A Life In The Balance
Life-threatening diseases afflict thousands of people daily. However, scientific breakthroughs are being made at an increasing rate. Technological advances are enabling the medical community to prolong and save lives - but it can come at a price. One of these breakthroughs is stem cell research which has become a very controversial issue. Pro-life advocates are strongly against stem cell research because they believe in the sacredness of human life while stem cell research proponents support any medical methods that could save lives (Reaves). Although pro-life movements claim stem cell research destroys human embryos, it is actually true that many more lives can be saved by the treatments developed through embryonic research.
One cannot disregard the fact that human embryos are destroyed during the process as part of stem cell research. Given the importance of this issue, the Catholic Church has voiced its opinion. In a statement made by its former leader, Pope John Paul II , Catholicism describes the need to recognize the devastating choices made by stem cell researchers.
A colony of embryonic stem cells, from the H9 cell...
English: Embryonic Stem Cells. (A) shows hESCs. (B...
Mouse embryonic stem cells. More lab photosIn his article, "Hard Cells," Hertzberg demonstrates the disdain by the Catholic Church whose past leader, Pope John Paul II, says, "Experience is already showing how a tragic coarsening of consciences accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb, [which] has led to evils such as the proposal for the creation for research purposes of human embryos, destined to destruction in the process" (Hertzberg). The Catholic Church believes people cannot make moral decisions anymore about life at the cost of life (Hertzberg). Although Pope John Paul II claims that science has deprived mankind of all of its morals, there are larger and more important questions to be asked: However true these ideas may be, how can people, in good conscience, not use...