For some the issue then arises when the pluripotent cells are removed from the blastocyst, as this very act negates the ability for the cell group to develop into a human being. "Note that the process of changing from totipotent to pluripotent to multipotent cells is not reversible -- that is, pluripotent stem cells do not produce totipotent stem cells, and multipotent stem cells do not produce pluripotent stem cells."
Borror, O'Rourke and Skirboll 54) Additionally, the proponents of stem cell work cite the pluripotent as incapable of producing a human being therefore not a destruction of life, hence leading to the Bush decision to ban the creation of new lines of stem cells, as it would require the destruction of further human totipotent cells.
Multipotent. The pluripotent stem cells undergo further specialization into multipotent stem cells, which are committed to giving rise to cells that have a particular function. Examples of this include blood stem cells that give rise to red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets; and skin stem cells that give rise to the various types of skin cells...While stem cells are extraordinarily important in early human development, multipotent stem cells are also found in children and adults. For example, consider one of the best understood stem cells, the blood stem cell. Blood stem cells reside in the bone marrow of every child and adult, and in fact, they can be found in very small numbers circulating in the blood stream. Blood stem cells perform the critical role of continually replenishing our supply of blood cells -- red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets -- throughout life. A person cannot survive without blood stem cells.
It is for this reason and others that many pro-life advocates prefer to see funding for stem cell research to move toward the use of stem cells present in the adult human rather than that of an undeveloped embryo. Many legislators, briefed in the intricacies of the basic stem cell concepts and abiding by a moralistic foundation similar to George W. Bush have opted to limit the use of the more readily available and historical sources for stem cells. The conservative then prefer to seek out legislative results that limit the use of embryonic stem cells and in their thinking force the scientific community to redirect their investigations toward the scientifically less promising and more challenging, in many ways adult stem cell research. One promising development in the issue of stem cell research is the limitation of recipient rejection in umbilical cord source blood for bone marrow transplantation, though limited offers promising solutions if the ownership of such sources can be more readily defined.
Bourque and Sugarman 65) Proponents of stem cell research on the other hand demonstrate considerable concern about the limitation of resources as the adult stem cell is already specialized and only a few specialized groups are identified and accessible.
Stem Cell Biology a Political Issue
One would believe that with the discovery of such a potentially promising line of treatment the developed and developing world would embrace the new science and begin to test and even implement its use. To some degree this has been the case, yet despite the promise of stem cell biology and the long list of potential disease cures the bioethics of stem cell biology have left much of the research and mostly its potential growth in a quagmire of political and religious debate. It seems that at the same rate that new possibilities are perceived by the scientist and clinicians in research theory and practice the number of groups and individuals raising questions about the ethics and morality of the line of research and creating statements and standards that are designed to hopefully sway the decisions of government on the issue of stem cell research.
Nelson 49) number of authoritative groups, hoping to guide both publicly and privately funded research on human embryonic stem cells, issued reports on the ethical problems involved. These bodies include the Ethics Advisory Board constituted by Geron Corporation; the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in concert with the Institute for Civil Society [1] the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity [2] and, most recently, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, which was established by executive order of the president in 1995 to provide recommendations concerning governmental policies or activities as they involve ethical issues emerging from biological research and its clinical applications. [3]
Of these four bodies, only the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, a Christian educational foundation, has been implacable in its opposition to all research involving the destruction of embryos, no matter how it is funded. The other committees have given a more or less cautious green light to stemcell research.
Nelson 49)
The President's Council on Bioethics, is a brain trust...
Jci.org/cgi/content/full/116/5/1167. In 2006, an estimated 9,710 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States, and an estimated 3,700 women will die from this disease. Globally, cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in women, with an estimated 510,000 newly diagnosed cervical cancer cases and 288,000 deaths." Saslow et.al, 2007, at http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/57/1/7?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&title=American+Cancer+Society+Guideline+for+Human+Papillomavirus&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT HPV is arguably the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States,
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