Cultural Consideration

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Cultural Considerations Stem cell research is a highly debated topic. It is most highly debated within the religious community. When stem cell research first came to light, the only way to obtain these stem cells was to take them from an embryo. This caused quite a stir, as there are many people in the religious community that felt this was like taking a human life. One thing to note here, is that the embryos that are used in stem cell research are those that are fertilized in vitro. Meaning they are not fertilized within a woman’s body. We have, also, now found a way to get these stem cells from adults. The Catholic Church maintains that an embryo, in any form, has the moral status of a human being. “The whole idea that the embryo is…show more content…
“…they’re going to oppose stem cell research because of the destruction of embryos. And then there are those who are cautiously tolerant of stem cell research, provided that it’s done within the 15-day window of embryonic life before implantation would occur and done only on embryos that cannot be used for the reproductive purposes for which they were created.” (Abernethy, 2001). There are some Protestants that see the value of the research that is being done here and understand the potential health benefits that can come to fruition from this research. Stem cell research imposes on one “human life”, meaning the embryo, in order to save a mass potential number of actual human…show more content…
How does one truly determine when one form of life will outweigh the other? According to Sondra Wheeler, “Well, that’s going to depend on how you regard embryonic life. We don’t trade one human life to save another. You don’t kill one patient in order to transplant an organ into another even to save lives, and you wouldn’t do it even if you could save two lives that way. So it depends partly on what you think you are dealing with.” (Abernethy, 2001). The real question here is: When does an embryo become a human? There is not one definition out there, though. Even legally, no one seems to agree on when an embryo becomes a human and the laws on this vary by state. This particular are of the debate will be in discussions for years to come it would seem, with no clear definition in

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