Week 5 Discussion Post 27 Document | IHP 600 - Social And Organizational Issues In Healthcare
Advancements in healthcare technology have provided the opportunity to improve and transform healthcare delivery. One area of study that dates back to the 1960s and continues today is stem cell research (Ma et al., 2012). Stem cells can differentiate into various types of cells, which is attractive due to the potential to treat disease. As a result, the medical community has a great interest in its advancement, but the research also raises ethical concerns regarding the derivation of pluripotent stem cells from oocytes and embryos (Lo & Parham, 2009). Some technologies are frequently used for stem cell research, including stem cell culture, separation, and identification techniques (Ma et al., 2012). The harvest of stem cells can originate from adult body tissues and embryos, which the former do not raise special ethical concerns and are widely used in research and clinical care, such as bone marrow transplants (Lo & Parham, 2009). The research and use of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have raised great ethical concerns because they involved destroying human embryos (Lo & Parham, 2009). In the United States, the
question of when human life begins is a controversial topic that
continues to be relevant in today’s politics regarding abortion laws. Some people believe life begins at conception; therefore, an embryo should be regarded as a person. On the other hand, some people believe an embryo is a clump of cells that are not regarded as a person. As a result, the federal government 1996 interceded and enacted a policy that prohibits federal funding for the creation of human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed (Research!America, n.d.). Currently, federally funded embryonic stem cell research can occur on the viable hESC lines that were previously prohibited under former President George W. Bush in 2001 (Research!America, n.d.). This is due to former President Barack Obama’s issue of an Executive Order in 2009 that reversed the prior’s (Research!America, n.d.).
References
Lo, B., & Parham, L. (2009). Ethical issues in stem cell research. Endocrine reviews, 30(3), 204–