Justagirl, youare quite right about that. Even when that option is made available to anyone, it is the person who has the right what treatment option he opts in. I believe that in the long run, with stem cell research, insulin insufficiency in diabetics will be corrected.

Embryos are not human persons and so I don't see anything wrong in this research.

An ova, spermatozoon, pre-embryo, embryo and fetus are all forms of human life. They are clearly alive and contain human DNA. But they are not human persons.

Also, if I am 65 and suffering from a disease that is curable, I will surely get it treated. 65 is not enough.

This is the type of argument that contradicts the other side--those who believe that embryos have life and as such cannot be experimented on. They have a right to live, even if they are not yet human persons. It is the same argument with abortion. Anyway, stem cells are not only harvested in embryos, so maybe other sources can be tapped out. It is such a dilemma, really.

"Meant to die" is void for vagueness.

Perhaps you believe in kismet or predestination, but that's not much of a way to run medical research.

This is what SPY magazine used to call painless Middle class concern. Of course you would want people to pursue whatever helps them unlock the ills that affect us. Ask someone who has lost a family member 20 years ahead of schedule and ask if they'd want grandma around to see the baby or the kids graduate.

OF COURSE

So the other side of the coin for the right to live argument is that, have the sick people the same rights as a fetus?

Or are we talking about 'natural, untampered' life?
i.e. the fetus has the right to be born and take it's chances without intervention and the sick have the same?

The thing is that stem cells don;t come from fetuses but very early embryos. So not from abortion at all. Typically they are from people having fertility treatment where they take out many eggs, fertilise many, select some and reimplant them. the rest are stored and eventually destroyed.

To my mind--even if you consider creating and killing these embryos to be bad, getting extra benefit from their "life" is better than simply throwing them away.

I agree Ratitude.

How bad is it to let people die if they can be saved.
I know quite a few people objected to transplants when they first came out, but you don't hear much about it these days.

problem is that it usually goes to the rich folks, as all medical new tricks do... not the ones that necessarilyneed it!

I agree with Thumperfive. Even if this research is successful, only the rich will be benefited.