Two weeks ago, Gov. Brad Henry vetoed a bill that would have banned embryonic stem cell research. The Oklahoma Legislature has since failed to override the veto. However, the fight is not over, the battle over the sacredness of the seeds of human life continues. Each side purports that they are the most pro-life, the most compassionate and the most humane. It is essential to understand that right now the ban is not on adult stem cells, which has been researched extensively and has progressed quite far with far less controversy. Surely, I do not need to belabor that point; I am opposing embryonic stem cell research here.
Supporters of embryonic stem cell research claim that since the cells are pluripotent, meaning they can specialize into any type of body cells, their versatility will make it possible to repair and regenerate diseased and damaged tissues.
Thus, you hear the possibility of curing paralysis, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and various cancers, among other diseases. Even though current research has not produced any results, there is no denying the possibility.
That is not the problem, rather, the problem is that these cells come from a five-day-old embryo. An egg, one among many taken from a woman, and a sperm taken from a man, has been joined and human life was begotten.
Everything needed to develop and be human is in that first human zygote and blastocyst. I believe that life begins at conception and science does not disprove this.
Trying to define it at any other point becomes a slippery slope. How can it not be a live human in the womb and then suddenly become one outside of it? Is it any less human because a scientist has artificially recreated conception in a laboratory? This is why many find embryonic stem cell research problematic; it destroys the embryo once the cells are removed. It destroys a human being.
Supporters of the research also argue that leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization used by fertility clinics should be used because the embryos would be discarded and wasted anyway. I find this problematic in two ways: it presumes in vitro is a morally licit procedure, and it presumes humans are only as good as their usefulness to society.
In vitro fertilization is problematic primarily because it creates life outside the natural marriage act; it separates the loving act of a husband and wife from their future children with a laboratory and a scientist.
While many infertile couples may long to have children, they are not a right or a product to be had on demand.
Also, the procedures create extra embryos for the sake of having one survive. Thus, these hundreds and thousands of embryos are left unwanted and frozen.
Though they should never have been created in the first place, they are quite human, so they should be thawed and let to die in peace or perhaps adopted.
If these embryos are only as good as their usefulness in research, then what about the mentally ill and the severely handicapped, some of whom can never make a living, or work a job or be useful in any measure of society? Should they be experimented on and let to die? Do we experiment on capitally condemned prisoners, knowing that they are about to die?
We should not treat the origins of human existence so cavalierly, regardless of when one believes life begins. Bald eagle eggs are protected, because they hold a young eagle. Should not human life be more protected and sacred than any eagle or other endangered species? Only if you believe humans are a blight on the planet. But then if humans are a blight on the planet, why fight so hard for research you think will potentially cure their diseases?
There is potential and results in adult stem cells, as I have noted above, and they should continue to be studied as they have been. Science must have moral bounds, or it will become insensitive to the human soul as it tries to save the human body and exploit it at the same time.
It is a grave contradiction to kill life in the name of saving it. Closing the door on embryonic stem cell research is not so much an undue limit on science, but rather a call to creativity in achieving the same results using means that do not exploit human embryos, women or any person.
-Sarah Rosencrans, zoology and biomedical science junior
The Oklahoma Daily is pleased to provide you the opportunity to share your thoughts about this article. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or straying from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of OUDaily.com. Thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register
free4all 3 years ago
Sarah,
I want to applaud you on a well written article. Too often do the Daily columnists write articles to be sensational rather than write articles to display their true and honest opinions rationally. I agree with you that life in all forms must be respected, and I also agree that the embryos should be allowed a natural death.
Flips88: 1. The drinking age is set to 21 YEARS OF AGE meaning 21 years since your BIRTH DAY, not since conception. 2. The question about saving your daughter or the embryos is irrelevant if you believe creating embryos outside of a woman's body is not a permissible act (which I do not and I think it is fairly obvious that the author agrees with me).
dargus 3 years ago
I believe you are making your own slipper slope argument here. When you speak about in vitro fertilization you say, “In vitro fertilization is problematic primarily because it creates life outside the natural marriage act; it separates the loving act of a husband and wife from their future children with a laboratory and a scientist.” How is this problematic? Are you suggesting that in vitro should be illegal? Should people who are unmarried be forbidden to have children, or even to have sex since there is no 100% effective contraceptive? When you say the only proper way of having a child is two married people having sex, I call that a very slippery slope. You also reach very far when comparing blastocystes to the mentally and physically handicapped. The major difference between these two is that one, the blastocyste, is not self aware nor does it feel pain. You go to great lengths to make an emotionally based argument that a small collection of cells is a person simply because a sperm and an egg have joined. However, I see nothing that compels me to believe a blastocyst suffers in any way if it is used for research purposes. It was never self aware, nor does it have the complexity to feel pain. You may believe that a sperm and an egg make a soul, but I do not.
Flips88 3 years ago
First, I'd like to say that if life begins at conception, I'd like to be able to buy alcohol right now instead of having to wait another 2 months to be 21.
Second, I'll rehash a comment I posted 2 months ago (which is a great indicator of the relevance of your article right now):
A scenario for those that argue that embryonic stem cell research is immoral destruction of human life:
You're a scientific researcher and you work in your home with a lab and you have 10 frozen embryos in it. You wake up and your house is on fire. Your 5 year old daughter is upstairs. Do you save your daughter or the 10 embryos?
If you're a rational person you save the daughter because she is a living, breathing human being that feels pain and suffering, while those 10 embryos are just mere collection of cells with a potentiality for life that will in all likelihood never be realized.
Flips88 3 years ago
So why does the law choose to say that life began when I was born? Seems a little biased to me...Oh wait, no, the law is rational.
PS: Fun quote from Sam Harris (granted kind of a dick): "A 3-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. The embryos that are destroyed in stem-cell research do not have brains, or even neurons. Consequently, there is no reason to believe they can suffer their destruction in any way at all."