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Van Minh Nguyen

Ms. Kennedy-Kokidko, Spring 2015
COM 1101 07, 11AM
May 1st 2015
Embryonic Stem Cells Research and Ethical Issues
Embryonic stem cell research offers hope for new treatments for many diseases
such as spinal cord injury, Parkinson and many more diseases treatment. However, this
research has been hotly debated since it poses a moral dilemma when it forces us to choose
between the value of human life and prevention of suffering: To make use of embryonic
stem cell, the embryo must be destroyed (from ethical view, this means destroy a potential
human being); however, the stem cells obtained can lead to endless potential of therapies
that would alleviate the suffering of many people. With the benefits that embryonic stem
cell research brings and the potentiality status of human embryos, embryonic stem cell
research should not be viewed as an ethical issue and the embryo should not be given any
moral status.
Embryonic stem cell is the word combines of embryonic and stem cell. Stem
cells are undifferentiated cells that have the ability to differentiate into specialized cells to
construct the body organs and the ability to self-divide to produce more stem cells. Stem
cells are found in most multicellular organisms. There are two types of stem cell:
embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells, can be found in every
developed tissue, are semi-differentiated stem cells, which means the stem cells can only be

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used as a repair and replace system to the tissue or organ that those stem cells located. On
the other hand, embryonic stem cells, which are pluripotent cells derived from the embryo,
have the ability to differentiate into any cell types and to proliferate. Hence, embryonic
stem cell can be used to test new medications, to convert to cancer cell line for antitumor/anti-cancer drugs test, or to create transplantable tissues and organs for the
treatments of many disease that needs transplanted tissues/organs: spinal cord injury, burn,
heart diseases, diabetes, Parkinson, and other diseases that need tissues or organs
replacement.
Embryonic stem cell research offers scientists and doctors new hopes for various
treatments for many diseases that takes a lot of efforts and money to cure or incurable
diseases. In a recent research in 2014, Armijo, Soto, and Davis found that by being
differentiated in many different ways, artificial-specialized human embryonic stem cells
can effectively support the immune system in detecting, targeting HIV and offers a way to
create anti-HIV stem cells lines (1). This study gave scientists a great hope in using stem
cell therapies to treat HIV-infected patient by replacing normal TD4 cells (one of the
functional cells of the immune system that HIV attacks on) with anti-HIV TD4 cells
created by differentiating genetically modified embryonic stem cells to anti-HIV TD4 stem
cells and implant the cell lines into the patients body. Embryonic stem cells is now being
one of the highest success potential therapies that scientist and doctors focus on.
In addition, one of other recent success of stem cell therapies has been shown in the
study about neural stem cells in Parkinson's disease and in the study about embryonic stem

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cells differentiation to nerve cells: scientists now can confirm that embryonic stem cells can
be used to reverse Parkinsons damage to the nervous system (Le Grand et. al., Neural
stem cells in Parkinson's disease; Hu et. al., PDGF-AA Mediates). Before the use
of stem cells for Parkinson therapy was found, the treatments for Parkinson were only
medication and physical/occupation therapies. Physical therapy is a must-have therapy in
Parkinsons treatment since the therapy can help patients improve their own life quality and
improve patients abilities to relieve pain; nevertheless, the physical therapy itself cannot
cure Parkinson disease since it cannot reverse neurological damage. On the other hand,
medication therapy, beside its limit in Parkinson treatment (only cure Parkinsons
symptoms and cannot reverse brain and neurons damage), has many other limits. One of the
limitation of medication therapy is that most of the medicines used in Parkinsons treatment
have many common side effects such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and many
other side effects which causes discomfort to patients (Parkinson's UK , Side Effects of
Parkinson's Drugs). In addition, each type of Parkinsons medicines can only treat some
Parkinson symptoms but not all of patients symptoms; hence, Parkinsons patients have to
use various medicines to cure all symptoms. Because of multiple medicines usage, the
patients have to suffer with multiple side effects in order to alleviate their own Parkinsons
suffering. On the contrary, the stem cells therapy can cure Parkinsons disease directly. The
therapy not only cures all symptoms, but also reverse neurological damage (which both
Physical and Medication therapies cannot do). In conclusion, the research of stem cells as a
therapy for Parkinsons disease treatment has high potential to be successful and the
research should not be interrupted by any non-scientific reason.

