Embryonic Stem Cell Argumentative Essay
Guiao, Iris Joy M.
09/02/13
ENGLCOM Writing Component
C36
Embryonic Stem Cell: Threat to Life and Humanity
Every year, about 7.9 million infants are born with serious birth defects, which is about 6% of infants born worldwide. In the United States alone, there are more than 4.4 million to 7.7 million of people with developmental disabilities and about 60% of their population’s deaths were due to degenerative diseases. These figures explain the outpour of comments and criticisms as well as hopes and controversies with the introduction of stem cell therapy, a treatment which promises to provide a cure to these diseases by introducing a stem cell into the damaged tissue or organ of the body.
Each part of a person’s body is composed of different …show more content…
Stem cells can be found at several parts of the body. Thus, there are various types of stem cell therapies depending on where the stem cell to be used in the treatment was obtained. Two of the most popular type of stem cells are the adult stem cells, which is now becoming widely used, and the embryonic stem cells, which gave rise to lots of controversies. Adult stem cells can be found in almost every adult tissue of the body, but current therapies regularly uses blood adult stem cells, acquired from the
bone marrow or the umbilical cord blood, and neural adult stem cells, acquired from the central nervous system. These types of adult stem cells are taken from children or adults without harming nor hurting them. On the other hand, embryonic stem cells are obtained from embryos which are only 3-5 days old. The removal of the stem cell from the embryo would end the life which has just been conceived. Despite this, many researchers still claim that this type of stem cells are best suited for stem cell …show more content…
Life starts the moment a sperm cell joins with an egg cell in the process called fertilization (Moore, 1988, p. 2).
An embryo develops from a zygote formed after the union of a sperm cell and an egg cell. Therefore, by destroying an embryo, one is taking away a life. There is no question there whether it is ethical or not because killing an innocent being could never be moral.
It is very wrong to value embryos less than infants or adults. Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk
(2007) asserted that “all of us, at all stages along the continuum, possess the same dignity and worth as humans,” so even that embryo’s life deserves the same respect that children or adults expect to get. Besides, each person was ones an embryo as well.
Aside from being unethical, another big controversy regarding the use of embryonic stem cells refers to their effectiveness. For more than a decade now that scientists, as well as biotechnological companies, have been studying and experimenting on embryonic stem cells, their promise of successful results has not yet occurred. In fact, instead of positive results, this type of stem cell showed a great chance of being rejected by the body even if it was obtained from a cloned
09/02/13
ENGLCOM Writing Component
C36
Embryonic Stem Cell: Threat to Life and Humanity
Every year, about 7.9 million infants are born with serious birth defects, which is about 6% of infants born worldwide. In the United States alone, there are more than 4.4 million to 7.7 million of people with developmental disabilities and about 60% of their population’s deaths were due to degenerative diseases. These figures explain the outpour of comments and criticisms as well as hopes and controversies with the introduction of stem cell therapy, a treatment which promises to provide a cure to these diseases by introducing a stem cell into the damaged tissue or organ of the body.
Each part of a person’s body is composed of different …show more content…
Stem cells can be found at several parts of the body. Thus, there are various types of stem cell therapies depending on where the stem cell to be used in the treatment was obtained. Two of the most popular type of stem cells are the adult stem cells, which is now becoming widely used, and the embryonic stem cells, which gave rise to lots of controversies. Adult stem cells can be found in almost every adult tissue of the body, but current therapies regularly uses blood adult stem cells, acquired from the
bone marrow or the umbilical cord blood, and neural adult stem cells, acquired from the central nervous system. These types of adult stem cells are taken from children or adults without harming nor hurting them. On the other hand, embryonic stem cells are obtained from embryos which are only 3-5 days old. The removal of the stem cell from the embryo would end the life which has just been conceived. Despite this, many researchers still claim that this type of stem cells are best suited for stem cell …show more content…
Life starts the moment a sperm cell joins with an egg cell in the process called fertilization (Moore, 1988, p. 2).
An embryo develops from a zygote formed after the union of a sperm cell and an egg cell. Therefore, by destroying an embryo, one is taking away a life. There is no question there whether it is ethical or not because killing an innocent being could never be moral.
It is very wrong to value embryos less than infants or adults. Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk
(2007) asserted that “all of us, at all stages along the continuum, possess the same dignity and worth as humans,” so even that embryo’s life deserves the same respect that children or adults expect to get. Besides, each person was ones an embryo as well.
Aside from being unethical, another big controversy regarding the use of embryonic stem cells refers to their effectiveness. For more than a decade now that scientists, as well as biotechnological companies, have been studying and experimenting on embryonic stem cells, their promise of successful results has not yet occurred. In fact, instead of positive results, this type of stem cell showed a great chance of being rejected by the body even if it was obtained from a cloned