Why is Stem Cell Research so Controversial?

[Sidestreamer]

I didn't see any recent thread on this so I just wanted to start up something.

I can see people not liking abortions, but considering how stem cells are created I can only blame the sentiment against it on misinformation. If anyone's familiar with in vitro fertilization, they'd know that far more embryos are produced than what could possibly be used. Most pregnancies require fewer than three or four (many are successful on the first embryo) and yet hundreds are created in the process. They're frozen for storage, but can only survive for so long. I don't remember the time they survive frozen, but there's always an excess that's disposed of.

The way some argue it, using them for medical research amounts to murder. Well, fact of the matter is that there's no real potential for life because there are simply too many of them compared to the number of women needing an embryo. Those of you who absolutely oppose SCR, do you really prefer they all just stayed frozen until they died naturally? If so, why, and please don't tell me this is moral because you're not only failing to save the embryo but you're also allowing people who could benefit from such research to suffer from the lack of it.

 

[KittenKoder]

Actually ... there is one flaw with this. It's not that the research is actually controversial, it's the funding. There are many labs still doing research just they cannot get US government funding for it. While I think it's stupid not to fund it, they haven't banned it or outlawed it and probably could not.

 

[Sidestreamer]

Actually ... there is one flaw with this. It's not that the research is actually controversial, it's the funding. There are many labs still doing research just they cannot get US government funding for it. While I think it's stupid not to fund it, they haven't banned it or outlawed it and probably could not.

It's a defacto banning. You won't find a single disease of any significance whose research wasn't funded at least partially by gov't dollars or substantiated in some degree using public facilities and state universities, because it takes that kind of support to make any headway with it.

 

[KittenKoder]

It's a defacto banning. You won't find a single disease of any significance whose research wasn't funded at least partially by gov't dollars or substantiated in some degree using public facilities and state universities, because it takes that kind of support to make any headway with it.

Actually we have two labs in Washington state that are studying stem cell, completely without government funding. Our cancer research center is using those that UW is growing and also studying, for two different reasons of course. All privately funded. Of course the Gates Foundation funds some of it but it's just not impossible, though the funding should be offered just as much as anything I am not worried until they try to actually ban it, then I'll have problems.

 

[Sidestreamer]

Hmm... how much money do these labs use and how much time and manpower's put on it?

 

[Steerpike]

Actually ... there is one flaw with this. It's not that the research is actually controversial, it's the funding. There are many labs still doing research just they cannot get US government funding for it. While I think it's stupid not to fund it, they haven't banned it or outlawed it and probably could not.

The reason the funding is controversial is that the research itself is controversial and there is political pressure from the right (usually based in religious grounds) to therefore keep public funding away from it.

 

[eots]

I didn't see any recent thread on this so I just wanted to start up something.

I can see people not liking abortions, but considering how stem cells are created I can only blame the sentiment against it on misinformation. If anyone's familiar with in vitro fertilization, they'd know that far more embryos are produced than what could possibly be used. Most pregnancies require fewer than three or four (many are successful on the first embryo) and yet hundreds are created in the process. They're frozen for storage, but can only survive for so long. I don't remember the time they survive frozen, but there's always an excess that's disposed of.

The way some argue it, using them for medical research amounts to murder. Well, fact of the matter is that there's no real potential for life because there are simply too many of them compared to the number of women needing an embryo. Those of you who absolutely oppose SCR, do you really prefer they all just stayed frozen until they died naturally? If so, why, and please don't tell me this is moral because you're not only failing to save the embryo but you're also allowing people who could benefit from such research to suffer from the lack of it.

how about we don't create the children just to let them die in the first place....or is that to complicated a concept for you

Adoption's New Frontier



On May 24, President Bush invited 21 families to a White House ceremony and said each of them had "answered the call to ensure that our society's most vulnerable members are protected and defended at every stage of life."

What exactly did these families do to merit such high praise from the president?

These families had adopted embryos left over from other couples' attempts to conceive through in vitro fertilization. They came to the White House to support the position that frozen embryos are human lives worth saving.

Eighty-four families have adopted frozen embryos in this country. For some, like those who came to the White House in May, this is at least partly a political act; for others, it's a way to have a pregnancy and a child. But embryo adoption is now a dramatic side story to the intense debate surrounding the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos in the U.S. today.



