Are you for Stem Cell research?

It doesn't make sense not to research stem cells. We need to move forward in medical research and help people that are paralyzed.

Are you for Stem Cell research?
I would be for it if the fetus was absolutely going to be aborted, such as a woman who has already had an abortion/abortions.
Reply:Absolutely- stem cell research holds so much promise for treatments or cures for some of the worst ailments mankind has suffered. As long as the cells are not harvested from a viable fetus, I don't know why anyone would oppose this.
Reply:And the web page explains how scientists HOPE to be able to grow them into specialized cells. In other words, they can't, except in theory. So they need 'stem cells' to experiment on.





The problem is that scientists insist on obtaining these stem cells from embryonic human beings. By dissecting embryos for their stem cells, they kill the embryo just as dissecting adult humans for their body parts would kill them. So stem cell research raises substantial pro-life concerns.





Bottom line, if allowed, there will be an 'acceptance' if nothing else for abortion. What's your opinion on abortion?
Reply:again this can be religous or just logical. i dont think so because it would be playing God's role, he creates life when he wants, its not our job to. along with that we should take unborn fetuses and take out their cells, which could have grown up to become someone important in our society.
Reply:About thirty years ago there was a lot of opposition to the science of recombinant DNA technology (gene cloning). Luckily, this opposition was eventually unsuccessful, and right now there is probably not a single drug sold that did not benefit from this technology in its development or safety testing. I believe embryonic stem cells can become at least as important to drug and therapy advances as recombinant DNA technology has been.





Human embryonic stem cells (HESC) have the potential of revolutionizing medical research and eventually medicine itself because they hold the promise of creating replacement tissues. These tissues could be used for testing drugs or for transplantation to patients. But we will find out if this promise will be fulfilled only after many years of research. Right now that research is slowed down by opposition to the generation and research of HESC.





The biggest problem I have with people that oppose embryonic stem cell research is that they do not acknowledge that the embryos that are sacrificed for research purposes would be destroyed anyway. These embryos usually come from patients that successfully used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to become pregnant. The IVF procedure often produces multiple embryos and some are usually left over and frozen. The parents of these frozen embryos have several choices. 1) Pay to keep the embryos frozen. They can do this and later decided to use them to become pregnant again. 2) Donate the embryos to other people that are trying to become pregnant. 3) Donate the embryos to science and the creation of HESC. If the parents choose none of the options above the IVF clinic will take the embryo out of frozen storage and discard them. Right now this is what happens to the majority of frozen embryos.





So unless opponents of HESC R%26amp;D are either willing to pay for the continued storage of frozen embryos or advocate making it illegal to discard them, they are somewhat insincere in their opposition. I would characterize as such (insincere), almost all opponents of HESC other than the catholic church, which opposes the use of IVF. Obviously I do not agree with the catholic church or others with similar opposition to IVF, and if you do not oppose IVF you cannot logically oppose HESC.