BUT ONLY IF IT IS ADULT STEM CELLS, NOT EMBRYONIC!!

It may save your life one day.

It helps our understanding of Human life, and gives us ways in which we can improve life for those who need it.

I think if the umbilical cord is used it is worth it. The baby isn't harmed because the cords already cut the mother isn't harmed and it can save lives. If the cord isn't used it's only going to go in the trash and if it can save lives I'm all for it.

You can help find answers to many diseases with it. It can save your loved ones.

This is too agreeable.

Perhaps I should change it to be a little more controversial.

Embryonic stem cell research, anyone?

It can save lives!

I need more information about stem cell research if somebody knows any good website let me know...

With tons of extra embryos being thrown away by fertility clinics, why not use them to help better people's lifes?

"Embryonic stem cell research, anyone?" - Still all for it ;)

Embryonic or adult- don't matter I support.

its one of the ways we will expand our knowledge and continue the growth of our race

it would be bad taking from living embryos, but aborted or miscarriged ones should be fine,

who has problems with using dead flesh to further our own knowledge?
we are only molecules, so we shouldnt get too over-reactive about souls, and how religon is against it anyway

religon is a sham and is the world biggest legal mind-control
anyway


we have done too much to the world already to affect "god's creation"
people who say we shouldnt play god are wrong

if this omnipresent, all powerful pseudo-diety wwhich may or may not exist created us, why shouldnt we take control of the brains that we evolved

and defy nature?
we can fly, do to the depths of the ocean, get hotter than the sun and colder than space itself; we have touched the void and laughed in its face, we have broken the will too many times to count, we have decimated the binding ideals of spirits, souls and afterlife, we have brought us all to the knowledge that we are made up of nothing but sub-atomic particles and wave, in numbers which we cant even comprehend. We have slaughtered each other, murdered our neighbos and tortured our humble abode, yet we think so much of ourselves, when in fact we are nothing more than barley a speck on the infinitly expanding universe, we mean barley anything to the fate of the universe, so why we still think of ourselves as kings, we are but fleas to an unseeing emporor. Who may or may not exist.

I'm all for it. If we need to maybe end a couple lives to save thousands, then count me in, because there would be SO many incurable diseases made curable.

It can do so much for people with horrible diseases. Why wouldn't you want to help them?

i feel like MC_Acktour might have been answering an entirely different question :S

I support it all the way. If a aborted embryo can save few thousand lives I'm all for it.

If I was an aborted fetus or such like I would be honoured to think that in my 'death' I am contributing to research which could save the lives of thousands of others.

Trust me it will save lives

i love bio.

dunno what that is, so i say WHATEVER.

To be honest, I still don't understand it.

stem cells from fetuses are not even developed. nothing to them. plus abortion is murder anyway.

Why waste a fetuse if it's going to die anyways?

Full for it if a child is being aborted why waste it

What's that?

What's that?

We use dead bodies for study and research, so if an embryo is dead, why not use it? I think it's our best shot at curing the uncurable, as it were. If it cures cancer, what will all the detractors say? x

i support it fully. i hope to go into medicine in the future, or into some kind of medical research and if i do this is one of the first things i'd want to be involved in.
my best friend's mother has MS (multiple sclerosis - look it up) very severely. she was diagnosed about 5 years ago and now she can't walk, has spasms, is losing her sight and is incredibly depressed, in a few months she is going to have experimental stem cell treatment. there is no known cure for MS and this is the only thing that's giving her and her family hope.
i find the advances in the area incredible, the idea that someday soon we might be able to cure the previously uncurable is amazing.

I don't know/get what it is

Embryonic stem cells are not live human beings that have rights. I think stem cell research, and yes, embryonic stem cell research, is a humane and brilliant research method. An embryonic stem cell isn't even a fetus (and abortion is an entirely different issue)...I just don't understand the arguments against embryonic stem cell research. Saying that it's murder, or wrong or whatever, is like saying a man is murdering babies when he masterbates (sorry, didn't mean to bring sex or the like into the discussion, but it's a valid point, I think), simply because the sperm he ejaculates could have been implanted in a woman's uterus and resulted in a baby. It's nonsensical. Besides, isn't it better to experiment and do research on something that isn't even alive than some living, breathing animal?

An unborn fetus or a fully formed human being? Your choice.

its helps our understanding and can expand our medical sciene and save lives

i'm not really sure i really don't completly understand it so its hard to say if its good or bad

I completely agree with it. It could save lives. And besides embryonic stem cells aren't even living anyways. There just a little bundle of CELLS.

These comments are pretty funny. No, embryonic stem cells are living - there's no question about that. The discussion is usually about whether they should be considered human life (with attendant rights) or not.

