Stem Cell Research Illegal?

In class we came to an assumption that everyone agrees that stem cell research has potential to be beneficial to human, but the disagreement arises from the extraction of these cells and where these cells are extracted from. This debate is completely logical based upon the beliefs of different individuals and organizations due to differing beliefs upon ensoulment or potentiality or the symbolic nature of an embryo. However, the government made an ethical judgment on a debate that is far from over and banned public funding of stem cell research and are in review on whether to permanently outlaw the research. (For more information on the controversy the government faces see the article by The Times Higher Education Supplement).

I think that there is a possibility of a federal case trying to legalize embryonic stem cell research and attempting to receive a part of the $20 billion dollar US medical research budget. Since abortion is legal, an argument could be made that these embryos are being wasted and that if only these embryos were used the research labs should receive a part of the government budget. Is this ethical to extract these cells from these aborted embryos? Since there is no judgment upon the moral status of the human embryonic stem cells there will be no ethical judgment upon this matter, but until that time I think there is a possibility of this court case occurring. However, once the moral status of embryonic stem cells has been established, the talks of this case occurring become extremely plausible.

Aborted Embryonic Stem Cells

Today in class we discussed the moral status of the human embryonic stem cells and came to two conclusions.

1. The stem cells have the same moral status as say a piece of skin tissue because
the stem cell at that point is simply a concentrated mass of human DNA and
other cell matter.
OR
2. The stem cells have the same moral status as a human being because of the
symbolic nature of these cells, in that in a few weeks they will resemble humans
and become self aware.

I most agree with the first statement and thus for the discussion below will assume that it is true.

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Currently, the act of abortion is legal in the United States and thus millions of abortions are performed each year. I propose that these embryonic stem cells be used to conduct stem cell research. If there were a central organization that conducted this type of research, then this lab would be provided with millions of embryonic stem cells that were willingly given up by the woman having an abortion. So, in a sense, it is as if a woman was ridding herself of these cells, much like a cosmetic surgery, liposuction, or a more closely related action, masturbation by males. The embryonic stem cells could then be used because the woman having the abortion never intended for human life to proliferate and thus there is a simple comparison of this action to male masturbation, which most people deem a moral act. If this idea were to be allowed into commission, then, whether believing in the aforementioned number one view of the moral status of these stem cells, it should give some moral foundation to the practice. (And if not it still has the same moral foundation as say animal research.)

The Idea of Growing Animals to Strike an Ethical Balance

With all this talk about growing and developing animals in a laboratory setting leads me to only one conclusion... Why don't we just grow human beings in a lab?

If you take a look at it, animals, like us are sentiant, cognitive beings that develop from infant to toddler to adolescent to adult. If some find it ethical to grow these nonhumans in a lab why not try and grow humans. If we take artificially constructed sperm and eggs or frozen sperm and eggs and create a living human it will solve a few problems.
1. We will no longer have to deal with the difference in genes or
body systems that we experience during animals experimentation.
2. All data will be beneficial to humans, the supposed goal of animal
experimentation, and we will not have to unnecessarily harm animals.
Additionally, if we grow humans from fetal stages and provide no education we can essentially turn them into the animals we deal with now. This then elimates the problem of taking humans from the population against their will and enables testing to give positive, direct results to scientists.

So, with the above sarcastic treatment of growing animals in the laboratory I hoped I gave some insight as to the absurdity of this arguement and scratched the surface of the far unbalanced scientific research on animals.

The Ever Powerful Pharmaceutical Companies

On Monday, we discussed in class whether it was possible to strike an ethical balance between nonhuman animal suffering and potential gains to humans through animal research. During the discourse there were several points made about the treatment of the animals, how they grow them in labs and expose them to dangerous substances to gauge reactions in hope to aid humans. The other side of the argument then brought up points about how the animals are not taken out of the wild and exposing the animals to these substances is not so wrong because it may benefit the animals. This conversation of sorts all made sense and valid points were made from varying view points, but can there be an ethical balance?

I think it would be very difficult to do so and this difficulty arises because of the pharmaceutical companies and their influence. The article pointed out that little benefit is given to the species that are tested and the testing actually retards progress made towards benefiting humans. This is seen in the polio tests done on monkeys and the liver transplants on dogs. To me, this is not science or research it is an exploitation of animals because we can force them to do things against their will.

This blatant mistreatment of animals is not very well known in the average community, but has been known in the medical community for years because very few medical professionals cite animal testing as support for their hypothesis, as stated in the article. And the very reason for this oversight is that it is not exposed and written about in mainstream media. I believe this is due to pharmaceutical companies throwing money at a problem to keep it under wraps because animal testing has been the god send for pharmaceutical companies in court. The animal testing becomes a scapegoat and the lawyers say, "we have countless tests on animals and found that it has done no harm to these animals so it can be our fault." And due to this sweeping under the rug by mainstream media and pharmaceutical companies countless people suffer from the dangerous side effects of drugs, receive wrong treatments or go untreated. So, the ethical balance being sought for in our discussion can never be achieved under the circumstances because the overshadowing evil of large pharmaceutical companies casts too great of an unethical shadow it hinders the process and until drastic reform is made there can be no talk or further testing on animals.