An A-Level student’s case for Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Stem cell research offers great promise for understanding basic mechanisms of human development and differentiation, as well as the hope for new treatments for diseases such as diabetes, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease and myocardial infarction and many more. Stem cells can be grouped according their ability to differentiate.
1. Totipotent- these stem cells can differentiate into any type of cell. A fertilised egg, or zygote and the 8 or 16 cells from its first few mitotic divisions are totipotent cells, which are destined eventually to produce a whole organism.
2. Pluripotent- these stem cells can form all tissue types but not whole organisms. They are present in early embryos and are the origin of the different types of tissue within an organism.
3. Multipotent- these stem cells can only form a range of cells within a certain type of tissue. Haematopoietic stem cells in bone marrow are multipotent because this gives rise to the various types of blood cell.
Embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent stem cells, meaning they can differentiate into any type of cell. Well, it’s not that simple as it sounds. This embryonic stem cells are taken from Human embryos via a process called in vitro fertilization. In vitro fertilization, is a method in which the egg cell from a donor or a mother is taken outside from her body and using techniques a sperm is injected to get the egg cell fertilized. Now, that it is fertilized it is fully capable of developing into a child.
What embryonic stem cell research scientists do is that, they take the stem cells in that embryo, which cannot be done without the destruction of the human embryo itself. There are a lot of, not only ethical issues but moral issues related to this procedure. I will be discussing alternate methods that can be and why they should be used when we will go further in our discussion. Coming back to the moral and ethical issues of the embryonic stem cell procedure.
What constitutes Human Life?
Human Life is a continuum. The most important question that must be answered is that what constitutes human value and life and where does human life begin. There are many criteria that are used by people to decide an answer to this. I will be presenting 3 main criteria, and why they all fall apart except for one.
1. At birth
2. Viability of the zygote, embryo, foetus.
3. At conception
Considering the 1st, At birth: the hidden assumption here is that the baby who will be born in 9 months is not a human being until the baby has come out of the mother’s birth canal. That is false. If we compare and 8-month-old foetus, a 9-month-old foetus and a new-born baby, it seems that, location decides human value. And that doesn’t seem to be a consistent criterion. Because there are many cases, where foetuses are born before 9 months (prematurely born). It begs the question which is, should the location of the foetus decide its beginning? Well, obviously the answer is No because, a couple of inches away from the mother’s birth canal, cannot be considered a criterion to decide where life begins. This degrades human value of the unborn.
Considering the 2nd, Viability of the zygote, embryo, foetus: viability means the ability of the foetus to survive on its own, outside of the mother’s womb. Even this criterion seems to fall apart because even a new-born child cannot survive without depending on the mother. An infant needs to be under parents, especially under mother’s care for the first few years because, the infant at that point is absorbing a lot of nutrients and emotional satisfaction from the mother. That is where the bond between the mother and her child blossoms.
Considering the last criteria, At conception: In all scientific literature, the beginning of human life is considered at conception. This seems to be the only criterion that is consistent with the reasoning. Because, at conception a sperm and an egg are fused to give rise to an unrepeatable, unique human genome that has the capability to grow to a fully developed human being, just like we all have.
In the outset I stated that Human life is a continuum, and that statement can be verified by observations and empirical data which tells us that a zygote becoming a blastocyst to a fully developed baby to an adult man or a woman is real. Even when a person is an adult they are still undergoing constant cell repairs due to cell damage which is normal.
Now, that we know what constitutes human life, let us see other major problems that the majority of the scientific community has not revealed us about embryonic stem cells.
Are Embryonic Stem cells really capable of “Healing”?
Dr. James L. Sherley M.D., Ph.D., Senior Scientist Programs in Regenerative Biology and Cancer at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute, discusses why Embryonic Stem Cell Research will fail from a biological perspective.
He says “there haven’t been any therapies with Embryonic stem cells and one of the things I hope to talk about in the session together is not only why that’s true but why I for one that don’t think it ever will be true” and understanding his work and his reasoning, I have been able to explore the unsaid limitations of the human embryonic stem cells.
Adult stem cells (e.g., tissues) which are classified as multipotent stem cells, although they look stable, are constantly turning over, so, we make new cells, those cells turn into functional cells in the liver or in the skin. They do their job for a period of time and they die, and they have to be continuously replaced. Below diagram will help to visualize the process which adult stem cells go through. The curly black arrow means, the tissue/adult stem cell is splitting to many other tissue/adult stem cells.
