Stem-cell research

[Neffir08]

Okay, back to stem cells!
I think that it is a great way to help figure out cures for cancer and AIDS and any other type of disease. I agree with the others on cloning, It is still a human, so don't make it seam lass than that. I understand most peole don't like it because we use embrios in the process, and that when sperm and egg meet it is a human life, so we are killing it. I will say this now, we are using abandoned eggs from the older "test tube babies" that would have never become children anyway, and would be destroyed (thrown away) if we don't use them.  

[AliasL]

Stem-cell research isn't evil. It is natural to want to replace what was once lost, but it is unnatural to try to clone a human being who has died. It will bring only pain. I do believe it will be fine to clone animals, however, seeing as that would mean, we would never run out of livestock. However, I do not believe in stem-cell research when it regards human beings. That is all.  

[Neffir08]

Well, if it cures a life threatening desease, would you want to use this reserch towards the betterment of that person, cuz stem cells were created for human beings... not to clone animals, that is a totaly different study.  

[ChemicalSoiree]

shadow_alchemist92

What do you think? is it good or bad? my opinion is that it is bad. i agree with religious groups in the fact that it could lead to cloning, however, unlike them, i dont hate cloning because its immoral. i just happen to know that a society of mindless clones could easily overthrow "normal" human beings. to understand this, you must understand what consciousness is. in short, it is our ability to recognize our existance, or being aware of our awareness. it isnt just being awake. unconscious beings (or bicameral) can think and reason, but they arent affected by prejedice, insecure beliefs, or other disruptive factors. in other words, bicameral beings would be like a human in "animal mode", but with the ability to reason. thus, they could think clearer and eventually take over society as a whole. (although this has gotten off the subject of stem-cell research, stem-cell research would lead to this eventually)

Stem- cell research could have very positive effects if there were more rules involved. To get certain stem cells, they have to let a baby grow to a certain age. They actually grow a baby partially and then kill it, which is the same as abortion. Why not just use the already aborted babies like they did in the beginning?  

[AliasL]

smile Hello everybody this is Karou Hitachiin's older brother here to weight some of the pros and what little cons I see in stem-cell research.
Okay to start I would have to say that I fully support the medical wonders of stem-cell research. WAIT don't ignore me yet. I have partial knowledge that stem-cell research is taking the material from embryo(s) and sperm cells [and since it is a well known fact that a sperm cell and an egg cell create a baby(human or any other animal)] to create new bodily tissue(even for the spinal column and next the brain biggrin ) so that this research should be a "beat all, end all" cure for medicine 3nodding . I DO NOT think that this will lead to human cloning. I think that ANIMAL CLONING will (unfortunately) lead to HUMAN CLONING and not in the least bit from the use of stem cells. I say unfortunately because in the "so-called right hands" human cloning could be very, very useful, but alas would be INEVITABLY rolleyes used to clone super-soldiers used (OF COURSE rolleyes ) NOT to save the world talk2hand from crime, but to make the government or king or emperor or whatever, sole leader of the planet, if not the solar system(depending if we decide to use other planets in our solar system as human occupiable pieces of mass).
Another arguement for us not to further our research in stem-cell research is that of the almost same arguement for abortion. We are killing innocent babies cry . I don't think that the BRIEF conjunction of a sperm cell and an egg cell is a 4laugh baby 4laugh . To me at least that is just the same as saying that a woman having her period surprised and a man/boy having a "wet dream" eek is
twisted killing twisted a baby, because they are "wasting" or "destroying" what could...have...been a baby. So in concusion I think that stem cell research is a great investment in human society and that before you go saying whatever you OR WHAT SOMEONE ELSE TOLD YOU (because maybe they don't know either) it would be wise to learn some facts first even if you feel you gotta talk about it RIGHT NOW domokun . Until next time biggrin .

P.S. To VermillionCurse: Stem-cell research will save lives of people both irksome(annoying) and cool to be around, retarded and the mentally gifted, and the religiously clouded(sorry other people, but sometimes you just gotta use common sense) and the well-balanced and enlightened. So lets just hope that the good outweights or balances the bad and that the live full lives and then (naturally) DIE ninja .  

[Der Freischuetz]

The only reason anyone against embryonic stem cell research is that they believe that life begins at conception, so essentially , by their definition, they are killing babies. However, I believe that life starts at birth. The benefits of embryonic stem cell research far outweigh the negative points of it.

