Saving Lives

Cloning and stem cell research have great benefits that come with small costs. Benefits in the medical field along with economic benefits can be reached through stem cell research and cloning. The harvesting of the stem cells would be the only price to pay for such benefits. Stem cell research and cloning go hand in hand and always will until an alternative can be found. This is because of the way cloning is done and along with the major properties of stem cells. Cloning could be used to push our ability of medical research to a whole new level, where diseases that are thought to be related and present in certain genes such as sickle cell and diabetes could be cured with the use of cloning. Cloned organs is even a easily probable idea, where people who are waiting and need new organs would be able to get the organs needed almost immediately. Cloning and stem cell research also have benefits is places outside of the medical field. Such benefits will fit into the economy, jobs in the scientific world would greatly increase if government funding was open to cloning and stem cell research. If government funding was also legalized then such thing as the fear of free enterprise would be a thing of the past. How ever many people are against the ideas of cloning and stem cell research for two major reasons. Either people seem to be afraid of the idea of cloning or they let our advancement of a society rest to much on religion and morals.

Stem cell research, the platform on which cloning stands is one of the biggest problems with the idea of cloning. Stem cells are cell that have not yet taken on a

particular task. All your cells in your body started out as stem cells. When people are still in embryo form the cells that make us up do not have particular jobs, such as muscle

cells and brain cells. These cells are comparable to a blank disc you can put what ever fits your needs on it. These cells are ideal for the use in cloning, there are also benefits we can gain from the study of stem cells in general. These stem cells can be harvested from a couple of places each with different integrity and quality. The optimum stem cells come from undeveloped fetuses still in their embryonic state. However other less quality stem cells could be harvested from the umbilical cord and other places. In order for embryonic stem cells to be harvested the embryo must be killed. Even as bad as it sounds there is a way to benefit off of already legal practices that waste such important resources. Abortions seem to gaining more and more in numbers that they are almost common in kids under 20 that why not put those stem cells to good use. Those stem cells could be used to save someone’s life or possibly cure someone’s sickle cell. If stem cells from abortions would be used as a possible improvement in the medical field our society would be benefiting from a problem that is unsolvable.

Cloning is a big part of medical research advancement. The basics of cloning came from genetic research. The first written studies of genetic research came from a monk named Mendel in the 1860’s. Mendel’s use of pea plants to map how genes move from parent to parent meaning people are able to predict the off spring gave us our first strong hold in genetics. Ever since then scientist have made huge discoveries in our genetic make up and how to manipulate it. Some of these advancements can be seen in

everyday life. At the grocery store you can find genetically engineered fruits and vegetables where they have better qualities then normal fruits. This can happen by either cross breeding or directly manipulating the genetic material in each plant to produce a

genetically engineered offspring. Cloning does not allow us to predict the offspring but in a sense it allows us to make it, so in the future we will be able to add or remove genetic defects in the DNA to receive the desired characteristics. The uses of cloning in the medical field are almost endless. Another important benefit in the medical field that could come from cloning is the idea of organ banks. The organ bank is the idea that organs could be cloned and kept there until needed. This way someone who need a certain organ for a transplant is able to get one.

Cloning and Stem cell research have more then a place in the medical field. Stem cell research has come up in politics and so has cloning. The political aspect is expectantly different due to the underlining reasons for people being for it and against it. Morals and religion play a bigger part then they should also the idea of free enterprise is another scary issue. In politics the major