Amarillo College Ranger

Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: Religion and Politics

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Abortion is legal, and if or until that changes, I believe the medical field should benefit from the advancements that stem cell research offers.

The destruction of a human being is an ugly thing, but unfortunately, at the present time the choice has been given to a woman to govern her own body. Why not then use the resources we have today to better our society? Stem cell research opens doors to opportunities unheard of in medical history.

Imagine being able to skip the hassles and pain of waiting on a transplant list for a compatible organ that may never surface. The potential stem cell research offers to medicine is limitless.

As long as the mother is able to make the choice of whether to allow the child life, those aborted embryos should be used for good. Stem cell research didn't kill the embryo, so why does it take the blame? I doubt the mother based her decision to abort on the idea that she could make a contribution to science.

In today's lab, although stunted by the recent presidential veto of a bill to expand the funds provided for research, scientists have discovered a development that may allow for stem cells to be extracted from an embryo without harming it. According to Dr. Mike Magee of Health Politics (www.healthpolitics.org), it is a procedure similar to one that pinpoints genetic defects for embryos undergoing in vitro fertilization.

The procedure, which removes one of eight cells from an embryo without doing it any damage, has had successful results for parents during the past 10 years. Scientists have taken the procedure and modified it only slightly to achieve enormous results.

After taking one of these cells, a scientist then can implant the embryo into the surrogate mother, and the embryo still will grow into a healthy child. With that one cell they've removed, a successful stem cell line can be created. So there isn't any damage to the embryo, which will continue to divide and grow into a healthy child, and scientists have their stem cells to tinker with.

It seems irrational to me, then, for the federal government to restrict this groundbreaking research. Prior discoveries concerning stem cells have proven that in the future it would be possible to take these stem cells and use them to grow healthy cells (and later organs) for people in need of a transplant.

I find the limits imposed on stem cell research both irrational and irresponsible. The public needs to accept that its influence is eventual and now is as appropriate as tomorrow.

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