Debates

B.A. Robinson. "Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance" 1998. Ontario Consultants. January 9, 2007. http://www.religioustolerance.org/res_stem.htm

I found out that stem cells can be used to become many other different types of cells. The following site that I found states that stem cells can be used for more than 220 different types of cells found in humans. More than 100 million Americans suffer from disesases which can be cured with the help of stem cells, such as cancer, diabetes, etc.

The site also acknowledges what happens to cell embryos at a fertnerity clinic. The couple who is left over with extra embryos are given four choices of what to do with them. The four choices involve:
~having them thrown away
~donating them to another fertility couple
~donating them for research
~preserving them at low temp.
Out of these four options, the most common one that couples chose to do is throw them away.

The site explains that there are two sides to this issue. One side of the debate are people known as pro-lifers. They believe that embryos starting at a few days old are humans. When the stem cells are used from the embryo(human), it is therefore killing a human.

When stem cells are taken from adult tissue, even though it does no harm, there are less amounts of stem cells available and they are harder to obtain. It is said to be that adult embryos are less useful then young embryos, and a research is being conducted to further this investigation.

In Britain, stem cell research is allowed, however, in the United States, President Bush has stopped most of the stem cell research. This happened August 9, 2001 where it was only allowed in government laboratories. Throughout France, Japan, Australia, as well as other countries, the research is occuring both in government and private labs.

President Bush vetoed his first bill which was passed by the House in 2005. The bill was trying to allow government research on stem cells to use the extra embryos from fertility clinics.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/res_stem.htm