Ujjwal Shrestha
Mrs. Stefanini
EH 101
Date: 25th April, 2008
Final Draft:
Controversy on Stem Cell Research
There has been a great achievement in the medical science in the past few decades. Before these developments, some types of diseases were regarded as incurable diseases. They were regarded as an evil spirits. But now diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease are not regarded as incurable diseases. If you are biological or medical student, you would have probably heard about the stem cells. A stem cell is a "generic" cell that can make exact copies of it indefinitely. This is a big topic of research, curiosity, excitement plus an issue of debate. It is really helpful to cure human diseases but also why the restriction has been laid out on research of stem cells. In my view, research on stem cells must be permitted as it aids to cure many human diseases.
Stem cells have the ability to produce various types of specialized cells, so these cells are used to repair damaged organs and tissues. Basically there are two types of stem cells: Embryonic Stem Cell and An Adult Stem Cell. The most common one is adult stem cell. Embryonic stem cells are obtained from either aborted fetuses or fertilized eggs that are left from vitro fertilization. These embryonic stem cells are considered very valuable and useful because it can produce any type of tissue in the body. The next one is adult stem cell which is not versatile because they are specific to produce certain type of cells only like blood, skin and muscle. The most debatable issue is how and from where we can get the stem cells. While the formation it changes into different types of cells. Since it has the ability to change into different types of cells, it may be useful for treatment of diseases. But the most debatable topic is the destruction of embryos for stem cells is ethically unacceptable thing. We can extract adult stem cells from humans without disturbing...