Adoption's New Frontier, 'Snowflake' Babies Adopted For Personal, Political Reasons - CBS News

 

[Gem]

I think that some people have strong religious convictions and they believe that even a frozen embryo is a human and needs to be protected. With that in mind, asking them to let babies be experimented on is probably never going to be something they will be able to agree to.

I think that others have an issue with what happens AFTER we "use" the frozen, unwanted embryos created by parents seeking in-vitro. Stem-cell research is going to take a large number of stem-cells to work...as all research takes a long time and is a difficult, arduous process with lots of successes and failures.

So what happens when we are close (maybe a few years away) from discovering the cure of a disease...but we have no frozen, unwanted or donated embryos to use for research?

Do we create fertilized emryos for the express purpose of destroying them in research? Is this a slope we want to start down? Or have we started down it already?

I think that people who might be ok with using the unwanted frozen embryos get nervous at the thought of making embryos for the purpose of destroying them because it opens that door - where do we stop?

This is why I think adult stem-cell research is so desired by so many.

 

[eots]

and all those people executed each year ..isn't it a shame to just waste all those good organs ..I mean should we mot harvest them

 

[KittenKoder]

Okay ... for the embryo thing, sure, but who will be the incubator, otherwise they are just trapped souls anyhow until thawed and grown ... which is just evil to anyone with a religious belief.

 

[eots]

Okay ... for the embryo thing, sure, but who will be the incubator, otherwise they are just trapped souls anyhow until thawed and grown ... which is just evil to anyone with a religious belief.

yes ..so stop creating them..simple

 

[KittenKoder]

yes ..so stop creating them..simple

I agree, was just mentioning that it's kind of hypocritical to say "don't kill them because they're alive" and then keep them frozen.

 

[Skeptik]

Stem cell research is not funded by government, because the current administration considers such research morally wrong. A human embryo, the reasoning goes, is still a human life, even if it consists of a few cells and can only be seen in a microscope. There are enough people who believe that to make using such embryos for research controversial.

Never mind that the choice is between destroying unused embryos, and not allowing in vitrio fertilization, or that outlawing such medical practice would actually prevent human life from beginning.

In the topsy turvy world of the Christian Right, such research is no different from creating babies for research.

 

[frazzledgear]

I didn't see any recent thread on this so I just wanted to start up something.

I can see people not liking abortions, but considering how stem cells are created I can only blame the sentiment against it on misinformation. If anyone's familiar with in vitro fertilization, they'd know that far more embryos are produced than what could possibly be used. Most pregnancies require fewer than three or four (many are successful on the first embryo) and yet hundreds are created in the process. They're frozen for storage, but can only survive for so long. I don't remember the time they survive frozen, but there's always an excess that's disposed of.

The way some argue it, using them for medical research amounts to murder. Well, fact of the matter is that there's no real potential for life because there are simply too many of them compared to the number of women needing an embryo. Those of you who absolutely oppose SCR, do you really prefer they all just stayed frozen until they died naturally? If so, why, and please don't tell me this is moral because you're not only failing to save the embryo but you're also allowing people who could benefit from such research to suffer from the lack of it.

It isn't stem cell research that is controversial -it is EMBRYONIC stem cell research that is controversial. And it is really annoying that proponents try to blur the line here by dropping the "embryonic" part and pretending it is stem cell research in general that others oppose -people who must be nutcases, of course. But more than a few people consider embryonic stem cell research to be nothing less than a form of cannibalism -including most bioethicists. I posted on this subject on a different thread some time ago. Proponents don't just want to access to unused frozen embryos from parents trying to have a child -they want the "right" to create their own embryos, kill them and then harvest their cells like a crop.

Many people consider it immoral to create a human life for the express purpose of killing it and cannibalizing it in order to extend the life of another human life. That isn't a hard one to get around -you either have a serious moral problem with someone creating a human life, then killing it and harvesting it -or you don't. But the controversy isn't about stem cell research in general such as adult and cord blood stem cell research -just embryonic stem cell research.

