Omer Manhaimer 9.10.14 Mr. Frampton 9 MYP Science One World Task: The Question of Stem Cells As the medicine industry has developed, It has become conventional wisdom that the biggest question, some would say problem of medicine, is ethics, or bioethics. Although, there are still substantial number of doubts about more specific problems and dilemmas in Bioethics of medicine, and these include the subject of stem cells. It is essential to look at the different aspect through different ‘lens’ including what are stem cells, its advantages and disadvantages, its contribution to medicine (its serve as a cure) and, finally, the dilemma of using stem cells for research. Stem cells are types of cells that are not yet specialized into one type of …show more content…
It has been proved that stem cells, especially embryonic, can be intensively used for medicine and as a cure. Three3 main diseases it can serve will be explicated here. Firstly, the biggest medical threatening - cancer, or, to be precise, Leukemia especially in bone marrow. Usually, a healthy person donates his bone marrow or adult stem cells from his body to an ill person. The cells from the donor are infused and injected into the patient’sill’s bone marrow. The cells repair the bone marrow, and so it can once again provide cells for the circulatory system. Of course cancer is much bigger in its dimensions from that (which is considered medically complicated too) but that is a big step towards the curing of the disease. Secondly, there are many attempts to use stem cells to cure diabetes, by using pancreas transplantation. In this case, by using sperm and eggs, the embryo, and within it the stem cells are created and can be transplanted into the pancreas. It is possible to donate mature stem cells to, in order to repair the pancreas. However, these are only written in theory. The cure method is not yet offered for people. It is very important to remember this cure method is not yet offered for people, and everything that was written is in theory. Currently, the trials are made on mice. Furthermore, a british ee specialist, Mr. Sheraz Deya, is …show more content…
The main problem is its use in medical procedures. The fact is that one ‘can’t find stem cells while walking in the streets’, meaning that risky procedures are done, only to get stem cells for research. The ways to research stem cells are firstly donating them, which may cost in lives loss. The other way, which is served to search embryonic stem cells, is having donations of sperm cells and eggs taken, and actually fertilizing them and producing an embryo. Unfortunately, these babies were only intended for research’s sake, and so they have to die. But does this count as abortion? This question divide into cultural views. On christianity, it does, and that causes many protests against the researchers. In Islam, on the other hand, the embryo does not count as a person but only on the 40th day after the fertilization. Is it still worth to research even if it costs loss of embryo? does it even count as a person? Are good intentions of researching are stronger than the cost of the research these are all ethical question about that. Also, currently experiments of researching in cures are made on mice, that sometimes die, anhat brings up these questions once again. Each person should take these questions into account before he decides on a