The Future and Ethics of Stem Cell Research

It is clear that the future of medicine lies in stem cell research, offering treatment possibilities for an enormously wide range of diseases using the body’s own healing mechanisms. However, stem cell research faces many ethical implications, posing a dilemma between morality and furthering scientific innovation.

What are Stem Cells

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the potential to become many types of specialised cells. The ethical problems lie in collecting the totipotent embryonic stem cells, as it is seen that a potential or current life (depending on your viewpoint) has been ended for the scientific community.

Stem cells have been linked to the cure for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and type 1 diabetes plus all tissue damage-related injuries can be eliminated. They are also useful in the creation of ‘knockout mice’ that can assess the function of a gene.

Ethical Concerns

Ethical concerns are raised with the use of embryonic stem cells as the creator of the first embryonic stem cells, James Thompson says “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough”.

Various arguments are suggested as to what makes a human life significant such as potential of life, viability, consciousness and sentience. This introduces controversy into the argument, as there is no correct answer to these questions. Is there a defined age when consciousness emerges? For instance, the earliest memory of my friend is folding origami in a dress aged 4, so can we be sure he had consciousness before then if he has no memory of it? However, if it was suggested that it is ok to kill a 3-year-old, the person who suggested it would be jailed, so is consciousness a spectrum?

Many say that it is ethically right to use spare embryos that are spare after fertilisation procedures, however, this leads to issues raised with the case of Julius Hallervorden. Hallervorden was a Nazi scientist that made discoveries that furthered our understanding of cerebral palsy and many types of brain cancer, however, he used the brains of already dead eugenics victims (that would have gone to waste else wise). Was he wrong to take this opportunity to research the brain? Or was he morally obligated to not let those samples go to waste to save more lives in the future?

These questions can be answered in the various schools of thought that are found in ethics. Aristotle’s ethics as virtue claims that morality is based on purpose i.e. a good soldier is one that performs their duties well. This would make Hallervorden a ‘good scientist’ and make his actions morally right. On the other hand, Kantian deontology is more critical of his actions as he ignored his duty as a physician to preserve human life and instead used them as tools for research.

Conclusion

The ethical question of the use of stem cells is a deep well of ethical mess with no correct answer. As we move into the future, research will be directed towards induced pluripotent cells, however, the questions over embryonic stem cells won’t go away as they will pose a huge role in comparing against the induced pluripotent cells to test their efficacy. It should also be noted that that technology is not developed yet, so we have no promise that these cells will be as effective as the embryonic versions. To conclude, embryonic stem cells are an incredible tool, but as is the nature of great tools, the more good it brings, the more evil it can bring.