In the spirit of being fair to both sides, I think it is important that someone play devil's advocate and bring up the alternative point of view, namely that of the right-to-life advocates. While I personally do not agree that stem cell research should be prohibited, I do believe these advocates bring up a valid viewpoint which we must weigh against the argument that stem cell research should be continued for the 50% or so of Americans who might potentially benefit from the research. That being said, because I do not personally hold these views, I can only hope that my rough approximation is somewhat accurate. (Please feel free to add more information or edit any inaccuracies.)
The crux of this argument lies in determining when life starts. I'm sure we all agree that a baby is alive when it is born. Most of us agree that a minute before, the baby is also alive. So reasoning inductively, we can say that a minute before that, the baby is alive, and so on. This pattern could continue indefinitely, but that would become slightly ridiculous. Thus, as a logical stopping point, we agree that life starts at conception, when an egg becomes an embryo.
Now if we accept this premise, we accept that the process of harvesting stem cells from an embryo is murder; destroying an embryo destroys a life. In current stem cell research, federal funding does not support research conducted on newly developed stem cell lines, taking the conservative viewpoint that this would be killing more embryos. If therapeutic cloning were to become standard practice, each time we harvest new stem cells, this would be ending a life, even if it were that of a clone of the person who would ultimately receive the new stem cells. [Then we proceed to argue about whether it is better to allow this embryo grow--reproductive cloning--or to harvest its stem cells--murder.]
We must then ask ourselves: is murder ever justified? Do we have the right to take the life of a being who has no say for him/herself? How can one justify telling someone that his/her life isn't worth the same as someone else's? Granted, people on Earth are suffering in the now, but does that justify this form of murder? What if it were your life at stake?
Whether or not anyone agrees with anything in the last three paragraphs, I think we must all decide where to draw the line between an obsessive quest for life and a graceful death. Right-to-life advocates certainly draw this line at killing an embryo, but those of us who do not agree that harvesting stem cells is murder still need to make this decision. The idea of being so medically advanced that we can heal arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, and other diseases that are so commonly linked to old age is a bit unnerving to me. At first glance, finding cures for these diseases appears to be rather positive; when I think more, however, I wonder whether this truly benefits society. Certainly, the potential benefits of stem cell research are undeniably positive when considering a nine-year-old girl with leukemia, but what about an eighty-year-old man with Alzheimer's? My perspective may change over time, but for the moment, I believe that as difficult as it is to let someone go, there is a natural stopping point in life--a point at which we, as seventy- and eighty-year-olds, ought to resign ourselves to the "inevitable" (and I use this term loosely here) and gracefully bow out. Not everyone will necessarily choose to live indefinitely, but I think some would, if given the opportunity and a means to relieve themselves of chronic problems curable through stem cell therapy. And ultimately, the idea of anyone extending his/her life indefinitely is a scary prospect for me.
[Sorry for the long post; I have no idea how to hide part of it.]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
One ethical perspective marks the development of the "primitive streak", a furrow-like structure that forms in the embryo, which occurs around the 14th day of an embryo's life, as the point at which the embryo reaches the moral status comparable to that of a fully grown human being. Before this point, the embryo is considered to be simply a mass of cells and can be experimented upon without it being immoral. The reasoning behind this kind of idea is that the embryo needs to attain certain physical characteristics in order to achieve this comparable moral status, which is a very controversial issue: what point in development marks this transition from cell mass to human being? Right-to-life advocates would argue that there is no such point, that right after conception the dividing egg cell has moral status.
As another person who is taking on the Right-to-Life Committee Member role, a lot of beatrice's thoughts are similar to those I have been dealing with over the past couple of days. I have to admit I've been impressed with the case they have presented, but this is only if I ignore my inherent disagreement with their belief of the beginning of human life. In many ways I find it unfortunate that with the topic of when human life begins, the fundamental issue of this debate, there is no definitive way of assessing right or wrong. Because when the discussion turns to the just fertilized embryo in the one cell stage, the argument over whether it is a human being or not trancends any concrete science. We can observe it with a microscope and determine its precise scientific composition, but all this information is simply inconsequential to many members of our society.
