Should stem cell research be banned?

No.

No need to worry though, it's only fundamentalist idiots who say otherwise - and they're not taken seriously.

You mean like George Bush

You mean like George Bush

Bush never banned embryonic stem cells, he limited funding for them rejected bills to increase the funding and the number of them available ;p

Perhaps. I'll remind you of this thread in 10 years then

Also, religion is not necessarily against embryo/stem cell research. The Islamic perspective is that if it leads to medical advances, cures, innovation in agriculture etc... then it's seen as a good thing. Though if it is used in the army, to make superior soldiers etc.. it would be frowned upon for those purposes. Of course, there's nothing wrong in healing soldiers, but if countries make super army's it becomes a problem

Embryonic stem cell research needs to be banned for the sake of consistency-unless you are a utilitarian. The only argument for it was the 'enormous potential of embryonic stem cells to cure diseases and these pros outweighing the con of 'killing' (yeah, I said it) the embryo. This argument has been made impotent by the production of induced pluripotent stem cells through de-differentiation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell.

I have not voted on the poll

Also, religion is not necessarily against embryo/stem cell research. The Islamic perspective is that if it leads to medical advances, cures, innovation in agriculture etc... then it's seen as a good thing. Though if it is used in the army, to make superior soldiers etc.. it would be frowned upon for those purposes. Of course, there's nothing wrong in healing soldiers, but if countries make super army's it becomes a problem

Erm. Seriously, just stop talking unless you do a ton of research. There are several different types of stem cells, the main two being adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells come from organs, while embryonic stem cells (usually) come from embryos which are donated from IVF clinics who no longer require the embryo.

That is the major difference, the major moral difference is here. By extracting embryonic stems cells from an embryo, the embryo is destroyed. Adult stem cells have been used for years and there is no moral issue. The only issue is with embryonic stem cells: opponents of argue that all embryos can become a human, ergo it's morally wrong to experiment on them.

Adult stem cells have cured quite a few problems with people over years of research. Embryonic stem cells have not been fully tested on humans because there is concern about the cells causing cancer and other diseases to the host. The Californian research company, Geron Corporation, is the first to do a clinical test on humans (spinal cord injury patients) after a relatively successful test on rats and approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Why don't we just use adult stems cells (because embryos aren't destroyed and everyone is happy)? Well, they are multipotent - they can only change into a limited number of cells. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent - they have the potential to become an unlimited number of cells.

I suggest you research embryonic stem cells, the embryo that it comes from, what happens and what would have happened to that embryo had it not been used for research.

Can you source that this is indeed the Islamic perspective?

http://www.pfaith.org/islam.htm

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503545118

Also, my RE lessons at GCSE, but I can't find the textbooks

the remaining embryos would have either been frozen indefinitely or destroyed. If these embryos were treated as full human, it would have been forbidden to produce them in excess and to destroy them later. No one treats them as humans. Destroying such embryos is not called and cannot be called abortion. We disagree with the Catholic position that this is “equivalent to infanticide”.

Our answer is that the embryo in this stage is not human. It is not in its natural environment, the womb. If it is not placed in the womb it will not survive and it will not become a human being.