Should fetal tissue be used to treat disease?
Fetal tissue has been used by scientists since the 1930s to treat disease by helping with vaccine development, stem cell research and to grow tissues to replace those damaged by disease. Generally, scientists receive fetal tissue from abortions, and they grow fetal cells in petri dishes. To create vaccines, they infect fetal cells to generate large amounts of the virus, which they then harvest and purify. Regulations have been in place since the 1990s, restricting fetal tissue research to only be used under certain circumstances. The decision to abort must already be made before doctors can ask about fetal tissue donation, the doctors performing the abortion cannot receive any profit or payment
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Women may be conceiving and aborting just to donate fetal tissue to grow tissues for a loved one, which is not illegal, only morally wrong. The biggest problem is that there is no real public policy on reproductive rights (mostly just recommendations by doctors, and moral speculation), so there is the possibility of degrading or abusing women as carriers for fetal tissue. In Canada, there is nothing close to a law, only a little policy statement released by the Panel of Research Ethics. There are multiple well documented cases where fetal tissue donation has gone wrong: the Planned Parenthood scandal, and when a Californian women wanted to be artificially inseminated with her father’s sperm, to abort and donate fetal brain tissue to help with her father’s brain cancer. The concept of making use of something that would otherwise be going to waste is appealing, but oftentimes, it is forgotten that fetuses are not just sources of tissue, but potential persons worthy of respect. Respect is lacking in the Planned Parenthood video, which shows a top-level abortion doctor executive talking about the sale and prices of certain body parts casually, even admitting to changing the abortion procedure if fetal tissue donation is taking place. If we, as a society, are to stay away from commercialization of the body, we must maintain a certain level of respect for the lives lost in abortions. Finally, it has also …show more content…
We should not use fetal tissue to treat disease simply because of the huge risk being taken. Abortions are already controversial enough, without adding the possibility of women conceiving and aborting just to donate fetal tissue. With medical science moving on at such a fast pace, fetal tissue research is already being taken over by less controversial methods, such as stem cell research. It is time to let this method go. The only way for fetal tissue research to continue without negative impacts is to have strong public policy, however it is still very hard to regulate and control the many decisions made by doctors and researchers alike. As the Panel of Research Ethics wrote, ethical deliberation and societal values are always evolving, so we need to be careful that they are not evolving into the lack of respect we often see regarding fetuses. As with the ‘baby m’ case and with surrogacy, selling babies, or baby parts (as with fetal tissue research), is potentially degrading to women. With the ‘baby m’ case, the woman had become a commodity, and in fetal tissue research, the fetus becomes the commodity in an illegal reproductive industry. In conclusion, I believe that fetal tissue should not be used to treat disease because of the potential lack of respect towards pregnant women and the aborted fetus, as well as the
Fetuses did not get to make the decision to participate in this medical research. Besides the moral aspect of using fetal cells for furthering medical science, I think without this discovery the world would be less likely to have the medicines that they do
Embryonic cells should be allowed to be used because of the medical benefits they provide. They can be used to cure diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, traumatic spinal cord injury, Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, heart disease, and even vision and hearing loss (nih.gov 2009). There is no problem using them for medical purposes and it is not immoral to use them for this reason. Embryonic cells have the potential to save lives. Therefore, the usage of embryonic cells outweighs the ethical issues.
Given the choice, would you trade one person for multiple persons, would you give one life to save many? Now imagine that the person is already dead, would you have any objection to using them to cure diseases and save lives. It is highly debated as to whether or not stem cell researchers should be able to use stem cells from aborted babies in the research. A stem cell is defined as an undifferentiated cell of a multicellular organism that is capable of giving rise to indefinitely more cells of the same type, and from which certain other kinds of cell arise by differentiation (Stem cell). In the research stem cells from aborted fetuses or left over fetuses fertilized in in-vitro fertilization are used for medical and research purposes (Stem cell research). Stem cell research could be used to cure many diseases.
There are people who disagree on the morality of using human embryonic cells, and stem cell research in general, nonetheless. Some stubborn pro-life organizations insist that the destruction of the “blastocyst, which is a laboratory-fertilized human egg” (White), is on the same level as murdering a human child and is entirely immoral and unacceptable. Even if these embryonic cells are being used to save lives and cure diseases, they believe it is wrong because the cells were taken at the cost of a
The embryonic stem cells can be a very good use in surgeries. Can even help cure cancer. But why embryos? Why not use adult stem cells. By permitting this research we don't only increase the number of dangerous procedures women go through. But we also make people think that abortion is a good and can help others. Not everyone agrees with the destruction of their embryos to do research. Some others simply just don't want to get their embryos experimented on. By this research abortion would most likely have to become legal. These treatments go against our lifes rights. The people in need of these treatments would most
¨We’ve been very good at getting heart, liver, lung because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part¨-Deborah Nucatola. Saling fetal tissue and fetal parts is wrong to the human race especially when directors sale these parts for studying, we are not test dummies to be tested on we are Human Beings.
