Please don't hate me for what I post on this subject...... I understand that it touches on religion and stem cell research, a topic SURROUNDED in controversy, but I just thought I would voice my opinion on the matter seeing as my genetics homework required me to read about it. If you don't want to deal with any of the above, feel free to skip this post entirely.
Alright world, and please keep in mind that I'm asking you this because I can't seem to understand the insanity I just read about, but seriously, what is so wrong about using embryos for stem cell research?
Lemme back up a bit because that sounds bad, embryos for research...
When couples look into in vitro fertilization, the company performing the procedure surgically removes a certain number of eggs from the woman and then creates around 5 viable embryos from these eggs. Usually three of these embryos are implanted, to hopefully allow to woman to bear children. Two of the viable embryos are then frozen and held onto by the company in the hopes that if the first three embryos fail, they will have backup embryos, so the woman won't have to undergo more surgery to remove more eggs to try again. However, if the woman is successful in having children, the two remaining embryos are kept in suspension in a freezer in some company's storage facility until their scheduled destruction.
The majority of religions frown upon the entire process of in vitro fertilization, and believe that children should come from conjugal love, and should not be separated from this love. Most religions also believe that at fertilization, the embryo is considered a human being with a soul that deserves to be brought into this world. Some religions see the point where the cell implants in the uterus as the point where the embryo is considered to be a human being.
Regardless of what anyone believes, it is physically impossible for all the embryos stored in IVF clinics to be born as children. There are simply far too many. Therefore, they are scheduled for destruction. What is so wrong about using a tiny ball of cells that has already been created for research? These cells are not going to be used to create humans, and they can cure so many horrible diseases like Parkinson's disease, or childhood diabetes... I mean, I do believe it is wrong to create embryos only for the sake of destroying them through research, but the fact is, these embryos already exist, they are scheduled to be destroyed, and most mothers after managing to have children via IVF choose to donate the remaining embryos to research.
The author of my genetics text The Strongest Boy in the World posed an interesting point. Philip R. Reilly stated,
"I wonder how those who believe that an unimplanted human embryo suspended in a tiny vial in a low-temperature refrigerator is morally equivalent to a child suffering from severe diabetes reach that position. Imagine yourself in a building that is on fire and will soon be engulfed in flames. In the room to your left is a wheelchair bound woman. In the room to your right is a refrigerator that holds a tray of 100 frozen human embryos. What should you do? None of those to whom I have posed this dilemma, including many with strong fundamentalist views and deeply held pro-life stances, have said they would save the frozen embryos.
Why is the decision so straightforward? On the psychological or emotional level, humans identify much more closely with a fellow person than they do with a potential person or persons. The person at risk in the fire looks like you and has had a set of life experiences roughly like yours. The unformed cell masses in the vials have not. On the philosophical level, the disabled woman is an actual entity, unquestionably a member of the human family, almost certainly capable of crying out for help, and undoubtably capable of experiencing the agony of death by fire. She is fully human. The embryos in the vial are not sentient. They have no awareness, no capacity for pain, no connection to a family that will grieve over them. They are not persons."
Is it wrong to think that because these are just little masses of cells it is ok to do research on them? Its certainly wrong to just destroy these cell masses when they can be used for so much good. I think that if the embryos already exist, and are going to be wasted anyways, why not use them for research that could save so many lives? I think the line should be drawn at creating embryos purely for the sake of research.
Maybe its just my inner science dork that's saying this... But the cells are not a sentient being. They have no sense of pain, no sense of their destruction, no sense of the morality of their use, no sense of the fact that they could be used to save lives... They are not a baby, they are simply a mass of cells. Masses of cells like this get naturally aborted on a daily basis when they hit a point where something goes wrong with their division, and the majority of the time, the woman doesn't even know the embryo existed in the first place.
Then again, we are all just masses of cells... Plus something extra that no one knows how to categorize.
I don't know... Its probably just the scientific part of me that says that since they are not sentient and they will be wasted that someone should do research on them for the betterment of humanity.
Either way, while everyone is spending all their time arguing, embryos like these are being destroyed... Someone needs to make a decision and either have all of these embryos born to be children or use them for research. This wastefulness is absolutely mind boggling.
Sometimes people drive me crazy.
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