Stem Cells From Human Embryos For Mnd - Is It Acceptable?

Motor Neurone Disease (MND), also known as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is one of the incurable and terrifying illnesses. The scientists claim the therapy using stem cells from human embryos is the only way to treat this disease. First of all, what is MND and how is a patient affected by it? How is science applied to this disease and what are the benefits and limitations? What are stem cells? What moral/ethical dilemmas are there in using human embryo stem cells and in what way could this be dealt that the society sees it acceptable? In this essay, the questions above will be discussed and explained.

MND is "a neurological disease marked by the loss of nerve cells." About 10% it is transmitted and the other 90% are sporadic. Around 1-2 from 100,000 people have MND. This disease only affects the voluntary muscles and it gets worse over the time. The symptoms include the shrinkage of muscles, cramps, weaker limbs, swallowing and the most fatal of all: breathing difficulties caused by the respiratory failure due to the weakness of the ventilatory muscles; therefore the lifespan of the patients is only from 2-5 years. No treatments are known or made, but what the scientists predict is that if the stem cells are injected into the patients' spinal cords, their motor nerves will be regenerated. Stem cells are the body's master cells. They produce cells that can form into any other cells in the body. There are two kinds of stem cells: adult and embryonic. Adult stem cells have a "limited ability" to renew themselves into specialized cell types whereas the embryonic stem cells have the "potential" to become various specialized cell types. Although the stem cell therapy would be a "big step forward for MND research", testing on humans along with killing embryos for stem cells are both restricted due to ethical problems.

One of the benefits of the allowance of the stem cell research is a huge progress to the science technology in treating neurological diseases. Taking the stem cells from embryos and successfully injecting them into patients' spinal cords is a big challenge for scientists. If several practices were made using patients, because the benefits will outweigh the risk, the treatment could be made. Another benefit is that the research could save people's lives from choking to death because of MND. The more research and practices are made, the more ways to the treatment for MND will open.

However there only aren't benefits, limitations of science of solving this issue always comes along. The stem cells need to be 'pure' when to be injected. They have to be directly taken out so they are able to survive and integrate. This means they have to be donated very close to the time of surgery. The cells should not be kept any longer than certain amount of time in embryos, because as the time passes, they will produce cells for tissues, body organs and such.

Treating MND by stem cell research probably interacts the economy the most. If the research turns out successful, the cost for the treatment would be very high since there are not many patients who go through MND and it is a brand new way of treating a neurological disease with human embryonic stem cells. With the money the scientists get, more scientific research could be done. It is a positive view of looking at this factor, but to look at environmental factor negatively, the human rights and the life cycle of the nature has to be mentioned. Humans have already 'broken' the life cycle of humans by the advancing science technologies. By this stem cell therapy, this has became more secure.

When it comes to using human embryos as a source of stem cells, ethical problems are faced. The society has restrained the research towards the use of the human embryonic stem cells. It is true that the embryos have rights to live; they have to be protected because they are precious. They are young and have possibly amount of 100 more years to live, with technology we have today. It could be considered inhumane to use 'incomplete' humans in order to save patients who have lived half way through their lives.

However, to talk about stem cell research and it's allowance, we have to consider about whether an embryo could be defined as a life, as humans, or not. An embryo is at a stage of its "development directly following fertilization and zygote formation." This means the stage before the cleavage. A living thing defined as the "organization of matter producing various [in] forms of variable complexity." Therefore the stage before the embryonic cell separation can not be called a "living thing" because the stem cells are taken at the very beginning of the stage, even before the separation when the pure stem cell could be taken out. The human tissue or organ donations are allowed. They also could be called living things but they are defined as a cell, yet not a 'living thing'. So why are the scientists not allowed to take the stem cells out from embryo before cleavage even though they are considered a 'cell'?

I think the society should allow use the stem cells from embryos because they are not at the stage of being named as a 'life'. If a tissue could be used, or a cell for another human being, why could we not with the embryonic stem cells?