http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/16/AR200921600901.html
President Obama's plan to lift Bush's eight-year ban on embryonic stem cell research provides much promise to the medical community and it's possible capacity to cure many diseases. While it's no doubt that this future executive order by our new administration could save many lives, and has the possibility to restore function to an unimaginable amount of people, I think the issue comes up with whether this is a smart move for Obama right now politically. Extracting cells from human embryos is such a controversial topic that it could be detrimental in not appealing to conservatives.
However, there is also the issue of whether it's ethical to extract these cells at all from human embryos, and whether it constitutes the taking of life. Many would argue that it deprives the future of life, but the question comes in of where does our obligation come in to the lives of those who suffer everyday from Parkinson's Disease or diabetes? Don't they have a right to live too? How do we decide whether to possibly save the lives of those already born, or to mass of cells?
Obviously the ethical issue over using human embryos cannot be solved over night, but one thing is for sure, and that is a lot rides on the uplifting of this ban, and the possibilities are great.
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