Infinite Potential

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07663-9

In 2009 President Obama lifted a federal ban on the funding of stem cell research in the United States. If you aren’t familiar with stem cells and their importance in the medical community, here is a brief introduction:

A stem cell is a special kind of cell that has a unique capacity to renew itself and to give rise to specialized cell types. Most cells of the body, such as heart cells or skin cells, are committed to conduct a specific function, a stem cell is uncommitted and remains uncommitted, until it receives a signal to develop into a certain, specialized cell.

Excitement over the embryonic cells started because of this remarkable and unique ability, as biological blank slates, to become virtually any of the body’s cell types.

As you may know, stem cell research is one of the most heavily debated ethical disputes in medicine and science right now. The reason for this is that in order to obtain stem cells for the research, they must use the cells from oocytes and embryos. The debate then, is entered around the onset of human personhood. If, embryos and oocytes are indeed humans, then the destroying of those collections of cells to obtain the stem cells is equivalent to murder. If they are not, then the obtaining of stem cells must be of the highest priority. And here’s why.

A stem cell’s’ ability to become any number of specialised cells means that it has the potential to include a number of diseases that currently effect hundreds of millions, if not billions, around the world. These diseases include, but are not limited to:

-Spinal Cord Injury

-Heart Disease

-Parkinson’s Disease

-Alzheimer’s

-Lou Gherig’s Disease

-Lung Disease

-Arthritis

-Sickle Cell Anemia

-Any Type of Organ Failure

-And finally, Diabetes.

What should be done? Is stem cell research ethical? Is it not? Is there some in between? Let me know in the comments.