Even on the patient consent form, patients at Planned Parenthood sign a form that says “I agree to give my blood and/or the tissue from the abortion as a gift to be used for education, research or treatment.” for scientic research on diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and AIDS. A professor of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s law, medicine and public health, explains that it makes sense that money is involved in the procurement of tissue and organs, even if that involves fetal specimen. The professor, R. Alta Charo says, “It’s been going on for 50 or 60 years; it’s ordinary practice,” she says. “There is good reason for it. We want to help the people who are living or may be living in the future.” But according to Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says the research has advanced vaccines, treatments for life-threatening diseases, and goes toward finding cures for specific maternal and infant health conditions. The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act even allows for “reasonable payments associated with transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal issue.” This law doesn’t define “reasonable payments”, so violations can be difficut to prove. Most Planned Parenthood facilities and any abortion provider don’t have control over how fetal tissue is ultimately used and many women (patients) are uninformed of the possibilities of how their “donation” is used in the consent forms. Research to develop skin cosmetics and anti-aging products has also benefitted from the collecting of fetal tissue (non-medical) and there isn’t a standing law that prevents
Across America, doctors in the field of abortion perform perfectly legal and constitutionally protected procedures everyday that result in the removal of unwanted fertilized embryos from a woman. For years these fetuses were terminated and discarded in a safe manner, with no further study or research done on the unborn child. Now, scientists have begun harvesting key cells from the fetuses before they are
But anti-abortion activists have also scored big when it comes to blocking new medical research that may lead to better contraceptives and earlier medical abortions; like RU 486, as well stem cell research for the treatments for numerous diseases. “Fetal tissue research, for instance, has led to advances in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, diabetes and leukemia. Despite the fact that organs from the corpses of murder victims can be donated, antiabortion activists believe tissue donation from aborted fetuses encourages abortion and should therefore be prohibited,” (Hontz,1998) .
One political issue addressed by legislation in the state of Florida is the use of fetal stem cells. According to chapter 390.0111- (6), fetus experimentation is prohibited. The legislation states “no person shall use any live fetus or live, premature infant for any type of scientific, research, laboratory, or other kind of experimentation.” There are several pros and cons to the use of embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be used to develop an entire organ for transplant use, thus extended quality of life for the recipient (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2015). The use of embryonic stem cells has also been proven beneficial for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus. In a clinical study, FSC, was shown to decrease fasting blood glucose, as well as reduce insulin resistance in patients ((Demchuk & Ivankova, 2016). The main con toward the use of embryonic stem cell research is through the way it is obtained. Fetal stem cells are accumulated from an early embryo in the inner cell mass, causing the embryo to be destroyed (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2015). Another controversy surrounding FSC is that
Each religious group and even within its denominations has variant views on fetal tissue transplantation and ultimately it would be impossible to meet the demands of every religious ideology in such a spiritually diverse region and therefore, policies should be as objective and mindful of the views of the majority while not entirely ignoring and or being ignorant to the ethical and moral beliefs of the minority. With this being said however, the most important aspect when considering policies of fetal tissue transplantation, although most religions represented in New York State do not desire to legitimize abortions, but that is not the issue at hand because currently abortion is legal in the state of New York. Instead when deliberating, policy makes should be conscious that the majority of religions support altruism and the act therefore the use of an abortus for medical and experimental purposes would most likely be supported because abortion is currently inevitable and the abortus has great potential in sustain life therefore most religious groups would likely be accepting to the fact if fetal tissue transplantation is allowed to persist in New York
That separates the decision to terminate a pregnancy from any research that it might later contribute to. So there’s no “maximiz[ing] the value of body parts,” as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie claimed, to “sell on the open market for profit.” (On Abortion: A Lincoln Position). A number of Republican candidates in the debates, from businessman Donald Trump to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, suggested that what’s wrong with fetal tissue research is that it expresses disrespect for human life. “I believe that we should have a culture of life,” as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush put it, reminding voters that “we ended partial birth abortion” and “were the first state to do a ‘choose life’ license plate.” The Supreme Court has indeed held that government can regulate in ways designed to promote respect for the unborn, even if doing so saves none. It’s easy to understand how it expresses respect for human life, for example, to restrict the use of fetal tissue for trivial purposes like producing cosmetics, or even insufficiently worthy reasons like teaching high school biology. (Stem Cell Research: Medical Miracle or Moral
The Pro-Life act of 2015 and 2016 is a proposed policy in the United States that is currently a bill which stands for the act of being against all methods of child abortion. This bill gives the Public Health Service Act the power to prohibit fetal tissue to be exchanged for scientific research, or payments that may include the surgical implanting, transporting, or storing fetal tissue (). Even though the fetal tissues that are used to help cure diseases, it is still using the tissues of what could have been a living offspring. As you are curing a life you are taking life away from another living being. This bill has been recently issued this year, because abortion is now becoming more common trend in the United States of America.() It is at the moment under the debate between the Democrats who believe in the Pro Choice Movement and the Republicans side with Pro Life. The bill has not been passed yet, but later on in 2016 we should see if it gets passed by the senate or not.
Embryonic stem cell research is a highly controversial topic in today's society, this kind of stem cell commits to regenerate any type of tissue. Unfortunately, Embryonic Stem Cell Research has a dark side. To obtain these cells will kill the embryo automatically. In other words, the acquirement of the Human Embryonic Stem Cell includes performing an abortion. To obtain these cells, it would kill the embryo. This has created controversy since abortion is such a divisive topic. Politicians are uneasy to take sides. The Human Embryonic Stem Cell issue is today's Pandora's Box due to all the unwittingly chaos that it can bring to our lives. By having this new option available in the medical world,
Most people are against Embryonic Stem Cell research mainly because they consider it unethical to use aborted fetuses for research. The two main issues concerning the research are the ethics (Cons) and the benefits (Pros). In any scientific case, ethics must always be considered. But the use of fetuses is something that is of the utmost importance. The costs are generally measured based off of people’s feelings, morals, and knowledge about the subject up for debate. The use of aborted fetuses for stem cell research may have many positive outcomes that can come of it, but many negative outcomes as well; If using aborted fetuses for research can, in the near future, save lives, then it is a research that should be supported, even though some