Religious Stance on Stem Cell Research

[HelloHockeyFans]

Don't know too much about stem cell research, but from watching Michael J. Fox on CNN a few weeks ago, his argument was that if these cells are going to be destroyed and thrown away anyway, why can't science use it for research instead?

From that point of view, I can't understand why people argue against it if these cells are in fact thrown away anyway.

[Oil Stain]

Most of these embryos needed for stem cell research were created for use in, in-vitro fertilization. Religious people have no problem with this for the most part.

However there are a bunch of embryos left over that aren't used and get destroyed anyways because the doctors have no where to put the extras. So instead of destroying them the doctors might as well use them. They aren't ever going to turn into a human life at that point anyways.

[HelloHockeyFans]

Interview with Michael J. Fox:

Q: The religious right continues to speak out against experimental cloning techniques that might be used to harvest stem cells. They fear the same technology could be abused, perhaps in an attempt to clone babies. The U.S. House of Representatives even passed a bill that proposed criminalizing such research. As a patient, how do you respond when you hear news like this?

A: It's ridiculous. It's so self-defeating for those of us with Parkinson's and other degenerative diseases. We don't want to create Frankenstein or clone our Uncle Charlie so we can play poker with him again. It's nuts. We just want to save lives.

If the government were to allow funding for embryonic stem-cell research, it could use its own power of oversight to apply standards to the research that people will feel comfortable with. The research will happen anyway. But it will happen in other countries now, and we won't have as much input.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...4010_mz001.htm

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by HelloHockeyFans

Interview with Michael J. Fox:

Q: The religious right continues to speak out against experimental cloning techniques that might be used to harvest stem cells. They fear the same technology could be abused, perhaps in an attempt to clone babies. The U.S. House of Representatives even passed a bill that proposed criminalizing such research. As a patient, how do you respond when you hear news like this?

A: It's ridiculous. It's so self-defeating for those of us with Parkinson's and other degenerative diseases. We don't want to create Frankenstein or clone our Uncle Charlie so we can play poker with him again. It's nuts. We just want to save lives.

If the government were to allow funding for embryonic stem-cell research, it could use its own power of oversight to apply standards to the research that people will feel comfortable with. The research will happen anyway. But it will happen in other countries now, and we won't have as much input.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...4010_mz001.htm

Well, that's cloning. There's ethical issues with cloning. Again, read The Double. That's not stem cell research. They're confusing the issues. Michael, YOU may not want to create Frankenstein, but someone out there does.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by FireFly

If we weren't so insistant on having it 'our way' there would be a lot less conflict in the world. How about we show a little tolerance for those who believe differently than we do?

That's the whole problem. The religious organizations insist on having it their way. They are basically saying that since they don't believe in stem cell research nobody else should get to A) do stem cell research and B) benefit from the results.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

That's the whole problem. The religious organizations insist on having it their way. They are basically saying that since they don't believe in stem cell research nobody else should get to A) do stem cell research and B) benefit from the results.

Ummm... no. They don't agree with 'making and killing' beings to harvest the stem cells. They don't agree with 'cloning' in order to harvest stem cells. I don't think they have an issue with using stem cells, provided that the stem cells come from other sources.

[rockstar]

Originally Posted by FireFly

Those of you concerned with the affects of human cloning should read Jose Saramago's The Double. Absolutely fascinating novel.

Saramago's brilliant. I haven't read The Double but I was astounded by Blindness.


Interesting debate going on here. I have to admit I'm not too well-read on the whole stem-cell research, human cloning, genetic engineering debate. Maybe I choose not to be, I don't know.

But there's one huge thing that bothers me about it. And it has nothing to do with religion. Also, this argument may be a lot more "big picture" than what we're talking about directly, so bear with me.

Originally Posted by SpitFire40

I don't have much to add, but anything that halts progress on curing disease is just mindblowingly stupid.

Not to pick on you alone, SpitFire, because this is a widely shared point of view. But I don't necessarily agree with it, on a global scale.

What happens if/when science discovers the cure to something, be it cancer, the common cold, paralysis, or whatever? What's the result? We lucky few living in what I'll call, for lack of a better term, the global North, will have access to the new medicine (because we can afford it). We in the global North will live longer, and there will be more of us.

What happens in the third world, then? While we're finding all these cures and using stem-cell research and genetic engineering to our full advantage, the third world continues to live in poverty. Disease will continue to run rampant there as it has for what seems like forever.

How many people are going hungry in the world right now? How many more will go hungry when we are able to cure major diseases for ourselves and, as a result, need to import more and more food and other goods in order to continue living our plush lives?

Don't get me wrong; I'm thankful for medicine and some of this technology that allows me to combat a cold that would otherwise be an inconvenience. You might extrapolate from my argument and claim I want to get rid of medicine altogether. Not true. I'm thankful for all the treatments that we are so fortunate to have the chance to benefit from. A relative gets very sick, and a lot of the time, he/she recovers and we get to see them again. Not everyone in the world has that privelage. But where do you draw the line? I have no clue. But I think the line should be drawn somewhere.