A lot of people don't realize that the most promising lines of research don't involve human embryos at all. Embryonic stem cell research is actually the one line which has produced no significant results to this date, has no significant results predicted anytime in the near future (the deliberate exaggerations by proponents don't count since honest researchers admit to the truth on this one) - and is why proponents insist that research involving killing living human embryos requires government funds. They keep running into the very same kinds of problems with embryonic stem cells -the tendency for tumor formation, the inability to get the embryonic stem cells to become the desired type of tissue and the instability of gene expression in further generations even if the desired tissue is created. Which means they can sometimes get an embryonic stem cell to become a liver cell for example -but a few generations later of cell reproduction, those cells are no longer liver cells but just rapidly reproducing undifferentiated cells. Undifferentiated, rapidly reproducing cells are cancer cells. And we are back to the first problem I mentioned with the tendency for tumor formation with embryonic stem cells. A religious person might suggest that God intended there be no benefit from the cannibalization of another human life.

The lines of stem cell research that have already produced real results and are already being used for the benefit of real people, treating real diseases and conditions are adult stem cell research and cord blood stem cell research -neither of which involves killing living embryos and attract lots of private investment. Embryonic stem cell research has problems attracting private funding because it is far less promising. Private investors do a lot of their own research because they want to make money -not lose it. If private investors won't touch it and risk their money on that line of research because it is far less promising than other lines of stem cell research -then why should taxpayers get soaked for the bill? Does it make sense to you for taxpayers to foot the bulk of the bill for the least promising line of stem cell research when they aren't for the most promising ones?

In addition, there are at least three different lines of research going on right now (with plenty of private funding as well) trying to produce what is desired from a human embryo without an embryo at all. One of these is called "Altered Nuclear Transfer" which involves removing the nucleus of a human egg (with only half the necessary DNA, it is not a human life), treating the empty egg and inserting the nucleus from an adult tissue cell. Similar to cloning except the treatment of the empty egg prior to insertion of the adult cell nucleus results in the cell becoming incapable of becoming an embryo and only produces a mass of disconnected, undifferentiated cells called "pleuripotential cells" -with indications they carry the same kind of potential as the stem cells found in an embryo. Since it is incapable of ever becoming an embryo -it isn't a human life and remains just a mass of cells.

If it is possible to create what is desired from a living human embryo without any need of creating, killing and then cannibalizing another human life -then isn't a moral society obligated to take that route and avoid the one that treats human life as of no more value than a crop of corn?

 

[Sidestreamer]

It isn't stem cell research that is controversial -it is EMBRYONIC stem cell research that is controversial. And it is really annoying that proponents try to blur the line here by dropping the "embryonic" part and pretending it is stem cell research in general that others oppose -people who must be nutcases, of course. But more than a few people consider embryonic stem cell research to be nothing less than a form of cannibalism -including most bioethicists. I posted on this subject on a different thread some time ago. Proponents don't just want to access to unused frozen embryos from parents trying to have a child -they want the "right" to create their own embryos, kill them and then harvest their cells like a crop.

Many people consider it immoral to create a human life for the express purpose of killing it and cannibalizing it in order to extend the life of another human life. That isn't a hard one to get around -you either have a serious moral problem with someone creating a human life, then killing it and harvesting it -or you don't. But the controversy isn't about stem cell research in general such as adult and cord blood stem cell research -just embryonic stem cell research.

A lot of people don't realize that the most promising lines of research don't involve human embryos at all. Embryonic stem cell research is actually the one line which has produced no significant results to this date, has no significant results predicted anytime in the near future (the deliberate exaggerations by proponents don't count since honest researchers admit to the truth on this one) - and is why proponents insist that research involving killing living human embryos requires government funds. They keep running into the very same kinds of problems with embryonic stem cells -the tendency for tumor formation, the inability to get the embryonic stem cells to become the desired type of tissue and the instability of gene expression in further generations even if the desired tissue is created. Which means they can sometimes get an embryonic stem cell to become a liver cell for example -but a few generations later of cell reproduction, those cells are no longer liver cells but just rapidly reproducing undifferentiated cells. Undifferentiated, rapidly reproducing cells are cancer cells. And we are back to the first problem I mentioned with the tendency for tumor formation with embryonic stem cells. A religious person might suggest that God intended there be no benefit from the cannibalization of another human life.

