Blog 20

In the article Embryo Stem Cell Research: Ten Years of Controversy by John Robertson, the argument given is about the acceptance versus disapproval about stem cell research. Everyone has the capability of creating an opinion on an issue, even if they don’t have a true understanding, but the opinion can end up either being very definite or sometimes cloudy. In this article, Robertson discusses how the sides of stem cell research can be just that. For example, the very strongly opposed will not allow for any research being conducted, even if the embryos were going to be discarded anyway. Then there are those who think the embryos are too elementary to contain individual rights, but in this case, they find it intolerable to create embryos only for the use of research. These are the people who earlier in the article said the embryos should not be protected at the detriment of significant scientific research. “If the embryos are at the same stage of development in each case, then how can one set of embryos deserve protection and the other set not?” (Robertson, 193). Their opinion should be considered cloudy here due to the fact that they will permit the use of embryos in stem cell research, but at the same time, they will risk the loss of scientific discovery from creating embryos only for this research, even though some will be discarded anyway. This cloudiness shows a need for checks-and-balances. Even though not everyone will be of acceptance, there will always be a limit to what should be considered tolerable to avoid future problems.