Example research essay topic: Bioethics Advisory Commission Stem Cell Research - 1,850 words

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Stem Cell Therapy Recent progress in stem cell research heated the debates on the issue of the status and dignity of the human embryo. The advances of stem cell therapy prompted a decision by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to fund stem cell research which, according to the statement of Harold Varmus, depends on the destruction of human embryos. These advances of stem cell research and therapy and their support by institutions and governmental organizations are controversial and at some points contradict ethics and bioethics [ 1 ]. Consequently, these developments [stem cell research] require that the legal, ethical, and scientific issues associated with this research be critically addressed and articulated. So, in my essay I will discuss the issue of stem cell research and therapy and prove that it has at least three aspects that are contrary to ethical codes. In this way, my arguments will be: 1) killing human embryos is unethical; 2) the usage of human being as a means to end contradicts ethics as well; and 3) experiment procedures for non-therapeutic purposes on a healthy embryo is not ethical.

First, the manipulation to obtain stem cells lies in removing the Inner Cell Mass from embryos and this process results in their death. This procedure is unethical because it destroys life of a human being. The act of killing a human being was prohibited by the ethical codes of the New Testament. Christian doctrines regard human life as sacrosanct and say, that since all humans are made in the image of God and given immortal souls, only God decides whether a man should live or die.

However, the opponents say that an embryo when it is in its early stage of development (4 days 14 weeks) is not a human yet and does not possess a soul. This contra argument was nevertheless supported by some clergymen and specialists in ethics. To respond this argument, in 1995 the Ramsey Colloquium [ 3 ] stated on embryo research the following: The [embryo] is human; it will not articulate itself into some other kind of animal. Any being that is human is a human being. If it is objected that, at five days or fifteen days, the embryo does not look like a human being, it must be pointed out that this is precisely what a human being looks liked what each of us looked like five or fifteen days of development. Also, it is important to know that, according to the American Bioethics Advisory Commission, at the moment of conception, a unique genetic and personal constitution is spelled out for the specific human being created, whose personal constitution has not occurred before and will never occur again.

The experts of this commission added that the zygote is the most specialized cell under the sun in that no other cell will ever have the same instructions in the life of the individual being created. The information in the zygote is unique and it is not repeated in other cells. Additionally, Bruce M. Carlson pointed out in his book Human Embryology and Developmental Biology, that human embryos can not be viewed as mere clusters of cells or tissues; they are the tiniest of us, the human beings. So, every human embryo is unique and has the characteristics that will never be created again, plus it is immoral to regard an embryo only as a cluster of tissue. However, the advocates of stem cell research say, that the embryos until they are fourteen weeks old can not be referred as such, because they have not yet developed all the organs.

In 1970 and 1980 the group of embryologists referred to one-week old human embryo as a pre-embryo, and claimed that it deserved less respect. At this point, it is important to note, that still the term pre-embryo is described by many embryology textbooks as scientifically invalid and inaccurate. And consequently, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and the Human Embryo Research Panel rejected this term, saying that the human embryo even in its earliest period of development is a living organism, and it is a developing form of human life. Second, the manipulations to obtain stem cells in which a human being is used as a means are not ethical.

Arguing at this point, experts from American Bioethics Advisory Commission reminded that every human being -- - including human embryos -- -must be respected for himself and cannot be reduced in worth to a pure and simple instrument for the advantage of others. Even the mere fact that some individuals can be destroyed in the name of science is threatening to us all. In addition, it is important to mention the fact that the last two centuries were marked by many atrocities against human beings in the name of scientific progress. For instance, in the 19 th century human beings were sold and bought as slaves and bred as animals. Also, vulnerable human beings were executed and subjected to disgracing experimentation at Auschwitz and Dachau.

Later, not knowing this, the vulnerable human beings became the subjects to radiation experimentation conducted by the government. Likewise, African-American inhabitants in Tuskegee, Alabama became the victims of research project aimed to study the effects of syphilis. This project was also permitted and sponsored by the government. At present, we are witness to the abuse of mental patients who are used as subjects in experimental research. On the whole, these experiments [listed above] were and are driven by a crass utilitarian ethos which results in the creation of a sub-class of human beings, allowing the rights of the few to be sacrificed for the sake of potential benefit to the many.