(As far as I'm concerned, if the US is the first to create super-soldiers, then the more power to us!)  

[xsparklersx]

Ok, well as far as I can tell, this thread was meant to be a debate of stem-cell research. NOT cloning people. I seriously don't see why people keep bringing up the human clones thing. It's really not the issue. You don't have to agree with the idea of fully cloning a human being to agree with stem-cell research, so I'm throwing that irrelevant point out the window.

I agree with SC research. Manipulating stem cells can lead to medical breakthroughs, as others have mentioned. The cloning of cells and organs of a human could be extremely useful considering the deficiency in organ donations. This would probably be acceptable to people who are morally conflicted simply because it will save lives. Cloning any being in its entirety is, like I said, a whole other issue.

People disagree mostly because they don't like the idea of killing embryos in the process. They feel that it's killing babies. Well, here's something to ponder.

Say you have an unwanted embryo that doesn't even have enough of a brain to think with yet. You also have a whole bunch of people who are already thinking, breathing mothers, daughters, husbands, sons, uncles, aunts, and cousins with illnesses that stem cells could help cure. Now, these people are already fully functioning humans who have established an identity and have a place in their respective communities. Their only hitch is the illness they're stricken with. The embryo is still so underdeveloped that it has yet to take on a human form and it does not have an established place in its community. The consequences of the death of the embryo pale in comparison to the consequences of the deaths of the many people that the embryo could have helped cure. Not only will they be a loss, but people will grieve for them and be less productive. To me, it seems logical to op for the course of action that will preserve the most human life. If that means killing an embryo, well, that just means the embryo gets the life of a hero.


ChemicalSoiree, I suggest you read up on the issue. Here's a little something for now, though. Stem cells are pluripotent. A human stem cell has the potential to become any of a variety of cells found in the human body, thus pluripotent. It is one of the original kinds of cells you find in embryos before differentiation occurs. This is why they are so interesting. They are basically the earliest and most basic cells that an embryo is composed of before differentiation occurs. Differentiation is when the cells transform into specific types of cells that will later become various distinguishable parts of a human. The reason it is better to have a test tube embryo is because a scientist can monitor the embryo and is better able to retrieve stem cells before they differentiate. You need to realize that most aborted babies have already developed past the really very early state in which they are comprised of stem cells. This makes a majority of aborted babies useless in terms of stem cell research. Test tube embryos are, as you put it, "grown" to a certain age, but it's not like they're making a fetus and killing it. In order to get stem cells, they can't even let it get to the point where it has the distinguishable cell types that make up any sort of distinguishable part of a human. Your statement makes it sound like there's a miniature sized baby with its tiny arms and legs curled up sweetly in a petri dish with scientist just waiting for it to get old enough to kill. In reality, it's a ball of non-specific cells that the average person would have a hard time distinguishing from an unfertilized egg without a microscope.  

[prettyslavegirl]

Although i hate to disrupt te chain of thread from xsparklersx well made points i would like to clear up some discrepancies in some of the arguments posted earlier.

Quote:

I think that ANIMAL CLONING will (unfortunately) lead to HUMAN CLONING and not in the least bit from the use of stem cells. I say unfortunately because in the "so-called right hands" human cloning could be very, very useful, but alas would be INEVITABLY used to clone super-soldiers

it is to my understanding that cloning is attempting, by use of an unfertilised egg and a tissue sample to mke a geneticaly identical copy of an organism, this would not allow for the creation of "super soldiers". super soldiers would have to be genetically designed first before they could be cloned, and seeing as human genetics is such a complex subject that any such development would take billions of "insert your chosen currency here" to develop and more to implement, the results would most likely be undesireable as the desired result fo these super-soldiers would be strong, fast, brutal and intelligent, thus in its very nature a danger to everyone involved, loyalty is not a breadable quality as even purebread dogs can turn, these dangers would most likely turn anyone from developing them as the money would be better spent on arms technology and armouring. the possibility of a Casshern (as in that very good movie) type situation is close to nill in the next 70 years.

