What is more important, in the short term, than the ethics of stem cell research is the political impact.
The banning of any institution accepting federal funding from doing embryonic stem cell research -- what have been, and will be, the political effects of it?
It did enhearten the anti-abortion troops -- it was a concrete step in vaguely that direction. In the short term, it couldn't help but bring volunteers to the Republicans, and motivate the anti-abortion voters to come out to the polls.
The other hand is the emotional impact of ads like Fox's. Getting in the way of extremely promising medical research that could cure thousands if not millions of people -- one can make political hay against the Republicans using that arguement.
The worst possible case would be if one of the non-Federal funded Embryonic Stem Cell research institutions where to pull off a breakthrough. This isn't likely in the short term -- we are talking about basic research -- but it would probably make a heck of alot of political ammunition.
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As for the ethics of it... There are 4 kinds of stem cells:
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Originally Posted by wiki
* Totipotent stem cells are produced from the fusion of an egg and sperm cell. Cells produced by the first few divisions of the fertilized egg cell are also totipotent. These cells can differentiate into embryonic and extraembryonic cell types.
* Pluripotent stem cells are the descendants of totipotent cells and can differentiate into cells derived from the three germ layers.
* Multipotent stem cells can produce only cells of a closely related family of cells (e.g. hematopoietic stem cells differentiate into red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, etc.).
* Unipotent cells can produce only one cell type, but have the property of self-renewal which distinguishes them from non-stem cells.
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Adult stem cells are only 2 of the above 4 types. I am not aware of that any Pluripotent or Totipotent stem cells exist in adults. Maybe one can transform existing Puripotent stem cells backwards and to other kinds?
Possibly cutting open human brains and scraping out brain stem cells could be used for research. Personally, I'm against cutting peoples brains open and using an ice cream scoop. Somehow, I think that using
fertilized eggs that are going to be discarded anyhow seems like a cleaner way to get nerve-cell precurors...
I suppose they could just scoop the brains of brain-dead people to harvest neuron stem cells?
That still doesn't get us access to nerve-cell (as opposed to brain-cell) precursors, as far as I know there aren't any in an adult body...