The lines of stem cell research that have already produced real results and are already being used for the benefit of real people, treating real diseases and conditions are adult stem cell research and cord blood stem cell research -neither of which involves killing living embryos and attract lots of private investment. Embryonic stem cell research has problems attracting private funding because it is far less promising. Private investors do a lot of their own research because they want to make money -not lose it. If private investors won't touch it and risk their money on that line of research because it is far less promising than other lines of stem cell research -then why should taxpayers get soaked for the bill? Does it make sense to you for taxpayers to foot the bulk of the bill for the least promising line of stem cell research when they aren't for the most promising ones?

In addition, there are at least three different lines of research going on right now (with plenty of private funding as well) trying to produce what is desired from a human embryo without an embryo at all. One of these is called "Altered Nuclear Transfer" which involves removing the nucleus of a human egg (with only half the necessary DNA, it is not a human life), treating the empty egg and inserting the nucleus from an adult tissue cell. Similar to cloning except the treatment of the empty egg prior to insertion of the adult cell nucleus results in the cell becoming incapable of becoming an embryo and only produces a mass of disconnected, undifferentiated cells called "pleuripotential cells" -with indications they carry the same kind of potential as the stem cells found in an embryo. Since it is incapable of ever becoming an embryo -it isn't a human life and remains just a mass of cells.

If it is possible to create what is desired from a living human embryo without any need of creating, killing and then cannibalizing another human life -then isn't a moral society obligated to take that route and avoid the one that treats human life as of no more value than a crop of corn?

I was anticipating this response, even though my OP was an obvious reference to embryonic SCR.

Of course embryonic research hasn't produced anything, because it never was afforded the same support given to the others in the first place. No usual scientist would limit avenues of research except on moral grounds, and you're creating a barrier by mischaracterizing it. Those cells aren't created solely for this research, they can be taken from the inevitable excesses that come from in-vitro. Unless you wish to ban in-vitro as well...

I don't care if the other avenues are turning up anything, we shouldn't shut one down because we're finding something down another street.

 

[taimie]

Please do a search for:

Open Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research - The Petition Site & sign - less than 3,000 to reach goal.

Sorry this site will not let me post direct link yet


Thank You!
Taimie

 

[eots]

I didn't see any recent thread on this so I just wanted to start up something.

I can see people not liking abortions, but considering how stem cells are created I can only blame the sentiment against it on misinformation. If anyone's familiar with in vitro fertilization, they'd know that far more embryos are produced than what could possibly be used. Most pregnancies require fewer than three or four (many are successful on the first embryo) and yet hundreds are created in the process. They're frozen for storage, but can only survive for so long. I don't remember the time they survive frozen, but there's always an excess that's disposed of.

The way some argue it, using them for medical research amounts to murder. Well, fact of the matter is that there's no real potential for life because there are simply too many of them compared to the number of women needing an embryo. Those of you who absolutely oppose SCR, do you really prefer they all just stayed frozen until they died naturally? If so, why, and please don't tell me this is moral because you're not only failing to save the embryo but you're also allowing people who could benefit from such research to suffer from the lack of it.

abortion is murder

 

[Sidestreamer]

I didn't see any recent thread on this so I just wanted to start up something.

I can see people not liking abortions, but considering how stem cells are created I can only blame the sentiment against it on misinformation. If anyone's familiar with in vitro fertilization, they'd know that far more embryos are produced than what could possibly be used. Most pregnancies require fewer than three or four (many are successful on the first embryo) and yet hundreds are created in the process. They're frozen for storage, but can only survive for so long. I don't remember the time they survive frozen, but there's always an excess that's disposed of.

The way some argue it, using them for medical research amounts to murder. Well, fact of the matter is that there's no real potential for life because there are simply too many of them compared to the number of women needing an embryo. Those of you who absolutely oppose SCR, do you really prefer they all just stayed frozen until they died naturally? If so, why, and please don't tell me this is moral because you're not only failing to save the embryo but you're also allowing people who could benefit from such research to suffer from the lack of it.

abortion is murder

Using stored embryos for research when they have no chance of use is not murder. Neither is organ donation for that matter.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

It is controversial because it uses cells from aborted fetuses. It gives Doctors a REASON to abort other then the wishes of the mother or the safety of the mother.

Further all the supposed ground breaking cures were all faked early on by a South Korean scientist that no one bothered to peer review or check his findings.

 

[KittenKoder]

I love the insane connection people make, thinking that everyone else is so morally corrupt that just because they can do something they will ... all in an effort to suppress scientific research.