Research with embryonic stem cells has become the great hope of doctors and scientists worldwide. However, because they deal with embryos, they have also become the subject of controversy.
The discovery that human embryonic stem cells can be isolated and propagated in the laboratory, with the potential to develop in all tissues of the body is an important advance in medicine. But it has raised ethical concerns. Scientists now know that stem cells are also present in adults. If there was a way to stimulate resident stem cells to replace cells that are dying, the limitations of transplantation could be overcome, as well as ethical problems.
Stem cells are cells that have the ability to divide indeterminate periods into culture and give rise to several types of specialized cells. They can become blood, bone, brain, muscle, skin, and other organs. Embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the ability to form any adult cell.
As examples of ethical problems, the following questions can be cited:
- Is it appropriate to use embryos produced for reproductive and unused uses, whose legal time limits have been exceeded, to generate embryonic stem cells?
- Is it acceptable to produce non-reproductive human embryos only to produce stem cells?
- Is it fair to create a climate of expectation for patients and patients' families about the possibility of therapeutic use of cells that have not even been tested in basic experiments?
Although it is a polemic subject and it needs to be studied very much, it is not right to see the stem cells as evil and immoral. Stem cell research seeks to develop a technology that can end the suffering of thousands of people around the world, so we must encourage this type of research and try to establish arguments that can answer the ethical questions about this subject.
