Medical Usesof Embryonic Stem Cells

Embryonic stem cells come from up to six-day-old embryos. The cells are taken from the inner cell mass of an egg that has been fertilized in vitro ( the egg has been fertilized outside a woman’s body and then placed inside her uterus to develop, because an embryo cannot develop outside a woman’s body at an early stage). The embryonic stem cells are not very specialized; they are so called pluripotent. Nevertheless, they would get more specialized if they were kept in the fertilized egg. They could for example become a cell that skin or eyes are made of. Another quality that embryonic stem cells have is that they just keep dividing, and they’re doing it fast. Furthermore, they also have a long “life” which means that there can be a lot of embryonic stem cells. These qualities make them perfect for laboratories and experiments. Many cures have been made from medical experiments with them. It’s because of these facts, that I think this is something that we should continue with.

As previously stated, embryonic stem cells are pluripotent. Pluripotency is a quality that cells have before they get more specialized. That means that they can develop to all different kinds of cells in the body. One of the goals with using embryonic stem cells for medical use, is to “force” the cells to develop into the kind of cells that the doctors need to cure someone. When we can do this, people can be cured really fast, and we can save more lives. Just imagine a treatment that can treat and cure nearly every disease and disorder. This is real and will become even more real if we continue studying it. Another great thing about the fact that embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, is that we can learn more about the cell differentiation, when a less specialized cell (pluripotent cell) becomes a more specialized cell. Then we can understand and avoid instances when cell differentiation goes wrong, and for example avoid miscarriages or cure cancer. Who wouldn’t want a cure for cancer and a way to avoid miscarriages. The knowledge that we acquire from researching embryonic stem cells, can save many lives.

Secondly, it has been discovered that embryonic stem cells can be used to mend “a broken heart”. Hina Chaudhry, associate professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, noticed that pregnant women have the highest rate of recovery from heart failure. She thought that maybe it was because of the fetus inside them. She later discovered that she was right. When you have had a heart attack or a heart failure and have recovered from it, there were signals saying "help, cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) in trouble, please send stem cells" going through the whole body. However, in the pregnant mothers the signals go to the fetus, who provides the heart with embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells differentiate into the required heart cells. The question is now: Can it be used to save all the millions of people who get heart attacks or heart failures? Of course it can, at least if you ask Charles Murry from the Center of Cardiovascular Biology at the University of Washington. He tested his thesis by trying to cure three monkeys, that had had a heart attack, with this technique. Naturally, he succeeded. So now when we can mend “broken hearts” (like Charles Murry) with embryonic stem cells, who knows what we can mend using embryonic stem cells in the near future.

Despite all these reasons, there are still people who think that using embryonic stem cells for medical uses isn’t a good idea. The main reason for their negative attitude to the idea is that they think that the very young embryo (the age is a maximum of six days), that the cells are taken from, is human. So basically when you take the embryonic stem cells from the embryo you usually damage it so it cannot develop into a human being. When you do this you take away the embryo’s chance of developing into a human being, which means that you take away someone's life. People also think that you should treat the embryos with the same respect you treat a fully developed human. This way of thinking is just like the way you respect infants before they have developed their properties to walk, talk or eat without help. If you think that the embryo isn’t developed enough and that you can use their embryonic stem cells for medical uses, you are deciding what’s human and not. Is that right?

Well firstly, the early staged embryo hasn’t had much time to develop, so it doesn’t have all “human” qualities. For example they don’t have the psychological, emotional or physical properties that we associate with being a human. They therefore don’t have the same “interests” as us, to be alive. They don’t feel things physically (pain, pleasure etc.) like us either, because they haven’t got a nervous system until they’re 14 days old (and scientists only use up to 6-day-old embryos). However, the biggest counter argument against that they’re humans is that they will be thrown away anyway. Yes, it’s true. Furthermore, as I said in the introduction, the embryonic stem cells are taken from eggs that has been fertilized in vitro. Naturally not all of the eggs that have been fertilized will be kept, because then there would be a lot of children. So the fertilized eggs that aren’t kept will either be thrown away or…used in medical uses. Thus, do not you think that it’s better to keep the leftover eggs from the in vitro fertilization, than to throw them away? You could have used a “life”, that wouldn’thave been kept if not for the medical uses, to save hundreds maybe thousands or millions of lives.

To sum up, medical uses of embryonic stem cells are the future. A lot of cures have been found and with the techniques we have today, and I’m sure we’ll find more. The reasons to continue with medical uses of embryonic stem cells are several: firstly that they’re pluripotent and secondly, that you can mend a heart that has suffered from a heart attack or heart failure with embryonic stem cells, and if we can do that, who knows what we can cure in the future. Lastly, even if people think that the embryo, that the stem cells are taken from, is “human”, it hasn’t developed to feel things psychologically, emotionally or physically. The embryos are also used to save lives instead of being thrown away. Isn’t that better? Isn’t it right to use embryonic stem cells for medical uses, when you save a lot of people doing it? We would be at the beginning again, if we stopped using embryonic stem cells to find cures and to save lives. Think of all those lives that have been saved with embryonic stem cells, they would now be gone if not for the knowledge we have got from the embryonic stem cells and the stem cells itself. However, we can now save lives because of the knowledge we have got from the embryonic stem cells.