All-Creatures Ministry and Web SiteAll-Creatures Ministry and Web Site
Archive of Comments and Discussions - Questions and Answers From All-Creatures.org

By Chris - 21 Mar 2016

I see what you're saying. Stem cells must come from something/someone that has been killed? I thought that the controversy over stem cells (in humans) was that they had to come from abortions, but I looked that up an discovered that no abortion was actually necessary; it was just that some people suggested that if abortions were gonna be performed, at least get the stem cells so they could be used to help others in the future. But apparently no-one needs to die for stem cells to be collected. Or... do they? Because I just looked it up, and I keep seeing things like this:

When stem cells are obtained from living human embryos, the harvesting of such cells necessitates destruction of the embryos.

That... I did not realize. I always figured that there were ways to get such cells otherwise... (notice use of the term "living". It could be possible to harvest stem cells from a tragedy that couldn't be prevented, for instance, though death during birth is rare)

I suppose it's no different than, say, animal experimentation. One of those things that could yield amazing results in the future, but which inevitably causes suffering now. For example, studies on diabetic mice (who do not become diabetic on their own, let's put it that way), mice with food allergies (they don't develop food allergies on their own, if you know what I'm getting at). 

Cures for many diseases, they can really only come about from experimentation and study. But to be experimented on or studied, subjects are needed. It's an ethical dilemma. Lives can be saved in the future, but there doesn't seem to be much way around this unless there's some way to simulate the disease in question without a living thing to test it on. And currently, there's no way to do that.

And believe me, I do want to see my dad's (and everyone else's) diabetes cured. 

Chris

Go on to comments: By Frank and Mary Hoffman - 21 Mar 2016
Return to: All-Creatures Ministry and Web Site
Return to: Discussion Table of Contents