Niall's+persuasive+article

 =**__The Next Big Breakthrough__** =  __By Niall Rutherford__

Cancer will be a thing of the past. Type 1 diabetes will be easily fixed. Parkinson’s will be history. In the future, stem cell research will have eliminated countless diseases and injuries that plague our population today and cause the deaths of millions of people every year. Using cells taken from embryos that can become any tissue in the body, scientists can repair damaged or diseased areas in the body, curing deadly sicknesses or syndromes. Reports claim that the research holds so much potential that it cannot be ignored. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if when you grow older, you would not have to worry about the illnesses that our elderly relatives suffer from today? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could cure those with the diseases soon? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could wipe out these diseases now? Its official – stem cell research is the future of medicine.

Stem cells can be successfully used to repair any type of cells in the body. No other type of cell in the body or created by man can do this, and the purpose of stem cell research is to understand how to use them in medicine. Scientists believe that learning how to use these cells to repair damaged areas in our bodies could lead to cures for cancer, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, diabetes, Huntington’s disease, cardiac failure, brain damage, various muscular injuries and even blindness. No other research is being conducted with so much medical potential. Stopping stem cell research is damning our future generations to old ages riddled with the diseases that we suffer from today. Stem cell research //is// medical progress.

Some would argue that stem cell research is effectively killing innocent humans. Taking the cells needed for research from an embryo would kill it, which in some people's minds is no better than murder. But everybody knows that embryos aren't conscious. It's like arguing that humans eating chicken eggs is chicken genocide. Even still, research is now being conducted which shows that it is possible to create a stem cell line, which is used to create the tissue needed for treatment, without killing a human embryo. If these methods can be proven successful, nothing would have to die during the treatments.

In contrast, some opponents of stem cell research argue that great results have long been promised by scientists, yet they have still not happened. They do not realise that stem cell research is an ongoing project, and scientists could come up with a breakthrough at any time. So we need to support the research so we can get ever closer to that future where cancers and muscle injuries no longer exist. But only recently, adult stem cells have been used in Spain to transplant a human organ which would otherwise have been rejected by the patient’s body, causing horrible side-effects. Without the stem cells, the patient would have had to take powerful drugs to suppress the reaction. On the other hand, critics claim that stem cell research devalues human life. This is primarily because some research involves cloning embryos. People believe they are treating embryos inhumanely, as if they were just an ingredient in scientists’ evil experiments and not an unborn human. However, the embryos used in stem cell research are leftover embryos from IVF (in vitro fertilisation), given with consent. These embryos would otherwise be destroyed or stored way past their shelf life. In other words, stem cell research is making use of embryos that would otherwise be wasted. In addition, far more embryos are destroyed due to conception problems and contraception methods than are proposed to be used for research. Stem cell research is not terminating a potential human life; it is only making use of the embryos that won’t ever become a human anyway.

In conclusion, the benefits of stem cell research far outweigh the costs associated with the destruction of human embryos. I believe that in the future, we will look back and wonder why we didn’t get to where we are sooner, a utopia where there is no fear of the deadliest, most restricting diseases around today and no one will have to endure them in the civilised world. I believe that no one will have to suffer the pain of relatives young and old slowly dying of cancers they don’t deserve. I believe that future is not far off as long as we continue to support the great work that these scientists will be doing for years to come. The discovery of penicillin and its use around the world to treat infection was a major historic event. The first use of vaccines to treat and eliminate smallpox was a major historic event. I believe that the next major historic event in medicine will be linked to stem cell research. With stem cell research, we are making history.