Stem cells.
I’m strongly pro-choice. Yet, I find myself seriously troubled by embryonic stem cell research.
The science of stem cells is beyond my understanding, but I think it is safe to say that there are two important kinds of stem cells.
The first kind is present in the embryo, and is sometimes called an “embryonic” stem cell. In the natural world, these cells exist only in embryos. They can reproduce themselves many times, although perhaps not an unlimited number of times. As they reproduce, they are capable of becoming any type of cell that is used in a human being. Human beings have many kinds of cells, including neurons, red blood cells, and many others. An embryonic stem cell can create any type of human cell. As an embryo develops into a fetus and then into a person, all of the cells that make up the person derive from embryonic stem cells.
The second kind of stem cell is present as early as the fetus stage, and is sometimes called the “adult” stem cell. After the embryonic stage, adult stem cells are present in the individual until death. They can create any kind of cell within their broad type. There are adult stem cells for each cell type. There are adult stem cells for nerve cells, skin cells, red blood cells, and each other type. There are actually well over a dozen cell types that we know of. Each has its own adult stem cell.
To perform research on adult stem cells, a physician must obtain informed consent from a living adult person, and then surgically extract adult stem cells. There is no ethical problem here once informed consent exists. The surgery to remove adult stem cells would remove only some adult stem cells. The rest would remain. In some cases, however, the adult stem cells are located deep within the body. While informed consent is possible, surgery to extract these is likely to be inconvenient or even painful.
Due to the flexibility of stem cells, both embryonic and adult, in creating other kinds of cells, they are of interest to scientists who seek to develop treatments for diseases and other disabling conditions.
The stages of fetal development are as follows. A fertilized egg is a zygote. After the zygote divides several times, it is a blastocyst. A blastocyst includes both embryonic stem cells and other living matter that has developed from the fertilized egg, the zygote. The human person that will eventually develop will be completely derived from the embryonic stem cells. The other organic matter in the blastocyst becomes the placenta and umbilical cord.
My concern is with embryonic stem cells. In the gestation process, the embryonic stem cells form the part that develops into the fetus, and later into the person. Embryonic stem cells comprise all of the living matter that will eventually develop into the fetus and later the person. When researchers take embryonic stem cells, they take all of the cells that may eventually form the living human being. The other part of the embryo, the rest of the blastocyst, forms the umbilical cord and the placenta.
The stem cell debate is different from the abortion debate. In abortion procedures, the freedom of the living woman from giving birth must outweigh any possible interest held by the potential life of the fetus. Thus, the freedom of a woman to have an abortion is a human right held by her individual self.
In embryonic stem cell research, however, neither the mother nor the father has any important interests at stake. The parents were not going to use the fertilized egg for any purpose other than research. In some cases, the parents created the embryo for the express purpose of experimenting with it. I find this to be shocking.
Yet, the embryo must have some rights, since it does have potential life. One right that we have traditionally extended to all human beings, no matter how incompetent, vegetative or brain dead they appear to us, is the freedom from involuntary medical experimentation. Yet, that right is denied to embryos by current research into embryonic stem cells.
Another right held by fetuses is the right to be either born with as much care as possible, or terminated in as dignified a manner as possible. There is no chance that an embryo subjected to stem cell research will ever be born. Being terminated for reasons of experimentation is undignified.
At this point, I have to oppose embryonic stem cell research. Are any of my fellow left-wingers troubled by embryonic stem cell research?
My thinking on this subject is still ongoing. If I have made any misstatements, I apologize. Your correction is welcome. Thank you.
Originally posted to Democratic Left.