The Controversial Stem Cell Issue - Personal Statement Example

There are four kinds of stem cell research that doctors have been focusing their study on. These are stem cells, embryonic stem cells, therapeutic, and non-therapeutic cloning. Embryonic stem cells are the ones that come from a group of cells which are called the inner cell mass and are part of the early embryo called the blastocyst. Once this is removed from the blastocyst, the cells of the inner cell mass are cultured into embryonic stem cells. Thus, it is safe to say that these cells develop a culture that is different from that in the developing embryo (NIH Stem Cell Information Home Page, n.d). On the other hand, therapeutic stem cells are those that can serve as vehicles for effective treatment of certain diseases such as tumors and cancers while non-therapeutic cloning is the duplication of cells that are not done for therapeutic reasons (National Center for Biotechnology Information, n.d). During stem cell research it is definitely not a matter of whether it can do any good, focus should be more on how many pros it has over the cons.

Based on the speech that President Bush has given on calling senate to back human cloning ban, there was the stand on taking much benefit of modern medicine without having to crush ethical principles. Speaking of stem cell research which would involve cracking human genetic code for important advances in science to fight diseases such as Cancer, AIDS, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, there arises a big issue where human dignity is always abused. This is because of the fact that stem cell research would require human cloning which is the production of individuals who are genetically identical to another human being, wherein the process would slowly crush ethical principles in protecting human dignity. How? Well, cloning is achieved by putting the genetic material from a donor into a woman’s egg which had its nucleus removed.

The result of that is the cloned embryo who is an identical copy of the donor only. Though some scientists perform this experiment on animals, others have announced to produce cloned children despite the fact that this can lead to terrible abortions and abnormalities (President Bush Calls on Senate to Back Human Cloning Ban, 2002). Though we cannot harbor the fact that stem cell research have great possibilities of being able to cure the longest and most costly treatment of sicknesses, we could say that this probability is still of speculation today.

Also, if research and the use of stem cell research gets a lot better and actually gives great results in curing those who are sick, one thing is for sure, which is the fact that in doing so, one would always sacrifice the human dignity of people. This is because of the fact that if more and more people get cured through stem cell cloning, there would definitely be more demand on eggs and egg donors, thus, the exploitation of women’s bodies which is a clear form of damage to human dignity would thrive.

Aside from that, women now would be treated as a commodity while children would be born fitting into certain specifications with no room for imperfections. Thinking about this based on logos, ethos, and pathos point of views, one would clearly see that stem cell research should be banned as it is even clearly stated in medical ethics that no human life should be exploited for