preview

The Stem Cell Debate is Not About Medical Benefits Essays

Better Essays

In the final analysis, the debate about embryonic stem cell research is not primarily about medical benefits. In his great novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky raised the question whether it would be right to build a world without human suffering if "it was essential and inevitable to torture to death one tiny creature" such as an innocent child to achieve that end. Each of us must answer that ultimate question in the depths of his or her own conscience. The claim that destructive embryo research will achieve such a utopian end is, we believe, a hollow promise. In the meantime, however, the killing will be quite real. We hope that you will consider these reflections and agree that our government should not support research …show more content…

The embryos to be destroyed by researchers in this campaign are at the same stage of development as embryos in the womb who have been protected as human subjects in federally funded research since 1975.(4) President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) and its 1994 predecessor, the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel, conceded that the early human embryo is a form of developing human life that deserves our respect(5). Treating human life as mere research material is no way to show respect. Finally, this proposal is unnecessary because adult stem cells and other alternatives are already achieving some of the goals for which embryonic stem cells have been proposed, and new clinical uses are constantly being discovered.(6) In our view, human life deserves full respect and protection at every stage and in every condition. The intrinsic wrong of destroying innocent human life cannot be "outweighed" by any material advantage -- in other words, the end does not justify an immoral means. Acceptance of a purely utilitarian argument for mistreating human life

Get Access