Since when can you compare an embryo to a fully grown person? Regardless of whether or not the person is dying, it's a conscious, thinking, matured human being. An embryo isn't. And now we're entering the dreadful gray area.

http://imgur.com/LLhYL.jpg

Agreed, Octane! I feel people shouldn't fear knowledge but, rather, should be afraid of ignorance about a subject. I am always surprised that there are still people who don't want kids to know how to follow safer sex practices.

Well, I was playing Devil's advocate there. However, there *are* fully grown people who are no longer substantially aware of what is going on, and thus might be considered equivalent to an embryo in terms of sentience.

The clearest example would be a brain-dead person. Many but not all people feel it is okay to harvest their organs, since the hope of recovery is slight. But what if someone is in a coma? When do you decide it is ethical to harvest *her* organs?

Now, back to embryos, some people may feel it is wrong to kill a tiny individual and would ask instead that we wait until that individual is mature enough to make her or his own decisions about when to become an organ and tissue donor.

The basic question surrounding our treatment of embryos and birthed humans is how do we decide when we should keep our hands off them. And then the next question becomes this: once someone has decided to kill them, what is the right thing to do with their bodies?

Pretty much that.

is this a joke?

I don't know but I lol'd.

:confused:

I'm pretty sure that's a joke. Christianity has been proven wrong at almost every turn. I'm also wondering how those things have proven science wrong. Science is not a theory!

really? if you could show me where the metaphysical claims made by christians have been proven wrong, i'd love to see it

I think we're better served by what can be proven right. But I get what you're saying. I'd love that kind of evidence as well... impossible to get though, as you obviously know. Which kinda supports my point.

Not true at all? Explain why the statement 'There are adult stem cells and embryonic stem cell.' is not true at all.

'From what I heard adult stem cells provide positive results, sceintist really don't need to experiment on human embryos.'
Do you have proof that adult stem cells were never used for treatment, just curious how everything I said was not true at all.



There is no dilemma, you don't do something unethical. Stem cell research where the stem cell come from embryonic and fetuses is unethical. It violates the natural law to interfere or disrupt the natural process of a human embryo or a human fetus that is developing into a human baby and develope thereafter into a human person. All human beings come from human embryos that is a undeniable scientific fact, and likewise one should understand that a human embryo purpose is to develope into a human being, not to be a part of an experiment. I can not see how abortion can provide life when abrotion takes life away person that was aborted. That is not the purpose of a human being to loose hers/his life before it begins. I can not see how technology take life away from one person and in that same process promises to benefit the life of another.

How can science benefit mankind from any forbidden experiment?

i can't believe anyone actually replies to this clown

Did you read my whole post? Obviously, I understand there are 2 types of stem cells. Your claim that adult stem cells are just as useful as embryonic stem cells is what I was referring to.


Ok...you may be firm in your belief that any study of embryonic stem cells is unethical, but that in no way makes it absolutely so. Discussing that exact issue is the whole point of this thread. Therein lies the DILEMMA.

I don't know how I can explain my point of view any more clearly than in my past few posts, so...we disagree, I guess. Are you pro-life, then? I am firmly pro-choice. As I said, there will be abortions whether you like it or not. This leaves a dead fetus. You now have two options. Dispose of it, or use its stem cells to provide life to someone currently living. Since the choice to kill it is obviously the mother's, the choice to donate its stem cells should also be hers.