Stem Cell Research

The Need for Stem Cell research

There are few issues in modern medicine as controversial in the United States as stem cell research. This is due almost exclusively to he fact that much of human embryonic stem cell research -- which has been the most promising and for a long time the only real way to study human stem cells -- is tied to a different highly sensitive and controversial medical, moral, and political issue. For most of the George W. Bush's two terms as President, federal funding was only available for certain already-established lines of human embryonic stem cells because deriving any new lines would have required the destruction of an embryo. Human research embryos are retrieved with consent from abortions, and though these abortion were legal the Bush administration was against them, and refused to allow science access to the embryos.

This might not be such a huge problem if the promise of stem cells was not so great. It has been theorized -- and proven in other creatures -- that stem cells could one day be used to regenerate or simply grow healthy nervous tissue, a heretofore unimaginable feat. The host of diseases, disorders, and injuries that this could treat and possibly eradicate would be a great boon to humanity. And this is only one application out of the many different uses currently being researched and hypothesized by those working in the stem cell field. Because the promise of stem cells is so great, it is imperative that federal funding be made available to quicken the pace of research, and to establish more effective ways of using stem cells and directing further research.

Governments are established to protect the people that they govern, otherwise the government would perish. Our government needs to do what it can to end the suffering of many with incurable diseases by increasing funding for stem cell research.