Thus, the aspect of usage of human beings as a means in scientific research testifies the fact, that these humans being used are not respected and treated as inferior creatures, and that their human rights are absolutely denied. So, I may conclude that this aspect contradicts the ethical code that states the equality of all people and the Christian doctrine teaching that all people are the children of God. Third, even if death does not occur the act of the removal of a cell from a healthy embryo is unethical because it will never be moral and ethical to perform any experiment procedures on a human being which are not therapeutic. This argument is supported by the Nuremberg Code of Research Ethics [ 2 ] Section 5 that states, No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason [i.

e. , prospective reason] to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects. " I think that it also becomes the matter of the professional ethics of those physicians who agree to perform such experiments. I believe that having decided to make a non-therapeutic intrusion into an embryo, a physician breaks the oath of Hippocrates [ 4 ]. However, in response, the proponents of stem cell research claim, that stem cell experiments must be conducted in the name of saving many sick people. But this argument is close to how German researchers defended themselves at the Nuremberg war crime trials. In particular, German researchers grounded their experiments in the following way: a great need to save the lives of sailors and soldiers; the subjects of their experiments were already targeted to die; we should not let this valuable commodity, this chance to learn in ways we otherwise could not, be wasted. As it may be seen, the history proves that the cases of non-therapeutic intrusion, even for the purposes of medical progress, are inhuman and will be condemned by the descendants.

Also, this is the striking evidence how scientific experimentation may be close to mere killing. The borders between them are frangible and marked only with the personal goals and outlook (beliefs and ethics) of people who agree to take part in the experiments. Additionally, as American Bioethics Advisory Commission put it, no parent can legitimately grant moral consent for experimental procedures to be performed upon their child which are non-therapeutic at any stage of human development. The research experiments, their happy or unhappy outcomes become the matters of social ethics.

In other words, human embryo experiments may be hoped, approved, criticized or blamed for by the families whose children were the subjects or the objects, and who were saved or killed due to them. How can be regarded a woman, who will agree to kill her child for the sake of medical science? A saint, or a murderess? What codes may justify a family, who will agree to victimize their child? Or, will it be ethical not to reveal the medical purpose of death of their child? In conclusion I would like to say that research on human embryonic stem cells is really objectionable because primarily it necessitates the destruction of human embryos.

This will never be accepted by ethics. I have presented the arguments and proved that at least three aspects of the issue of stem cells research are contradicting social, Christian ethics and bioethics. I do believe that modern medical researchers will shift their attention and focus it on the other, alternative methods of regenerating and repairing human tissue. I do hope that the matters of unethical conduct of our researchers will not be raised any more. End Notes: [ 1 ] Bioethics the area of applied ethics that deals with the ethical issues in medicine and the biological sciences. [ 2 ] The Nuremberg Code of Research Ethics this code was created after the Nuremberg trials and aims at preventing the research community to repeat the mistakes in Germany. [ 3 ] The Ramsey Colloquium is a group of Jewish and Christian theologians, philosophers, and scholars that meets periodically to consider questions of ethics, religion, and public life.

It is named after Paul Ramsey (1913 - 1988), the distinguished ethicist. [ 4 ] The oath of Hippocrates - "As to diseases, make a habit of two things to help, or at least do no harm. " From Hippocrates, The Epidemics. Bibliography: American Bioethics Advisory Commission (2000): Mission, A division of American Life League, Inc. I, (2), Retrieved 6 April, 2005 from web Bruce M. Carlson, " Introduction to the Developing Human", Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (St. Louis: Mosby), 1994.

Clifford Grobstein, "External human fertilization, " Scientific American 240: 57 - 67, 1979; Clifford Grobstein, Science and the Unborn: Choosing Human Futures (New York: Basic Books), 1988. National Bioethics Advisory Commission, Cloning Human Beings (Rockville, MD), June 1997. On Human Embryos and Stem Cell Research. The Founding Statement of Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics. July 1, 1999. Retrieved 6 April, 2005 from web Standards for life: Stem Cell Research, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations Retrieved 6 April, 2005 from web Statement of Harold Varmus, M.

D. , Director of the National Institutes of Health Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, January 26, 1999.

Research essay sample on Bioethics Advisory Commission Stem Cell Research