Embryonic Stem Cell Essay

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can differentiate themselves into specific cell type. There are two types of stem cells. The first one is the adult's stem cell. These stem cells can be found in various places in an adult human body, like the brain, the bone marrow or the liver. The other type of stem cells is the embryonic stem cells. These cells are found in embryos before its implantation in the mother's uterus. At this stage the embryo is divided in two types of cell. The first one is the outer cluster of cell that forms the embryo that will become part of the placenta once the embryo hatch. And the inner cluster is the source of embryonic stem cell since it consists of undifferentiated cell that will divide and differentiate to form all the organs and tissue needed in an adult organism. As stem cell are undifferentiated cell they can become whatever cell type is needed in an organism and could be the solution to diseases that are, at this date, incurable. (Medical News Today, 2013). Most of the ethic's problem of the stem cells researches come from the embryonic stem cell researches and how the cells are collected. Embryonic stem cells can be obtained in several ways. The first one is after a couple's fertility treatment, there might be some embryos left and the couple can decide to donate their embryos to research. The second option is to collect stem cells from a foetus after an abortion. And the last possibility is to use therapeutic cloning. Using an ovum from witch the nucleus was taken off and the nucleus of a somatic cell, the origin of this cell in the body doesn't matter, it can come from the skin for example, it is possible to create an embryo and get the stem cell from the created embryo. But in all of...

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..., generation after generation, from organism to organism ever since. Each new organism, and in a sense, each leaving cell, is merely a temporary participant in this continuum." (Biggers, 1981). This citation ca be interpreted in two different ways. the first one being that embryos are not alive since there is no beginning of life. and the other one would be that the embryos are alive from the beginning since life on Earth is contiguous. This shows that the ethicality of the researches in embryonic stem cell, is just an interpretation.

As for me I believe that that embryonic stem cell researches should be used in the biomedical field because however you see the embryo as alive or not, the research will always go in the same way as one of the moral dilemma that says "duty to prevent or alleviate suffering" as it could help millions of people with incurable diseases.