Nathan+Cuklanz+Research+Paper

Thesis: Stem cell research is an ethical process that will revolutionize the medical world. More federal funding needs to be allotted to this research in order to create amazing cures to mankind’s worst diseases. Stem cell research has been a “hot button” issue in the last few presidential debates. Conservatives want nothing to do with while the Democrats want to fund it immediately. The main problem that has caused Conservatives to shy away from stem cell funding is the issue of its ethics. They feel that because the embryo that contains the stem cells has the potential to become life, they feel destroying it is murder. I firmly disagree. Potential human life is not equal to actual life. In reality, a skin cell has as much potential to become life as an embryo in a test tube. If left in their places, neither the skin cell nor the embryo would grow into a human. However, if put through a very complex process (in-vitro fertilization for the embryo and nucleus transportation for the skin cell), both the skin cell and embryo could grow into a human. How are they any different? If conservatives want to value potential life as equal to actual life, then they have to hold a skin cell as high as a test-tube embryo. If people would look past the ethical issues of stem cell research, they would find that it is a very promising process. Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to cure diseases like leukemia, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, liver disease, and even paralysis. Using stem cells, scientists can grown any type of organ or tissue they so desire. If this process was perfected, life expectancy of people throughout the world would increase dramatically. People would be healthier and would live all around better lives. Thanks to Obama’s recent executive order to lift the bans Bush put in place on stem cell research funding, we should see some major advancements in the near future.