Embryonic Stem Cells

Embryonic Stem Cells

Embryonic cells are a type stem cell that is extracted from a human embryo, which is about a week after fertilization. At this point of growth, the embryo only has around 100 cells in its body with most of them being stem cells because the cells haven’t differentiated into different cells yet. Since the embryo is so small and doesn’t have many cells, the embryo will die when the cells are extracted. The scientists know that the embryo will die, since they are doing this procedure in a lab with an artificial womb. This type of stem cell research is one of the most controversial and this is why people don’t agree with it. This type of stem cell goes hand in hand with the topic of abortion. Embryonic stem cell research is killing an embryo before it even has the chance to fully grow and become a fetus similar to abortion. But then you have the discussion of when is the fetus considered living? When does it start forming organs that make it suitable for life?

About five weeks into the pregnancy, the embryo forms a brain, spinal cord, heart, and other organs form but it is no where near being able to survive on its own. The organs just form, they are not even close to being movement and function. Many pro-lifers view this as inhumane or murder because they believe life begins at conception, but most the time when an embryo is at this stage or growth only about one third of them survive naturally in a woman’s womb. A common misconception from people is that embryonic stem cells are taken from embryos that are inside of a woman. Woman donate their eggs to since and scientists fertilize the egg with sperm that has been donated and they create a zygote which then grows into an embryo over the course of a couple of days. Since scientists are creating life outside of a woman’s womb and just taking the stem cells from the embryo and killing it people disapprove. So they feel that funding should be given to other types of stem cell research, but the great thing about embryonic stem cells is that they are “thought by most scientists and researchers to hold potential cures for spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, hundreds of rare immune system and genetic disorders.” (http://usliberals.about.com/od/stemcellresearch/i/StemCell1_2.htm) Other forms of stem cells can’t be used as widely as embryonic stem cells can. For example, cord blood stem cells can only be used for certain types of cancer, blood disorders, immune disorders, and metabolic disorders.

Embryonic stem cell research has been around for a long time, dating back to the early 60s. It wasn’t until 1998 that scientists actually studied a human embryonic stem cell, so stem cell research relating to a human embryo is pretty recent and can be ground breaking over the next couple of years with proper funding and support from the public.