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One of the most acknowledged success in embryonic stem cell research is scientists
of RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (Japan) had achieved the first organ that had
been generated by the use of embryonic stem cell. In the research report, the researchers
claimed the success in creating mouses adenohypophysis (pituitary gland) a relatively
small organ in the brains base that produces crucial hormones and is a fundamental organ
of the endocrine system - from scratch by extracting mices embryonic stem cells:
Although the adenohypophysis is relatively small in size, it is an independent
endocrine organ with indispensable systemic functions. Using a synthetic approach
at the multi-cellular level, we demonstrated that a functional organ bud, the
development of which requires intricate tissue interactions, can be reproducibly
generated by self-formation when the spatial arrangement of a few interacting
tissues is reconstituted in three-dimensional culture. In terms of mechanistic
complexity, this idea represents a further conceptual advance beyond our recent
report of optic-cup self-organization, which sufficiently occurs within retinal
epithelium alone. (Suga et. al. 5)
The adenohypophysis regulates most of the important functions of the body:
growth, reproduction, psychology status (mainly stresses), and lactation (secretion of milk
in female). It is especially important in the early development of the species individual.
Any kinds of dysfunction or malfunction of pituitary gland leads to growth disorders (such
as gigantism or Cushings disease), early diabetes, hypothyroidism (underactive thyroids,
leads to retardation and developmental delay in child), hypogonadism (underactive/low
level sex hormones, leads to failure in the development of reproductive organ like testes in
male and ovaries in female), and many more growth and reproduction related syndromes.
The achievement of the researchers groups could help other researchers better understand
the development of pituitary glands and how it works. Moreover, this success creates a
potential of making human pituitary glands from human embryonic stem cells, which will

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definitely be a revolution in treating hormones-related disorders. In a broader view, this

research success can be viewed as an initial step of generating transplantable organs to cure
many organ dysfunction patients and ease many pains.
However, despite of the enormous advantages and pluripotency of embryonic stem
cells, their use in research still intensely debated because the use of embryonic stem cells
poses some moral dilemmas: to make use of embryonic stem cell, the embryo must be
destroyed, which means, from ethical view, destroy a potential human being (George 1).
One of the most popular ethic views of the embryo is that, at the moment of fertilization,
the fertilized egg is seen as a potential human being and recognized as a human being since
the fertilized egg has full potential to develop into a complete human being. However, even
this is the most popular argument to protect the embryos humans right, it is also the
weakest argument.
At first, the early embryos potential to develop into human is low. After
fertilization, the fertilized egg will become an embryo and starts its early development and
get halted right before it turns to blastocyst (where cell cleavages happens and the embryo
start to develop into a human baby); the development only continues as the early embryo
gets implanted into the uterus. However, in some studies about embryo development,
Simpson (1993), Moore and Persaud (1993) showed that in natural reproduction, only
about half of all fertilized eggs develop into blastocyst that can implant in the uterus (qtd. in
David 120). In short, only half of fertilized eggs have potential to become human, and the
fertilized eggs itself cannot be recognized as a human being.