I have been amazed at the quantity of alternative methods that I have encountered doing my research on the internet. Given that I have come across a fair amount of contradictions and incongruities in stem cell data I am not sure whether a lot of these approaches are factual. For instance, there was one case where stem cells were taken from the fat of a 61 year old man and transplanted into his heart. The cells were accepted and are functioning. I also read about dental pulp stem cells that can be used in the brain to help treat Parkinson's disease. What do you think? Finding alternative stem cells in adults is crucial because it can appease the worst fears of the right-to-life advocates who, despite new research, legislation, or social development, will always stand by their fundamental beliefs. What other alternatives have you all stumbled upon?
In response to Lindley...
Another alternative to stem cells i found interesting is in umbilical cords. After the baby is born, the umbilical cord is discarded. However, scientists recently learned that the blood taken from the umbilical cords are a good source of stem cells. And they've also proven themselves to be able to cure many diseases... blood related diseases.
Anyhow, these seem like one of the alternatives that would please the right-to-life advocates because the blood form the umbilical cord is taken after the birth
From our study of stem cells, I think we can agree that stem cells present the possibility to do amazing things for the human race such as curing diseases for the younger members of the population. These positive outcomes of stem cell research are what makes me firmly believe that stem cell research is something that the United States should be investing lots of money in. However, I think that there are other dilemmas when it comes to stem cell research, besides for nailing down the exact time when people believe a life is created. I also think that we have to look at how the world will change if using stem cells to cure diseases become a reality. Using stem cells to cure diseases will make the average human lifespan increase causing the world’s population to increase even faster than it already is. As we have learned in environmental science population control is one of the biggest issues in the modern world. I will not go into its problems here because they are fairly evident. I think that it would be wonderful if scientists figure out how to use stem cells to cure diseases, but I also think that when that time comes legislation will have to be created for appropriate stem cell use. I don’t think that people should be using stem cells so that they can live forever. Any thoughts?
The life at conception theory seems to require many specific definitions. For example, what is conception? Does it require a sperm and an egg - if not, cloned embryos have not been conceived; rather, an egg has been genetically modified and electrically stimulated to divide. Should an embryo, cloned or otherwise, outside of a uterus be considered a true embryo? It is impossible for a child to be cultured in a Petri dish, so while an embryo has the potential to develop into a child this is only true if it is implanted into a uterus and brought to term. Should we differentiate between laboratory "stem cell production" embryos and "cherished future child" embryos?
Perhaps most importantly, would a change in language alter the objections of life at conception proponents?
Beatrice stated correctly that the “crux of the argument lies in determining when life starts”. Right to life advocates and many Christian fundamentalists believe that life starts at conception. If you follow this logic, destroying an embryo, even for scientific purposes, is killing a human being. However, I believe that life starts when a heartbeat can be consistently detected, usually during the 11th or 12th week of pregnancy. Before this pivotal moment, I, with all due respect, see the fetus as a mass of cells and therefore have no qualms about using this mass of cells for scientific purposes. Some right to life advocates might argue that I am “killing the seeds of the next generation”. However, I am just placing more value on the living, breathing human being, rather than on the potential one.
I understand the concerns that using stem cells to cure diseases will increase the average human lifespan and may cause a world population crisis. However, I don't think that this should stop our efforts to try and find treatments and cures to diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, etc. After all, isn't medicine about treating and curing diseases to improve the quality-of-life and to increase the lifespan of an individual who would otherwise have died prematurely? I agree with Beatrice that there is a natural stopping point in life, but who is to say where that stopping point is? A few hundred years ago, the average life expectancy was undoubtedly lower than it is today. In any case, I don't think we can simply ignore new technologies and research that have the potential to save lives; we have the power to cure these diseases and we should strive to do so.
I think that a distinction needs to be made between using stem cell research and therapeutic cloning to cure diseases and to make lives unnaturally long. I agree that therapeutic cloning should be used to cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s, that end life prematurely. However, my concern is that people will start making their lives unnaturally long, say 200 years, by replacing nearly all of their organs as they start to wear out. If this started happening the world population would increase much too quickly. I also believe that there would be many social problems due to people’s ages differing by such a great amount.
The problem is drawing the line between treating/curing diseases and unnaturally extending one's lifespan. Like Christina was saying, life expectancy has been continuously rising throughout the years, on account of new drugs and treatments for diseases; is this just the next step? It's a really tricky question because there is so much potential here to save lives, yet we don't want to be "unnaturally" extending lives. Medicine itself is unnatural and death from a disease is a natural death. When does treatment of a disease become too unnatural to be acceptable?
Post a Comment