Essay Against Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Why the Opposition?

“Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research has been a source of ethical, legal, and social controversy since the first successful culturing of human ESCs in the laboratory in 1998” (Robertson. 1). Researchers are studying stem cells because they have the potential to treat a multitude of medical conditions, such as, replacing body parts, replacing tissues, and possibly growing new organs, but there are people against it. Stem cells can change into all types of specialized tissue and are cherished for their potentiality to treat many medical conditions. There are three types: totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent. Totipotent stem cells are cells that are capable of developing into other types of cell, with no difficulty. Pluripotent

Embryonic stem cell research is against many people’s ethics because the cells have the potential to become living and breathing human beings. Many of the people who are against ESC research are often driven by their religious beliefs. ESC research surpasses these religious beliefs because they are directly dealing with one’s right to life. For example, Robert George, a professor at Princeton University, and Patrick Lee, a professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, have claimed: “that any entity with the potential to become a human being must be treated as a human in with own right” (Navellier. 2). Through their argument, they are saying that although all human cells share important characteristics, such as genome, a major difference between stem cells and body cells is their ability to become a brand new living thing. While looking to teach people the contrast between embryos and other cells, they talk about the cell’s potential by saying that “any type of ‘potentiality’ possessed by somatic cells differs profoundly from the potentiality of the embryo” (Navellier. 2).Somatic cells have a different potential than embryos because somatic cells are not