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Secondly, an early embryo that has not been implanted into the uterus does not have
any psychological or physical properties that can be recognized as a human being. We
cannot see the embryo with our own eyes. The embryo itself cannot talk, it does not have
feeling, and it even does not have its self-awareness. Science defines self-awareness is the
specific and unique traits that distinguished human from other animals (Tanabe, par. 4).
Although some may claim that an infant child also cannot be considered as a human based
on the definition of human above (which is both morally and scientifically wrong), human
infant is still considered as an individual human since the child has the ability to learn and
develop self-awareness during young ages (Rochat 718). Definitely, the embryo does not
have such ability or trait, so in conclusion, the embryo cannot be considered as human or
has human potentiality.
Last but not least, for Artificial Fertilization, such as IVF (in-vitro fertilization),
although this method offers 100% chances that the embryo will get implanted into the
uterus, not every embryos created through IVF can be implanted (in IVF, multiple eggs are
fertilized and all of them are allowed to develop to embryos). In order to offer parents the
best and safest pregnancy period, doctor has to do Blastocysts Selection to choose the best
embryo that has the best implantation chance and does not have multiple pregnancy risks.
The rest the remaining frozen embryos have no more potential and would be discarded after
5 years. So at this point, the unchosen embryos have no potential to be human at all.
Moreover, the chosen embryo still lack of potential to be human, due to parental decision to
initiate a pregnancy. If parents decide not to initiate a pregnancy, that embryo will be
discarded just like other unchosen embryos (Bunting and Madeline 2). Afterward, non-

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uterus-implanted embryo does not have full human potential, and therefore cannot be
recognized as a human being, and because of this, the use of embryo in embryonic stem cell
research does not mean or equal to destroy a human being.
To sum up, with the potential, development, and achievement of embryonic stem
cell research, the research should be allowed to continue, develop, and should not be
interrupted at any cost. In addition, with the low potential to become human of the embryo,
the embryo itself should not be given any moral status and embryonic stem cell research
should not be viewed as an ethical issue.

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Work Cited
George, Robert P. "Stem-Cell Research: A Debate --- Don't Destroy Human Life." Wall
Street Journal Jul 30 2001, Eastern edition ed. ProQuest. 1 May 2015 .
Armijo, Enrique, Claudio Soto, and Brian R. Davis. "HIV/AIDS: Modified Stem Cells in
the Spotlight." Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 71.14 (2014): 26419. ProQuest. 1 May 2015 .
Bunting, Madeleine. "Mothers of Contention the DPP has Ordered Thousands of Frozen
Human Embryos to be Destroyed, but how do the Women Who have Produced these
Potential Children Feel? Madeleine Bunting Talks to Couples Who have Undergone
IVF Treatment." The Guardian (pre-1997 Fulltext) Jul 24 1996 ProQuest. 1 May
2015 .
George, Robert P. "Stem-Cell Research: A Debate --- Don't Destroy Human Life." Wall
Street Journal Jul 30 2001, Eastern edition ed. ProQuest. 1 May 2015 .
Le Grand, Jaclyn Nicole, et al. "Neural Stem Cells in Parkinson's Disease: A Role for
Neurogenesis Defects in Onset and Progression." Cellular and Molecular Life
Sciences 72.4 (2015): 773-97. ProQuest. 1 May 2015 .
Rochat, Philippe. "Five Levels of Self-Awareness as they Unfold Early in
Life." Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal 12.4 (2003): 71731. ProQuest. 1 May 2015 .

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Shaffer, David R. "Prenatal Development and Birth." Developmental Psychology:

Childhood and Adolescence. Pacific Grove (California): Brooks & Cole, 1993. N.
pag. Print.
"Side Effects of Parkinson's Drugs." Parkinson's UK -. Parkinson's Disease Society of the
United Kingdom, n.d. Web. 01 May 2015.
Suga, Hidetaka, et al. "Self-Formation of Functional Adenohypophysis in ThreeDimensional Culture." Nature 480.7375 (2011): 57-62. ProQuest. 1 May 2015 .
Tanabe, Jennifer P. "What Makes Us Human? - Contemplating Unification Thought Jennifer Tanabe." What Makes Us Human? - Contemplating Unification Thought Jennifer Tanabe. Unification Library, n.d. Web. 01 May 2015.