Stem Cell Research: Blessing for Desperate and the Dying

Stem Cell Research: Blessing for Desperate and the Dying

Stem Cells. We know there are cells in all living beings on earth. Plants, Animals and Human beings have cells. When any of these cells malfunction, we have CANCER. The deadly disease we all fear most. We cannot know who and when it will strike. We will never know when one of our dear ones will develop CANCER. Life is indeed a gamble.

Scientists say it is possible to create new cells and cure our ills. To create new cells, they need 'Stem Cells'. Suitable stem cells are obtained from 'Embryonic Stem Cells'.
Human embryonic stem cells. Providence has given us a chance.

The most useful stem cells are present in the first days after an egg is fertilized by sperm. Researchers believe they can program stem cells to become whatever tissues patients need. Stem cells come from 'embryos'.

Sir Magdi Jacoub, the Specialist Heart Surgeon, of Harefield Hospital, UK, says an entire heart could be artificially grown from Stem Cells.

In April 2007, Dr. Yacoub and his medical team had grown part of a human heart, a valve, from stem cells. This is a first in Medical history.

Previously tendons, cartilages and bladders were produced from Stem Cells. These components are less complex to produce.

And Sir Magdi Jacoub has performed near miracle according to Matthew Williamson, a Mechanical Project Engineer, turned Medical student, on the way to become a Cardiology specialist.

I was born with tricuspid atresia and pulmonary stenosis. At the age of four I had a modified fontans operation. Sir Magdi Jacoub performed operation. This enabled me to live a normal active life and do all the sports that I wanted to do.

When I left school I decided to study mechanical engineering, went to college qualified and became a project engineer. I enjoyed as I was working with some great people from all over the world and this also enabled me to travel at times.

Reading on his heart condition he got himself entangled in Medical career. He is on his way to become a medical specialist in cardiology.

That is the story of a heart patient who was helped on in life by a British heart specialist surgeon now engaged in Stem Cell research.

Stem cells can grow into many different cell types with the right biochemical signals.
Medical researchers believe stem cells can be used to change the face of human diseases. They can be used to repair specific tissues or to grow particular set of organs.

We can hope for such tissue to be used eventually, in the near future, for transplantation in patients suffering from heart, lung, kidney diseases.

There are 1000s of patients eagerly, desperately and hopefully awaiting positive developments in this field.

But there is a growing concern. A constraint, an inhumane limitation of possibilities is being laid across the path of development of 'stem cell' research. The hopes and aspirations of the thousands of patients around the world are laid low while these stumbling blocks are removed.
It is said Stem Cell Research is immoral and unethical. On what grounds?

The human embryo is a developing baby.

The ethical controversy arises from the fact that stem cells are obtained from human embryo. In this process, a particular embryo is disaggregated and destroyed.

"It is believed that there is an implicit dignity and inviolability in the individual continuity of a human life from fertilization to natural death." This sentence is picked up from a report of an advisory committee. And they qualify it saying: " The benefits of advances in biomedical science, outweigh these moral concerns." These are the measures of public opinion by this committee.

What is an embryo? Is it a human child?

There are two stem words to this question: Embryo and Foetus.

Embryo is a fertilized egg from initial cell division through the first eight weeks of life. A fertilised egg that has the potential to develop into a 'Foetus'.

A 'Foetus' is : after the first 'eight weeks' of development. Foetus: an unborn baby from the eighth week after fertilization until birth.

Foetus is the name used for the unborn baby. When the major structures like limbs and torso have formed. Up until the eighth week, the developing offspring is called an Embryo.

From conception to eight weeks it is called an embryo. Not 'foetus', a symbol of a child.

And therefore 'embryo' should not present any moral or ethical difficulty, unless you bend backwards, instead of holding yourself erect and steady, while wearing your 'thinking cap'. For you are playing with the lives of 1000s of people suffering in pain, and not unborn, unnamed, unknown cells of chance.

In a divorce case a judgement was delivered: "The petitioner is pregnant and therefore the defendant should pay for the maintenance till the child is sixteen years of age" . . .

. . . and the question arose: "What if she aborted the pregnancy through an act of God?"

Concerning embryonic stem cell research our moral intuition says : Let scientists develop cures for the diseases and relieve the pain and anxiety of those thousands doomed to die.

It is of no use looking for religious rulings as the ancients could not have understood embryology or imagined that wonderful science which is capable of producing fresh human organs to replace damaged ones.

What the scientists hope to achieve is the relief of human suffering. This is a humanitarian and worthy end is not in dispute.

We know of people who do not take medicine for any ailment whatsoever. Their explanation is: God sent this disease, and therefore I must endure it and not attempt to cure it against the will of God. It is the very same God who gave the intelligence to discover the medicine. And did not bless a few with understanding.

It is their belief and they are entitled to it. But they are not entitled to enforce their warped (according to us) will on the rest of the world.

And therefore we are not obliged to refrain from using embryos to find cure for the ills of our patients . . . people who can contribute yet more to society.