My (admittedly unprofessional) understanding is that stem cells are specialized human growth cells that act as the engines for cell specialization and tissue development. One way of thinking of them is as active agents for the DNA - they take the instructions and perform the early system growth for a creature, so that embryonic cells can modify and specialize into various different types of cells: hair, teeth, bladder, toe nail, etc. Many in the medical community are very optimistic about the potential for medical treatments developed from using stem cells (as opposed to herbal/chemical extracts or tissue grafts): the idea is that, if they're able to crack the "stem cell code", they can then program the stem cells and use them to regrow or repair damaged tissue in the body. It's not so much that there is expectation that a lot will be learned about how the body works, but that effective therapies/treatments will be developed for various conditions.

My natural skepticism has me on the fence on this issue, because it seems to be the Next Big Thing in medical research, and those so often are less than they're cracked up to be. But I'm not opposed to doing the research any more than I'm opposed to doing kidney transplants. Yes, some unethical and sometimes illegal stuff happens with acquiring organs, but those situations are the exception, not the rule, and we already have laws governing what is legal and what isn't. The image of researchers convincing pregnant teens to abort their babies so that stem cells can be harvested is science fiction on one hand, and a case for malpractice and revoking a medical practitioner license on the other. I just don't think that the state of medical research is such that anything close to what they are pitching to the public as possible will result from the stem cell research.

if i were an embryo, i'd say "go ahead"

I'm not completely informed on the topic... so I don't know where I stand :/

I consider an embryo a person-but if they were going to be thrown out anyway better to put them to good use.

support it

against it.using unborn babies.for rong reasons,
if it a good reason thn ok..but other thn tht its rong

i'm against it, we studied it in science this year, and it can have complications that can affect someones life forever...

Care to elaborate on those complications?

Not for cloning though.

For human cloning I assume? Or do you also mean something like cloning an organ?

I don't know enough about it to make a proper decision.

i fully support it. And the fetuses they come from are not from living babies. The babies are already dead...why waste cells that could save someone else's child? That's just selfish.

I support it if it comes from fetuses that are already dead.

what is that

Can someone explain what it is and why people do it? I can't make a proper choice if I don't know what I'm choosing.

Stem cells are cells without a shape.
When a cell is formed, it's first a stem cell. Then it develops itself into any kind of cell. Like a liver cell or a brain cell or a white blood cell. They can really help people with cancer or alzheimer's.

But people who are against it are because they assume it's from fetuses and that it kills them. But they forget that fetuses already have like a 100 cells that are all still developing... Also you have stem cells yourself to form new skincells for exemple. So basically you take those cells and insert them in the brian(like with people with alzheimer's) and then new brain cells are developed.


I don't really see how we can have a debate about this since everyone is supporting it haha! ^^

even then I may not be all the way comfortable but that is for me. I just hope we can find an alternative to stem cell research, but until then as long as a life is not damaged in the process ok

I'm for it all the way. Adult or embryonic, if they have the potential to save the lives of countless millions, then to me it's worth it. Even if they are aborted, at least there's the chance that they'll be used to help humanity. I know that sounds kind of fucked up, but that's just what I think.

I think stem-cell research is good and don't care about claims of souls in single-celled organisms, but I think it's a misuse of federal funding to support research.

While I do understand why a person might be against it, if it helps lower the amount of deaths from cancer, diabetes, asthma, and other diseases, I'm all for it.

Honestly, I think humans need to stop fiddling with genetics. The world is the way it is for a reason, and humans should not be trying to change that. I realise that everyone wants to find a cure for cancer, but it simply is not feasible. Disease is simply a part of life, bit it is a necessary evil. If there was no disease, we wouldn't be able to live on this planet, due to overcrowding and overuse of resources. Basically, disease is the natural population regulator - if we mess with that, then we mess with the way the planet works and that is a very bad idea. We don't want to be messing with the way the Earth works, biologically speaking. It is simply better to just use the money from stem cell research to find ways to become sustainable and clean our planet up, so that we can all say that we are doing the best we can to have a planet that is being taken care of and stays clean and healthy.

^ BP, we've fiddled with genetics for millennia. Sure, we haven't gone down to the individual cell level, monkeyed with the genetics, and then seen a certain result, but we've been modifying all sorts of animals and plants since the human race first started cultivating and domesticating. Few of the vegetables or fruits we eat today bear much similarity to the plants that we initially found and began to cultivate, and many of the domesticated animals we have today are the result of massive selective forces that we've placed on them.

But I have a more central problem with your response. You're saying that we should not utilize these stem cells to try and deal with diseases like cancer, and that's on the basis that disease will simply always be a part of life. I have several responses.

