What is your position on stem cell research, should it be legal or illegal?
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IT IS LEGAL
Because we realize that only embryonic stem cell research was ever debated, right? There was never any problem with the morality or legality of stem cells obtained from post-natal (born) individuals.
The moral objection to ESCs is based upon the belief that human life — in the legal, ethical sense — begins at conception. That belief itself is debatable. If 5 day old blastocyts are not regarded as “human beings”, then there is no reason to make ESC research illegal.
However, the reality is that ESCs are obtained from blastocysts generated for in vitro fertilization. NONE of the objectors to ESCs object to IVF. However, IVF requires the generation of many more fertilized ova than can be used. These unused ova are discarded — “killed”. Yet none of the anti-abortion or anti-ESC crowd ever cries “murder!” over that.
So, the objection is hypocritical. There is no logical reason ESCs cannot be harvested from fertilized ova that are going to “die” anyway.
There is a way to make stem cells with properties identical to ESCs by transducing genes into adult skin cells. The resulting cells are “induced pluripostent stem cells) or iPSCs for short. iPSCs behave identically to ESCs. Since the original cells come from an adult (theoretically the same adult that will be treated with the iPSCs), no one raised moral objections or proposed iPSCs should be illegal.
Because we realize that only embryonic stem cell research was ever debated, right? There was never any problem with the morality or legality of stem cells obtained from post-natal (born) individuals.
The moral objection to ESCs is based upon the belief that human life — in the legal, ethical sense — begins at conception. That belief itself is debatable. If 5 day old blastocyts are not regarded as “human beings”, then there is no reason to make ESC research illegal.
However, the reality is that ESCs are obtained from blastocysts generated for in vitro fertilization. NONE of the objectors to ESCs object to IVF. However, IVF requires the generation of many more fertilized ova than can be used. These unused ova are discarded — “killed”. Yet none of the anti-abortion or anti-ESC crowd ever cries “murder!” over that.
So, the objection is hypocritical. There is no logical reason ESCs cannot be harvested from fertilized ova that are going to “die” anyway.
There is a way to make stem cells with properties identical to ESCs by transducing genes into adult skin cells. The resulting cells are “induced pluripostent stem cells) or iPSCs for short. iPSCs behave identically to ESCs. Since the original cells come from an adult (theoretically the same adult that will be treated with the iPSCs), no one raised moral objections or proposed iPSCs should be illegal.
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