Today, our technology is advancing at an ever increasing rate. Science and medicine are making breakthroughs that improve everyone’s quality of life. Life saving medicine, previously limited to the realm of science fiction, is within our grasp. And part of that future is due in part to the amazing research being done with stem cells. However, there are laws in place that prevent scientists from getting as much use as possible from cells derived from embryos, which is the most abundant source. Although some people may believe that embryonic stem cell research is immoral, scientists and doctors should be allowed to use them in research and medical treatments.
Embryonic stem cells have garnered some controversy since the discovery of their use in medicine back in 1998. Researchers James Thomson and Jeffery Jones discovered a method to derive the first human embryonic stem cells. However, they were met with immediate backlash. The public was upset that human embryos were being used, and were convinced that this kind of experimentation was inhumane. What the public refused to consider, however, was the potential that stem cells had in medicine. Scientists believed that they could be used to develop
…show more content…
It is true that there are alternatives. Scientists have derived stem cells from patients’ bone marrow, from their skin, and even made their own lab-grown stem cells. There are issues with these alternatives, however. Gathering stem cells from these methods are either expensive, inefficient, intrusive to the patient, or any combination of the three. To this day, embryos remain the most effective method of obtaining stem cells, in terms of both yield and cost. Perhaps through less-restrictive research with embryonic stem cells, better alternatives can be found. At the moment, unfortunately, there is no better method than the use of human