So, if you are going to cure an injury or a disease in an adult mature tissue, you need a cell like these adult stem cells (tissue stem cells) that can, not only make the differentiated cells, but remember how to make the tissue over and over again, without changing.
Nowadays, it is possible to make Cloned Embryos, what that means is, firstly a human embryo is made using an egg cell of a woman and the genetic material of the embryo is removed from it. Then genetic material from a mature cell from the body for example, a skin cell, has been placed into the egg to make an embryo. So now, they (scientists) are able to make embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos.
One of the things that it provides is the opportunity for scientists to do such research to make lots of embryos, therefore to make lots of embryonic stem cells, this was not possible in 2004.
What scientists has promised about embryonic stem cells is that they are able to, “MAKE ANY CELL IN THE BODY”. That statement has always made as if it were true, but in fact it has always been a hypothesis, it has always been an educated guess, what it might be able to do. For the last 13 years of research what they have learned is that EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS CANNOT MAKE EVERY CELL IN THE BODY. In fact, the most important cells one should use for stem cell therapy are mature cells, the kind of cells that are in our liver, in our eyes and skin. So far Embryonic Stem cells were only been able to make immature cells, so these will be the type of cells in a Foetus. Those cells are not able to provide the kind of cell replacement therapies that we are interested in.
And a very important experimental data that has been reported is that embryonic stem cells form tumours when you put them into mature tissues (the cells we are treating). The other important thing is that as I mentioned before, the cells that caused tumours are embryonic stem cells, these are cells that were made to work in the embryo. They were never made to work in a mature body. And they CANNOT work in a mature body because what you need a cell to do in transplantation therapy is the cell has to do 2 things.
1. The cell has to not change: because it has a blueprint for making the tissue. Therefore, it has to be the same.
2. Asymmetric cell division must be possible meaning; at the same time it stays the same, it also is able to make a mature tissue: a good example is our hair. It is a mature tissue, if we look in the bottom of the hair follicle, there is no hair shaft, there are cells (follicular papilla). Those cells are not changing, they are producing something that is becoming different. And that is what adult stem cells do unlike EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS WHICH ARE UNABLE TO DO THAT.
- When embryonic stem cells make any other type of cells, they cease been a stem cell themselves.
· As we become adults meaning other than a foetus, the immature cells will not work on us.
· We need mature cells.
Let us discuss what are some alternative methods that have been able to reduce moral & ethical issues in stem cell research.
Advancing in science has enable scientists to make stem cells from mature cells (e.g., skin cells). Using a mature cell, they genetically modify its state hence inducing it to become like an embryonic stem cell. This technology has done a great social advantage, No one has to die in order for them to be made.
This technology is just as bad as embryonic stem cells, in terms of causing tumours when inserted to mature cells for cell transplantation.
In summary, the use of embryonic stem cells for research is illegal, immoral, and unethical considering all the factors I have presented to you. It is immoral, because the value of human life is degraded when it’s in fact intrinsically valuable. It is illegal because of the violation of laws that are given to human embryos and it is very clear to me, this all leads to unethical practice of science. Instead, of using human embryos, using induced pluripotent stem cells are much more efficient and moral. Because Morality cannot change over time, it has to have a standard in order for us to judge what is Objectively right. Consider this,
Objective truth vs Subjective truth
You regard something to be Objectively true only if, that claim stays apart from anybody’s personal opinion or preference. As an example; Rape is Wrong, Slavery is Wrong or Murder is Wrong.
The Objective morality cannot change overtime or evolve into something overtime, what do I mean by that? Well let’s take for example the claim “Rape is Wrong”, so, Can Slavery be good someday? Some might say yes because our morality evolves, but the very important question is Should Slavery be good someday?, and the answer will always be NO, it must not be good at any point in life.
I hope my effort to distinguish between the two questions helped you to understand the difference between Can something be good and Should that thing be good.
Subjective truth is the very contrary to that, which is someone’s opinion or preference. Consider this statement as an example; Listening to classical music is boring. This statement is purely dependant on the person. It always relies on somebody’s experience or preference.
So, taking into account all the points I have shown, the real question which we should ask our selves is:
- Is the embryo Human, and if so wouldn’t you agree that every human life must be protected?
Thank you