1) If that was the case, then smallpox, polio, typhoid fever, yellow fever, cholera, dysentery, and any number of other diseases would still be rampant. We've conquered a number of them, and even though several of these are still infecting people in developing countries, their impact is far reduced. If it was simply a part of life, we wouldn't have made these strides forward.
2) The general perspective that we shouldn't be pursuing treatments with this or any other method is beyond my understanding. We've produced antibiotics, antivirals, and vaccines to deal with all manner of disease, mainly because we kept pushing towards ways to treat people with disease. You never provide any specific reasons why this is different than those, so I can only assume that you mean our interference with any disease is harmful. The billions worldwide who suffer from these diseases would beg to differ.
3) Population size is an issue, and diseases will continue to tack back our population whether we pursue treatments for cancer and other diseases or not. If the point is that overpopulation is coming, it will come with or without these diseases. Our population is rising faster than they can take us down. The big reason is simple: we have no natural predators. Our growth can't be controlled by disease alone, it simply doesn't work that way. It can be reduced, but hardly controlled. You're essentially saying it's worth the suffering if it prevents overpopulation, but it doesn't even manage that.

Food is one thing... But, actually fiddling with them to that extent is really unnecessary. Just because we are using stem cells doesn't mean an instant cure for cancer will happen like that. Why waste such a huge amount of money on it, when we could just deal with it? More people die from car crashes and accidents each year, than cancer. Wouldn't it be just as beneficial to use the money to go towards that instead?

1. Those diseases were all dealt with by utilising medicines, not by spending billions of dollars each year on research that still hasn't find a definite cure. The money would be better spent on trying to avoid the global climate catastrophe...

2. Money. Simple. Money is an issue, when billions of dollars of it are being used on something that may not even provide a definite cure.

3. I see your point. Maybe I should reword... I don't agree that we should be trying to change how natural biology works... We should be upholding to the rules of biology like animals do. Animal populations are regulated by predators and disease. You say that humans have no natural predators, but I disagree with that; humans are their own natural predator... Over-population is indeed a major issue, but nothing is being done about it and there are no solutions to this... So, which is it? Do we just keep going until we can't feed ourselves anymore, or do we start killing each other off? Either way, people die. There is no avoiding it either, because there are no other solutions, unless humans figure out how to create something from nothing - which is highly unlikely. I simply can't see a way around this and maybe disease would help, or maybe it wouldn't; so therefore, that was my perspective.

So your argument is essentially coming down to three main points, most of which are nonspecific to stem cells.

Your first point is that they can't cure cancer. I'd start by saying that that's contrary to a number of clinical trials that have shown effectiveness against cancers. But the bigger point you're trying to make here is not that it can't cure cancer, but that nothing can, and that's been argued by some scientists. There are some who believe that diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's are practically natural processes, and therefore that interrupting them is nearly impossible. And, considering the amount of money that's been spent pursuing cures (I'll get to that in a minute), and the relative lack of results, one could see their point. However, I'd say that stem cell therapies present a new way to treat cancers that aren't curative, but rather will manage to subdue a number of deadly cancers in ways prior treatments didn't have the capacity to manage. I think a big problem with the way we've approached cancer is that we're always searching for a cure instead of focusing on managing the disease.

The second point you're making is about the money. I'd say this is in no way unique to the situation. If you were talking about the amount spent on cancer, that would be a different story, but you're discussing the amount spent specifically on stem cells. Why is the amount spent on stem cells so prohibitive? And why is that important in this case? With stem cell therapies showing effectiveness in a wide range of disease states, I think the money is well warranted. Again, if your point is that the amount spent on cancer is appalling, especially considering the lack of real results, then your point makes sense, but that's not what we're discussing.

The last point you're making is also very much all encompassing, and if you sincerely believe it, then you're calling for an end to all disease treatment everywhere, which I'd say is pretty morally abhorrent. You're essentially advocating that we should deal with overpopulation by allowing diseases to ravage us. First off, the death tolls would be incredibly high, I don't think you're quite aware of what might happen here. The Black Plague killed of 1/3 of Europe and 1/2 of China in an age without antibiotics. Second, while they're dying, you're advocating putting people through hell. Diseases don't tend to kill quickly or painlessly, so even as a method for killing, they are one of the most atrocious. Third, even if I assume those two aren't an issue, this is not a controllable method. There's a lot to worry about here. The sheer volume of corpses would make a number of diseases nearly impossible to control. Hospitals would become mass dying grounds as diseases spread from patient to patient (there's no way they could quarantine them all). The best you could hope for is that the population is massively reduced and stays relatively constant at a low level, but that's not entirely realistic either because smaller populations would become vulnerable to a new range of diseases.

If you want to argue that overpopulation is the problem, this isn't the solution. What's far more humanitarian and reasonable? Making people sterile. It solves the overpopulation problem with much more ease and certainty, and does so without making a pile of corpses in the process. I'm not sure that sterility is the best way to solve for this either, but increasing magnitude of death by disease certainly isn't.

Think of it this way, a woman is going to get an abortion, and doesn't want/cant afford a baby. Would you rather waste the specimen, or use it for research to save lives? Think about that.

If the person the stem cell is from is a willing to be a donor and it's not forced or bribed out of them stem cell research can lead to life changing things; people who are otherwise paralyzed can have hopes of regaining their motor skills.