It is argued that embryonic stem cell research should be stopped due to bioethical concerns and research safety issues. Embryos should be respected as living beings with the potential to differentiate into human beings and should not be subjected to the risks of incomplete research. Instead, alternatives such as adult stem cell research should be used to advance biotechnology.
Science and technology have been advancing rapidly in recent years, especially biotechnology. Biotechnology is making breakthroughs in genetic engineering, stem cell research, gene editing technology, and more, which are having a positive impact on human life. However, these advances are not always positive. Advances in biotechnology also raise ethical debates. Research in biotechnology has gone beyond the search for truth and has become a pursuit of high economic value. It’s a field that deals with human life, and the scale of research raises many ethical issues. One of them is the issue of embryonic stem cells.
In the past, a human being was born when a couple had sexual intercourse, a sperm and an egg united, a fertilized egg was created, and the egg implanted in the uterus. However, with the development of biotechnology, it has become possible to study this process in a unitized manner. Humans have begun to use biotechnology to create embryos artificially and are trying to use this technology as a solution to terminal or incurable diseases. However, this research raises many ethical issues because it involves studying embryos with the potential to differentiate into human beings. There is also active research on adult stem cells as an alternative to embryonic stem cells. For these reasons, I will argue that embryonic stem cell research should be discontinued and provide evidence and alternatives.
Before I get into the reasons why embryonic stem cell research should be stopped, I want to explain what embryonic stem cells are. Embryonic stem cells are stem cells that are harvested from an embryo. When a sperm and egg fertilize, the egg undergoes meiosis and divides into two, forming a fertilized egg. The fertilized egg continues to divide and implants in the woman’s uterus about 14 days after fertilization. The period before implantation is called the embryonic period, and the fertilized egg is called an embryo. A stem cell is a type of mother cell that develops into different cells or organs that make up the human body. In other words, it is a cell before it differentiates into organs such as the heart, liver, etc. Embryonic stem cells are cells in the embryonic stage, less than 14 days after fertilization, and are called pluripotent because they can differentiate into any type of cell.
Methods used to obtain embryonic stem cells include using surplus embryos or from miscarried fetuses. Surplus embryos are unused embryos from eggs that have been over-ovulated for IVF. In this case, over-ovulation is an artificial method of extracting a large number of eggs from a woman’s body. Alternatively, embryonic stem cells are obtained by isolating primordial germ cells from a miscarried fetus and culturing them. However, the use of these embryos for research purposes raises ethical issues, such as the question of whether embryos under 14 days old are human, and the ethics of surplus frozen embryos.
The reason why embryonic stem cell research should be stopped is that embryos have the right to life. An embryo has the potential to become a human being and should be considered the same as the child or adult that will grow from it. Embryos, children, and adults are different stages of the same being, not different entities, meaning that the same individual, a, goes through the stages of A, A`, A“, and so on, not that a grows into B, C, D, etc. Evidence for this is that embryos with different genetic combinations develop into different things. From the moment a human being unites with a sperm and an egg, it becomes a fertilized egg and has a specific cellular arrangement, so there is only one embryo that can grow into A, and that is a. We also need to think of embryos as autonomous, living, human-like organisms, not just clumps of cells. The evidence for this is that there is interaction between the cells of the embryo. Before 14 days post-fertilization, each cell has the potential to develop into an individual, but they don’t develop into an individual when they’re together, only when they’re separated. To put it simply, if you have cells A and B before 14 days post-fertilization, and you separate them, they will develop into A and B, respectively. However, we know that if we put them together, they will not become A and B. Instead, they will interact with each other and become a single individual called C. This biological fact suggests that cells are interacting within the embryo. Furthermore, the fact that cell division is orderly from the moment it begins shows that cells interact with each other. This interaction between cells suggests that the embryo is an organism, not just a clump of cells.
In response, those in favor of embryonic stem cell research argue that the moral status of an embryo is no more than a clump of cells. In order to identify an embryo as the same individual as a child or adult, the condition of self-identity must be met. This means that an entity at one point in time can be the same as an entity at another point in time, but it cannot be the same as two spatially separated entities at different points in time. For example, if an embryo named A grows into a child named A, then A can be identical to A, but not to B, which exists contemporaneously with A. However, an embryo before 14 days does not have a one-to-one correspondence with the adult that will grow from it. This is irrefutable because an embryo before the primordial gland has the potential to differentiate into twins, meaning that if an embryo named A divides into two and becomes twins, it will be the same individual as both of its twins at the same time. The contradiction is that if one embryo is identical to both twins, then both twins must also be identical individuals.
However, there is a slight fallacy in this proponent’s argument. The splitting of an embryo into two is a predestined life system, just like asexual reproduction in single-celled organisms. Single-celled organisms like planaria and amoebas reproduce asexually, dividing themselves in two, and when they divide, they become two different organisms that multiply. Similarly, twins should be viewed as two individuals added to an already existing individual. The embryo should then be respected as a being with the same individuality as one of the twins.
The second reason why embryonic stem cell research should be stopped is that it increases the chances of other diseases. For one thing, organ transplants using embryonic stem cells require lifelong medication to prevent immune rejection. And because embryonic stem cells grow faster than other stem cells, there is a risk that transplanting them could increase the chance of cancer. Also, when fetal brain cells were transplanted into patients with Parkinson’s disease, they showed symptoms of paralyzed autonomic control, including involuntary movements. Finally, mice cloned from embryonic stem cells were found to have genetic defects when they were born.
While stem cell research has led to treatments for many diseases, incurable diseases are still in the early stages of research. This shows that even if it is possible to reduce the chances of cancer through experiments, a lot of research is still needed. Therefore, we shouldn’t sacrifice many embryos in incomplete experiments. An alternative to embryonic stem cells is to study adult stem cells. Compared to embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells have a longer history of research and better results. Adult stem cells are already used and tested and have the advantage of being safer than embryonic stem cells. For example, bone marrow transplants. Because adult stem cells are more stable than embryonic stem cells, they have a lower incidence of cancer, no immune rejection, and the stem cells are more tissue-adaptive, which means they establish themselves quickly.
In conclusion, embryonic stem cell research should be discontinued due to bioethical and safety concerns. Embryos should be respected as living beings with the potential to develop into human beings and should not be subjected to the risks of incomplete research. Instead, alternatives such as adult stem cell research should be used to advance biotechnology. To ensure that advances in biotechnology can contribute to enriching human life, we must approach them carefully and with ethical considerations.
