Embryonic Stem Cells In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley’s 19th century novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is noble in his effort to help mankind. His scientific Prometheanism is initially meant as a good thing, but has serious negative consequences. Victor wants to bring life back to dead matter so humans, in theory, would not have to die. Similarly, in today’s world, scientists and doctors continually and nobly pursue advancement in the medical world to generate new treatments for sick patients. For example, the medical community today is pursuing embryonic stem cell research to discover cures for diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. However, many find this research unethical because of the method of collecting stem cells. Like Victor Frankenstein’s experiment,

They are afraid with these advancements in medical care, the value of human life will decrease. As scientists go forward with research, they are endangering the lives of potential children.These see it as a blatant disregard to life because people are deciding who gets to live and who gets to die. Additionally, they see this course of treatment as unnecessary because there are other treatments available for patients already, as well, as new treatments being discovered everyday that do not require a choice like this to be made. They do believe that progress does need to be made to help the sick, however they believe that the progress needs to be made in a different direction than stem cell

This is because embryonic stem cells are a type of unspecialized cell, so they can form into any type of cell. As Junying Yu and James A. Thomson say in their article about Embryonic Stem Cells, “human [embryonic stem cells] promise an essentially unlimited supply of specific cell types. . . for transplantation therapies for diseases” (Thomson). This explains that this course of treatment would allow not only the treatment of, but possibly even a cure for, diseases that are caused by either malfunctioning cells or the loss of them. For example, Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that is caused by brain cell death. Alzheimer’s does not have a cure, and the only treatment for it is medication that will slow the death of cells. However, if embryonic stem cells were used, they could replace and, theoretically, stop the death of brain cells, which would in turn, halt the disease. So overall, this treatment could dramatically benefit patients struggling through diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, and diabetes. Furthermore, the increase of quality of life for these living people is more than worth the possible destruction of a cluster of