Ethics of Stem Cell Research

Even granting, simply for argument's sake, the highly questionable human' status of this tiny bunch of cells, the simple fact is that both sides of this debate are pro-life'. The difference is in which lives they advocate. Shelbie Oppenheimer, a long-time sufferer of Lou Gehrig's disease, perhaps articulated it best when, standing before a United States Senate subcommittee in 2001, she pleaded:.
             "You are presented with a choice. Your choice is about different things to different people; all viewpoints deserving respect, all viewpoints founded in the love of life. In the life I love here, this is what your decision means to me. You have the choice to be pro-life for an unimplanted frozen embryo that will be discarded, or pro-life for me I am asking you to choose me." .
             The choice should be an easy one. Human embryos are not humans. They are human cells, nothing more. Embryos are not even unique in their ability to develop into a baby; any cell in the human body can, with the right technology, produce a human being. There is therefore no moral difference between a human embryo and a human muscle cell. According to Professor Julian Savulescu, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, stem cells are "the microscopic Lego blocks that make up tissues and organs but the embryo is no more a human than a skin cell is."" .
             The living status of a person is defined by their brain function; we consider a person with no brain function to be legally and medically dead. If it is considered morally permissible to take organs and tissues from people who are medically brain dead, why then is it not equally permissible to take stem cells from a microscopic organism that has no brain?.
             Another argument against stem cell research is that human embryos, while not people as such, are potential people, and it is thus still unethical to destroy them for the stem cells they provide. This argument, too, lacks reason.