Let your own conscious be your guide.
I promised myself I would not be silent again & so here I am…
About 10 years ago I was in a Pumpers Group in Tucson, Arizona. We got together once a month to share experiences & help each other out. A Lady brought up the subject of Stem Cell Research & that she was hopeful she would be able to participate in a study. Some conversation went on & I ask her a question stating I was only a dumb guy & asked about the use of Embryos. She stated that they were used by an Ethical Harvesting process. I should have questioned further about that being a fertilized egg, that it’s a life but… I kept quiet thinking Ethical Harvesting? What’s ethical about snuffing out a life? I was quiet (but not in my heart) the rest of the night, except to say to the administrator that I would not be back. That I would not be a part in any group that would promote the taking of a life to better their own condition. I would not do that for my beloved son a T1D & I sure would not do it for myself.
So here I am now on the FUD site & see some posts on Stem Cell. I see a fair amount of visits to these posts but not too many replies. Thinking is it taboo here to write about what you believe & what you feel…
I am a believer in Christ Jesus & I want to please God with my thoughts & actions, however in God’s word it says: If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men - Romans 12:18. I hope that I have not offend anyone but I have kept my promise to myself.
Below are some excerpts & a link for your consideration.
Excerpts are chronological:
See full article here.
“In the early days of human embryonic stem cell research, most ethics and policy debates focused on the moral status of preimplantation human embryos and the conditions under which moral personhood could be ascribed, if ever, to objects of research at the benchside. With the advent of human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which allowed for the derivation of pluripotent stem cells from non-embryonic sources, many believed these embryo debates were effectively over, at least within the context of future stem cell research.”
“Now, as human iPS cells are becoming more widely used to model human development and disease invitro and in animal models, these old debates around moral status and the emergence of moral personhood are being resurrected. Self-organizing invitro models of human development—especially 3D brain organoids and complex stem cell-based embryo models—plus the generation of early-stage human-nonhuman chimeras raise familiar questions around moral status and moral personhood. Thus, the stem cell field seems to be circling back to the embryo debate and the criteria by which one might call an emergent biological entity a moral person. This essay considers how these old questions are being tackled in these new research contexts.”
“Much has happened since human embryonic stem cells first became widely available for research in the late 1990s. Over the past few decades, the promise of stem cell research has devolved into a messy and hazardous landscape for patients, where measured—but slow—scientific progress in stem cell-based clinical trials is now competing against a rising tide of private stem cell clinics prematurely selling unproven, and possibly harmful, stem cell treatments. This uneasy landscape, which raises complex questions about the proper role of medical innovation and medical services outside a clinical trials context”
“U.S. National Academy of Sciences relegated this type of scientific investigation to a minimal level of “administrative review” by an official working on behalf of an institutional stem cell research oversight committee. In other words, stem cell research in the form of invitro differentiation protocols was thought to be so routine that it did not even merit full committee review, let alone any committee discussion or voting. All that was needed was documentation that the stem cell lines being used were procured under appropriate informed consent requirements. lines being used were procured under appropriate informed consent requirements.”
“Recent work by Sergiu Pasca and colleagues, however, has given bioethicists and policy makers some reason to be cautious going forward. Human brain organoids derived from healthy stem cell lines and from patients with a rare brain disorder called Timothy syndrome were transplanted into the brains of neonatal rats.”
“On the policy side, the response has been one of “wait and see.” For example, the most recent research and oversight guidelines issued by the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) attempt to allow space for work in each of these areas to proceed until the field can learn more about what is technically possible and what is not, at least over the next five years or so, after which the ISSCR guidelines will be updated again.
OK Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi so we have to past the bill to see what’s in it…