Look, I think there's a balance in the world. People are going to die, one way or another. Stop stem-cell and other medical research and people are going to continue dying of various types of diseases, self-caused (let's say lung cancer) or genetic (breast cancer), doesn't matter. Continue stem-cell research and advance technology, and overpopulation, and widespread hunger (even more serious than it already is) will be the result.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think the advance of stem-cell research is going to save any lives. Maybe here, but in a global sense? No chance.

Maybe I'm missing something; point it out to me because like I said, I haven't been up to date with all of this. It just seems a lot of us are thinking of ourselves when we talk about this kind of research; about our own benefit. There are always implications.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by FireFly

Ummm... no. They don't agree with 'making and killing' beings to harvest the stem cells. They don't agree with 'cloning' in order to harvest stem cells. I don't think they have an issue with using stem cells, provided that the stem cells come from other sources.

Well they aren't availible from other sources, and the religious right is saying if you don't do it "our way" then you shouldn't be able to do it at all.

That isn't being tolerant of other's beliefs. That is seeking to impose their own beliefs on everyone else.

[Reggie Dunlop]

If medical science can one day help amputees, that would give the term "lend a hand" a whole new meaning.

[mykalberta]

IMO people who believe in religion (KJB mostly) who are against this (with the exception of the loud mouth fanboys) are against it because it is one step closer up the slippery slope of cloning people.

There is nothing against the research in the KJB - period.

I am personally against growing a person (yes it would eventually turn into a person) for a week just to harvest some cells but that is more of a personal stance and has no basis within the KJB. My opinion donest mean its wrong but in a vote, I would vote no.

Who is to say that it will stop at stem cells, hey lets go to Singapore and get anoter ME grown to replace the bum knee I fataed up in hockey. That is just another step up the slope and no one on this board can say this wont happen (or will).

MYK

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

This is a complex debate, but I think it's important to note 2 things about it:

1) There are two ways in which the anti-stem-cell research lobby is misleading people on this issue. One is by introducing the topic of "cloning." Cloning is a separate issue. In theory, you could clone a person in order to create stem cells for them--but this would only be necessary if you didn't allow the use of embryonic stem cells. The whole point of embryonic stem cells is that they are non-differentiated, and can divide almost ad infinitum. They don't need to be tailored to a specific genetic individual. Cloning blastocysts to create embryonic stem cell lines would be like squeezing oranges with your fist to make orange juice. No-one thinks that would be a good way to do it--it would be far too time-consuming and costly, given that there are thousands of blastocysts created in labs through in vitro fertilization (for reproductive purposes), that are currently being used for nothing.

Secondly, there's no such thing as a 3 day old embryo. This is an attempt to change the subject and make it about when human life occurs. The actual term is "blastocyst," and as AC pointed out, it's all of about 150 cells. Sure, it MIGHT become a person. But even under natural conditions, it's estimated that around half of them never do.

Is human life created at the moment of fertilization? That's just silly. You could fertilize a human egg with a hamster sperm in a laboratory. What would happen? Well, it would divide a couple of times and then stop. Would that thing be a "human/hamster" monstrosity or just a few cells sitting in a petri dish? For me, the "when does human life begin" question is a problem far more related to the issue of abortion, when "potential" human life ACTUALLY exists. (I'm also pro-choice, but that's another debate...) A blastocyst in a petri dish which contains 100-150 undifferentiated embryonic stem cells is to me pretty clearly not a human being, in any sense. It has no nervous system, so therefore is not conscious. It has no circulatory system. It has no digestive system. It neither eats, excretes nor reproduces. It's just a blob of cells.

Also, they are the only source of embryonic stem cells. There are also adult stem cells which are available in other ways, but they're widely judged to be less scientifically (and in the future, medically) useful, and are in the long run more expensive to extract and culture.


2) Here's the other side of that coin: the reason the vast majority of people support stem cell research is that the left wing (in the U.S. at least) sometimes exaggerates the possible clinical benefits, making it seem like treatments for a variety of cures will be instantly possible as soon as Bush stops obstructing science. That just isn't true. It is of course possible that stem cell research will lead to effective therapies in a lot of diseases. But that's many years down the road. It would be irresponsible and unsafe to just start injecting people with embryonic stem cells until we actually know what would happen, and that could take many years.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by octothorp

That actually may not be far off. There was a study just a couple months ago that dealt with the creation of embryonic stem-cells by coaxing somatic cells to de-differentiate and essentially revert back to an embryonic stem-cell form. So hopefully this entire debate will become redundent within a year or two, but really any delay is pointless.

ps. kudos on the Saramago reference from earlier in the thread. My all-time favorite author.

That to me is what I'm waiting for.

I don't oppose stem-cell research, but I do have a problem with creating life..and then taking away that same life just for the advancement of science. Just a problem though....

Also...if we are able to clone humans...how gets to play God? Or the Creator?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

If they can't find a way around creating and destroying embryos, then the religions of the west will have to adapt their views like they have so many times before in the past, or risk becoming the next Amish.

Next Amish?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by HelloHockeyFans

Don't know too much about stem cell research, but from watching Michael J. Fox on CNN a few weeks ago, his argument was that if these cells are going to be destroyed and thrown away anyway, why can't science use it for research instead?

