Writer's Block: Big Debates
I have multiple sclerosis, one of the many diseases that could be cured if we had the ability to replace the cells our own immune system destroys. Of course I believe in stem cell research - it directly affects me.Even if I didn't have MS, I would support stem cell research (and our governemt's role in funding that research). I don't agree with the opposition that the potential for life outweighs the lives that already exist and contribute to society. A group of cells - that may or may not become a living breathing human being - shouldn't take precedence over the people that already are lving and breathing every day.
I went to a Catholic university and had to take Catholic Moral Theology with a priest for a professor. We had to write a paper on an ethical issue and I chose abortion as my topic. My stance was the same - the needs of a potential life (that often won't make it past the first trimester), should not outweigh the needs of the woman who has to carry the burden. Forcing women to have children when they don't want to, aren't ready to, or would be medically compromised by trying to is wrong.
In my paper I wrote about my mother, who got pregnant when she was in college by the first boyfriend she ever had. She has been stuck in a marriage with a man who doesn't love her for 39 years, a man with a bi-polar disorder and a million other medical conditions (including hypochondria) that has made her life far more difficult. I argued that if she'd had the choice to have an abortion at the time she may have made the same choices, but it would have been a more informed choice. Even though it means I never would have existed, I wish she'd had the choice to decide for herself.
The fact that I was not wanted weighed on me every day as a child. My parents loved me, but I always new that going this route wasn't what they wanted for themselves. Did I get through it and turn into a perfectly productive adult? Yes. But not every unwanted child is so lucky - look at the abused children, the ones who live in poverty, the ones abandoned by fathers and ignored by their mothers. Not everybody should be a parent, and I don't think anybody should be forced to be.
I got an A on that paper.
The pro-life side of the stem-cell research debate believes every embryo is a baby - or they want you to make that connection in your minds - but they're not. They are human cells that have barely started the process of becoming a baby. Their chance of survival - even if planted and allowed to grow into a baby - is iffy. Most women won't tell anybody about their pregnancy until after the third month because the risk of miscarriage is so high. Miscarried embryos and extras created at fertility center are thrown away as medical waste, the same as abortion clinics. If they could serve a purpose in saving lives, I think we should allow the research.
There is another option that could separate the issue from the abortion issue: cord blood harvesting. If women could donate the umbilical cord blood at the time of birth (instead of being charged 10k to store it), we would have access to stem cells that do not come from embryos.
I went to a Catholic university and had to take Catholic Moral Theology with a priest for a professor. We had to write a paper on an ethical issue and I chose abortion as my topic. My stance was the same - the needs of a potential life (that often won't make it past the first trimester), should not outweigh the needs of the woman who has to carry the burden. Forcing women to have children when they don't want to, aren't ready to, or would be medically compromised by trying to is wrong.
In my paper I wrote about my mother, who got pregnant when she was in college by the first boyfriend she ever had. She has been stuck in a marriage with a man who doesn't love her for 39 years, a man with a bi-polar disorder and a million other medical conditions (including hypochondria) that has made her life far more difficult. I argued that if she'd had the choice to have an abortion at the time she may have made the same choices, but it would have been a more informed choice. Even though it means I never would have existed, I wish she'd had the choice to decide for herself.
The fact that I was not wanted weighed on me every day as a child. My parents loved me, but I always new that going this route wasn't what they wanted for themselves. Did I get through it and turn into a perfectly productive adult? Yes. But not every unwanted child is so lucky - look at the abused children, the ones who live in poverty, the ones abandoned by fathers and ignored by their mothers. Not everybody should be a parent, and I don't think anybody should be forced to be.
I got an A on that paper.
The pro-life side of the stem-cell research debate believes every embryo is a baby - or they want you to make that connection in your minds - but they're not. They are human cells that have barely started the process of becoming a baby. Their chance of survival - even if planted and allowed to grow into a baby - is iffy. Most women won't tell anybody about their pregnancy until after the third month because the risk of miscarriage is so high. Miscarried embryos and extras created at fertility center are thrown away as medical waste, the same as abortion clinics. If they could serve a purpose in saving lives, I think we should allow the research.
There is another option that could separate the issue from the abortion issue: cord blood harvesting. If women could donate the umbilical cord blood at the time of birth (instead of being charged 10k to store it), we would have access to stem cells that do not come from embryos.