Quote:

It is natural to want to replace what was once lost, but it is unnatural to try to clone a human being who has died. It will bring only pain.

uhmm... the clone might be genetically the same but its personality and memories would be entirely different as those are believed to be more based on nurture not nature, meaning they are about how you were raised who you are etc. and not so much what youre genetic makeup is. also untill our cloning techniques improve drastically it is quite likely that the clone would suffer from major genetic failure, just as Dolly the sheep did, and die very young, it would also depend majorly on what age the sample used for cloning was as our "biological clock" may have rather a lot more to do with it than is currently known. thuis attempting to "revive" a dead person in a different body would most likely be a complete failure, if the intended result was to create a completley identical copy. transplanting the brain into the cloned body however......

Stem cells is still very cutting edge an its possibilities are not exactly limitless, they are potentially limitless but if people are goin to scream, immorality at it and opose it at every turn then most likely it will remain uncharted and unknown territory.
seeing as i've been looking at the subject at uni, I might say im slightly qualified to talk about the subject.  

[NOCTVRNVS]

Ain't any of MY kids getting turned into Paris Hilton's cosmetics, I'll say that much.  

[xsparklersx]

NOCTVRNVS

Ain't any of MY kids getting turned into Paris Hilton's cosmetics, I'll say that much.

Please explain this. It makes no sense to me whatsoever...especially since I do not see a connection between stem-cell research and Paris Hilton, or your children being turned into the gobs of crap she puts on her face. confused  

[NOCTVRNVS]

xsparklersx

NOCTVRNVS

Ain't any of MY kids getting turned into Paris Hilton's cosmetics, I'll say that much.

Please explain this. It makes no sense to me whatsoever...especially since I do not see a connection between stem-cell research and Paris Hilton, or your children being turned into the gobs of crap she puts on her face. confused

Well it WAS a joke, but those who promote stem-cell research claim that stem cells can be used for cosmetic benefits. Put bluntly, using fetuses to make people look pretty.  

[xsparklersx]

NOCTVRNVS

xsparklersx

NOCTVRNVS

Ain't any of MY kids getting turned into Paris Hilton's cosmetics, I'll say that much.

Please explain this. It makes no sense to me whatsoever...especially since I do not see a connection between stem-cell research and Paris Hilton, or your children being turned into the gobs of crap she puts on her face. confused

Well it WAS a joke, but those who promote stem-cell research claim that stem cells can be used for cosmetic benefits. Put bluntly, using fetuses to make people look pretty.

Heh, ok, yeah. I can't say I've ever heard about people claiming cosmetic benefits involving stem-cells...so that's probably why I didn't get it. Yeah, I agree that's a pretty idiotic reason to promote it. 3nodding Though, you should know that they don't use fetuses.  

[NOCTVRNVS]

xsparklersx

NOCTVRNVS

xsparklersx

NOCTVRNVS

Ain't any of MY kids getting turned into Paris Hilton's cosmetics, I'll say that much.

Please explain this. It makes no sense to me whatsoever...especially since I do not see a connection between stem-cell research and Paris Hilton, or your children being turned into the gobs of crap she puts on her face. confused

Well it WAS a joke, but those who promote stem-cell research claim that stem cells can be used for cosmetic benefits. Put bluntly, using fetuses to make people look pretty.

Heh, ok, yeah. I can't say I've ever heard about people claiming cosmetic benefits involving stem-cells...so that's probably why I didn't get it. Yeah, I agree that's a pretty idiotic reason to promote it. 3nodding Though, you should know that they don't use fetuses.

Heh... they might as well from my perspective  

[chibi_kasumi_108]

Concious and Sentient. Are they synonyms or do they perhaps mean something different? I believe animals can be concious although they may not be sentient.

I'm weary about the thought of harvesting stem cells from embryos but they can get it from other places. There are somatic stem cells which are found in some organ tissue on an adult. Also, there's cord blood, where they draw the cells from a newborn baby's umbilical cord. I see nothing wrong with this. It would just be disposed of anyway after they cut it.  

[NOCTVRNVS]

chibi_kasumi_108

Concious and Sentient. Are they synonyms or do they perhaps mean something different? I believe animals can be concious although they may not be sentient.

I'm weary about the thought of harvesting stem cells from embryos but they can get it from other places. There are somatic stem cells which are found in some organ tissue on an adult. Also, there's cord blood, where they draw the cells from a newborn baby's umbilical cord. I see nothing wrong with this. It would just be disposed of anyway after they cut it.

Very interesting!!