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Should embryonic stem cells be used for medical rehabilitation?

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Should embryonic stem cells be used for medical rehabilitation?

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In support of embryonic stem cell research

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In support of embryonic stem cell research

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Many believe that embryonic stem cell research has a multitude of bounteous benefits. However, the main benefit among these believers is that it has the opportunity to prevent premature death or treat diseases.

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Individuals who stand against embryonic stem cell research put heavy importance on the fact that these stem cells are being derived from an early embryo which destroys the chances of development. Believers against embryonic stem cell research hold a certain moral significance towards an early embryo.

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Embryonic stem cells hold the potential to learn more about the human body which researchers have not uncovered yet. This may include topics such as cell growth, migration, and differentiation. They hold the potential to possibly learn more about human development and can aid in the process of using in vitro models to drug test rather than animals.

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One of the approaches to stem cell-based therapies are replacement cells that can be manufactured in a laboratory. These would be cultivated if an individual's tissue or organ is damaged and the body was unable to make these cells by itself. Researchers would be able to get these stem cells from an early developed embryo and be able to essentially culture and differentiate them in a petri dish. Further research on this would allow for researchers to hopefully create whole organs or organs that would be able to mock the body's mechanisms

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Another approach to stem cell-based therapies are triggering somatic, or body, stem cells to repair damaged tissues and organs. This will hopefully trigger the growth of the damaged tissue and organ. Researchers hope to trump modern day drugs due to the fact that they only delay symptoms rather than repairing and treating parts of the body like stem cells do. This is also a great alternative to primarily using embryonic stem cells, however it is only in its experimental phase and cannot be reliable.

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Compared to somatic stem cells, embryonic stem cells are much easier to obtain. They are derived from the embryo at the blastocyst stage which is when the embryo is a hollow ball described as a pinhead. In this phase, there are no organs or blood formed and it is simply a ball of cells. Furthermore, in this stage there is around 125-250 cells on the outer layer while the inner ball contains 27-45 cells. When deriving these stem cells through microsurgery it completely destroys the embryo meaning further development would not be possible. However, somatic stem cells are very difficult to find and isolate since there is a very small number of them. Additionally, it would be impossible to harvest these cells from organs and tissues such as the heart and brain.

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Embryonic stem cells can be described as pluripotent and thus can multiply and divide to become any cell in the body. Since they can be described as very versatile, they can possibly be used in a multitude of different therapeutic uses and it would also be able to benefit the field of drug discovery and toxicity testing. Compared to embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells are much less versatile and can only give birth to limited types of cells.

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I personally believe that embryonic stem cells should be used for stem cell-based therapies and biomedical research. Although I do understand that embryos are being destroyed due to this process and those embryos could have been developed into a human, at the time of microsurgery no organs or blood has been developed yet and it can be considered as only a cluster of cells. Additionally, I believe the benefits outweigh the ethical questionability of the procedure because with embryonic stem cells a multitude of diseases and disorders have the chance to be cured and tissues and organs can be developed in a lab. Furthermore, we can stop the procedure of animal testing and move to something, that I believe, is more ethical.

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Individuals who believe this perspective think that an embryo should be looked at as a human being and thus an embryo should not be destroyed because it is like killing human beings.

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Others believe that from the moment of conception, there is the possibility of development into a human being and thus embryos should be treated like one.

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Individuals who are not against stem cell research state that the potentiality argument can be argued because people do not see acorns as trees or eggs as chickens and thus they state that we should not treat the embryo as a human just because there is potential.

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Believers of this perspective think that the deliberate destroying of embryos is wrong, but the pros may outweigh the cons. It depends on how large the benefits of stem cell research can be and how beneficial it can be to society.

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Those who disagree with "The Full Moral Status View" may believe that an embryo has some value, but this moral value may increase over the time of development and throughout pregnancy. When the embryo reaches infancy, that is when full moral status is achieved and the embryo can be perceived as a human being.

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Devolder, Katrien. “Introduction: The Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 22 Jan. 2015, doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547999.003.0001.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547999.003.0001