From that point of view, I can't understand why people argue against it if these cells are in fact thrown away anyway.

And once science uses those cells...whats to stop them from throwing away even more stem cells?

Voluntary abortion? Just for the sake of science?

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

That to me is what I'm waiting for.

I don't oppose stem-cell research, but I do have a problem with creating life..and then taking away that same life just for the advancement of science. Just a problem though....

Also...if we are able to clone humans...how gets to play God? Or the Creator?

So if we do it for science that's bad, but if private medical industry does it as an infertility treatment, that's OK?

We don't need to create blastocysts in order to get stem cells. There are excess blastocysts in fertility clinics across North America. Is it better for them to sit in a freezer or be discarded? Why isn't it better to use those cells to advance science?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

So if we do it for science that's bad, but if private medical industry does it as an infertility treatment, that's OK?

We don't need to create blastocysts in order to get stem cells. There are excess blastocysts in fertility clinics across North America. Is it better for them to sit in a freezer or be discarded? Why isn't it better to use those cells to advance science?

Yes, those cells are being thrown away...and to a certain extent I agree with using them.

But eventually...you need more stem cells...and where do you get them from? Blastocysts come from 4-5 day old humans..or whatever you want to call it...so that means abortion. Are we going to turn to voluntary abortion...just for the advancement of science?

Because God knows that there are people out there would would sacrifice their child...just to help science out. Meaning they would reproduce...create a potential baby...and give it up for abortion so that science could use the Embryonic stem cells.

Now...adult stem cells does not require the destruction of the embryo. Why not go that route instead?

[Red Mile Style]

Man, this is the worst conflilct I personally have.

I am not religious.
I am very science-minded.
I am left-wing leaning, politically.


I am pro-life...

This whole situation is a mind-****. I mean, sure these few number of cells really do not add up to a whole lot... but they have the potential to become a human-being. A fly-brain will always be a fly-brain, but a fetus will not always be a fetus. Would you be against testing scientific advancements on a child? I know I would be.

Here is where I, personally, reach some sort of middle ground. I have the greatest hope in scientific advancement and the procurement of any kind of medical advancements, so I guess I wouldn't have a problem with stem-cell research on aborted fetuses that were going to die anyway. But when we start creating fetuses just for scientific research... that doesn't sit too well.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

Yes, those cells are being thrown away...and to a certain extent I agree with using them.

But eventually...you need more stem cells...and where do you get them from? Blastocysts come from 4-5 day old humans..or whatever you want to call it...so that means abortion. Are we going to turn to voluntary abortion...just for the advancement of science?

Because God knows that there are people out there would would sacrifice their child...just to help science out. Meaning they would reproduce...create a potential baby...and give it up for abortion so that science could use the Embryonic stem cells.

Now...adult stem cells does not require the destruction of the embryo. Why not go that route instead?

Stem-cell lines are self-replicating. Once you have enough of them, you don't need to continually destroy blastocysts in order to get them. That's one important point.

Also, I'm not sure I would describe fertilizing an egg in a petri dish and then harvesting cells after 3 days as an "abortion." In fact, abortion is not a way of getting stem cells--the products of conception are lost in the case of abortion. We're talking about something so infinitesimally small that it has to be created in a lab. If it were implanted in a human there would be no way of recovering it. To me, this is more than simply semantics. Abortion is terminating a pregnancy. A blastocyst in a petri dish isn't a pregnancy.

Adult stem cells are not undifferentiated. They're blood cells, nerve cells, bone marrow, etc. Also, they can't divide ad infinitum, meaning that in that case you WOULD have to continually re-harvest them--and they're just not as valuable as the other kind of stem cell.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Red Mile Style

This whole situation is a mind-****. I mean, sure these few number of cells really do not add up to a whole lot... but they have the potential to become a human-being. A fly-brain will always be a fly-brain, but a fetus will not always be a fetus. Would you be against testing scientific advancements on a child? I know I would be.

Here is where I, personally, reach some sort of middle ground. I have the greatest hope in scientific advancement and the procurement of any kind of medical advancements, so I guess I wouldn't have a problem with stem-cell research on aborted fetuses that were going to die anyway. But when we start creating fetuses just for scientific research... that doesn't sit too well.

This might seem like semantics, but to me it's an important distinction. They're not fetuses. A fetus is what an embryo is called after 11 weeks of gestation. An embryo is what a blastocyst eventually becomes after 3 weeks of gestation. The difference is important--all you need to do is see what these various phases look like to see the difference.

A blastocyst can, if implanted in a uterus, become an embryo, then a fetus, then a human being. But its own metaphysical status has to be measured in the present. It does not eat. It does not excrete. It does not have functionally differentiated domains. It cannot reproduce. It is not conscious. It is in a very real sense not yet alive.

Moreover, not all blastocysts DO have the possibility of becoming alive. It's thought that a shockingly large percentage of them fail due to chromosomal abnormalities.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Red Mile Style

But when we start creating fetuses just for scientific research... that doesn't sit too well.

That is my biggest hangup as well.