My concerns with stem cell research and its advantages and pitfalls.
The classified section in baby magazines I have read show advertisements for collecting your baby's stem cells to protect them from cancer later in life. Just a small sample from your baby's umbilical cord could be the answer in years to come if she ever gets a life threatening disease. It's all the rage and today's parents are paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege.
I'm not entirely against the idea. If there was a stem cell that could regenerate my daughter's myelin and stop her HMSN, then great. If there was a cell that would stop cancer without the use of chemotherapy, wonderful.
But I still feel that doctors are pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable and I cannot see how fertilizing a bovine egg with a human man's sperm is advancing science or humanity. The cross human and animal embryo would be different from a regular human when it comes to studying stem cells and diseases. Is it merely morbid curiousity on the part of researchers that propells them to do something like this? Let's face it, a half human, half cow is a crime against nature, even if it is destroyed at two weeks old.
Stem cells can be studied in completely human embryos (although pro life organisations are opposed to that, and they may have a point) so one would wonder why the need to use animal eggs? There are women who are prepared to donate their own eggs for research, and I did so in the past.
I think that scientists are simply doing this because they can, that authorities can interpret the law - which clearly prohibits this - to suit their own purposes.
Just because someone can do something, doesn't give them the right to and just because something is possible, doesn't mean it is desirable.
