Stem Cell Research & the Effect on Voting and Political Decisions

Stem cell research continues to be controversial topic among all aspects of the population. From scientists to politicians, the debate rages on with full force. For many, there is an obvious understanding of the long term biomedical benefits to stem cell research but at issue is the ethical debate.

Since much of middle America does not fully understand the issues at debate involving stem cell research, it is important, especially with the up and coming elections, to become familiar with the issue of concern. Adult stem cells are the cells that may provide the ability for those with disease or injury to repair or regenerate damage tissue through use of healthy tissue.

At issue is the origin of stem cells, while cells can be obtained from adult healthy tissue and umbilical cord tissue, the issue of debate involves the use of embryos as a method by which to obtain stem cells. While we use the term "adult" to describe stem cells, these cell samples can be obtained from placenta, umbilical cord and even aborted or still born fetuses.

The issue of concern involves the ethical use of pregnancy tissue, fetal tissue and embryo tissue to create stem cells for use in curing disease. Going one step further, there is added concern over the success of stem cells, in curing disease, unless taken from specific areas of the body. For example, in most research it has been found that stem cells most effective in biomedical research would come from the epidermal layer of skin, the germ cells, the gastrointestinal tract and the blood cells.

Biomedical research, however, desires approval for government funding into the continued research of stem cell use in other human tissue samples. The concern, from a political and ethical standpoint, is the tendency to use human lives as studies for which the life may be affected, even resulting in death, or using humans to acquire tissue samples that, ultimately, prove ineffective in stem cell research and disease resolution.