Stem Cell Research Ethics
Stem cell research has become a pioneering practice in recent medical history as a means of providing treatment to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Diabetes. This treatment often involves the taking of embryos that are a few days old, although it can also involve the extraction of cells from human embryos that have been discarded during fertility treatment. All adults and children have stem cells, however embryonic stem cells are thought to be more flexible to work with and more effective in the curing of chronic disease.
The carrying out of stem cell research has been thought to be effective because the introduction of new cells into damaged tissue can both treat disease or injury, and also alleviate human suffering. Currently a few countries such as the US, UK and Japan have either allowed or are considering legislation on allowing stem cell research to occur, however wide criticism has come of the practice with many objectors to the process deeming it unnecessary, immoral and technically illegal.
The government policy currently for countries such as Austria, France, Germany and Ireland is that stem cell research is illegal and that the production of embryonic stem cells should not be permitted. Further criticism has largely come from anti-abortion and ethics groups, as well as the Catholic Church, because it involves the destruction of living human embryos. Using these for scientific and medical research is wrong, these groups argue, because in the case of taking young embryos from a human body this is killing what is effectively a human being that might otherwise have a chance at living.
This is open to debate as supporters of stem cell research argue that at the stage of embryonic development where embryos are extracted we cannot recognize an embryo as a living human being. The argument made is to recognize instead how stem cell research can alleviate suffering in existing human beings, and therefore the end justifies the means.
Further criticism has been made, because there is some call currently in countries such as the US for therapeutic cloning, which involves the creation of human embryos solely for stem cell research in laboratories. Whilst this might serve to remove the unethical suggestion that a human being could ever come of the embryos used in stem cell research there has been much outcry to the suggestion of therapeutic cloning in practice, as it suggests human life becoming devalued and made no different to using rats or any other animal in laboratorial research. There are those who further argue that human tissue used solely for the purpose of laboratory research is wrong because the embryonic tissue could be exploited and ill-used.
Many argue that there are more suitable alternatives to using embryonic life as a means of repairing damaged human tissue such as by using organ and blood donors or by using existing adult stem cells, the technology for which is becoming increasingly advanced and can provide some benefits to treating certain conditions which embryonic stem cells cannot.
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