Stem Cell Research and a Ban on Human Cloning :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Stem Cell Research and a Ban on tender Cloning Some biotechnology companies claim that a ban on producing bounteous male embryos through cloning would stall important research in generating stem cellular phones to cure a variety of diseases Cong. Record, 2/5/98, S425. To edit this claim in perspective 1. Cloning is desired as a source of customized stem cell lines which would be an exact genetic stir to each individual patient with a given disease. But this would affect each individual patient to undergo somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce one or many living human embryos who genetically are the patients identical twin sisters or brothers. These embryos would then be destroyed to provide embryonic stem cells. Two manners of obtaining the cells have been described. In one, the embryo is allowed to develop normally for a week or ii to the blastocyst stage, at or after the usual time of implantation in the mothers womb then this embryo, consisting of hundreds of cell s, is dissected for its stem cells. The other method is to introduce molecular signals into the embryos environment to trick its cells into departing from normal development and or else producing a mass of undifferentiated tissue, which can then be reprogrammed into mingled kinds of cells Lee Silver, Remaking Eden Cloning and Beyond in a survive New World (Avon Books 1997), p. 128. In either case, the living embryo is destroyed. 2. This track for providing medical benefits has been described even by supporters as largely sibyllic (J. Kassirer and N. Rosenthal, in New England Journal of Medicine, March 26, 1998, p. 905). President Clintons National Bioethics informatory Commission called it a rather expensive and farthermost-fetched scenario. The Commission observed Beca handling of honorable and moral concerns raised by the use of embryos for research purposes it would be far more desirable to explore the direct use of human cells of adult origin to produce specialized cell s or tissues for transplantation into patients. The Commission draw three alternative avenues for promising research using stem cells that do not involve human cloning, two of which do not use human embryos at all (Cloning Human Beings Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics advisory Commission, June 1997, pp. 30-31). The Commissions Alternatives The alternatives outlined by President Clintons Commission are as follows 1. Generating a few, widely used and well characterized human embryonic stem cell lines, genetically altered to prevent graft rejection in all accomplishable recipients.