You may have heard of stem cell therapy already but for those of you who have not, this is a very exciting new frontier in medicine. Stem cells offer the hope of curing diseases like Type 1 diabetes, leukemia or parkinson’s. But this new type of therapy, also called “Regenerative Medicine” is not without its controversy. There are good arguments on both sides that we must consider.
So what are stem cells? They are cells that have not committed to becoming a certain type of tissue like heart, muscle, liver or bone. When you think about how a human is formed it starts with a sperm and an egg. One cell becomes two, which becomes four, which becomes eight and so on and so on. In the early stages of development we are nothing more than a ball of cells that haven’t started turning into anything specific yet. At this early stage any of these cells could go on to become any part of the body and this is what scientists are looking to use in regenerative medicine.
Stem cells don’t have to come from a human embryo but these are the cell lineages that cause the most controversy. It’s the same discussion we’ve been having for years now. At what point are we a human being? Are we a human as soon as the sperm fertilizes the egg or after we’re at the 100 cell stage or after we have a heartbeat or after we’re able to survive outside the womb or after we are born? Most scientists would argue that when implantation in the uterus hasn’t occurred at the ‘blastula’ stage or 100 cell stage then it’s impossible for these cells to go on to become a human and thus they should be acceptable for use in stem cell treatments. Different countries have different laws regarding what’s considered ethical use of embryonic stem cells. You will have to make up your own mind about this.
