by Bill Stone

Created on: March 04, 2009

There are so many emotions surrounding "stem cell research." People don't even take the time to understand what they're talking about before they rush to judgement about the topic, simply because it's so filled with emotion. It's actually a loaded question, because it's incomplete. If you say you don't support stem cell research, you're some kind of monster who doesn't want to save people (or you must be a conservative, someone who was a fan of "Dubya"). If you say you are in favor of stem cell research, you have no problem destroying human life to further scientific research (and you must be a Darwinist, or a liberal).

Both positions are misleading because the question is incomplete. The title of this article should REALLY read:

"Understanding the conservative positions on EMBRYONIC vs ADULT stem cell research"

Conservatives strongly believe in the prospect of stem cells, since they are already treating disease today. But do we need to destroy embryos to do it? Absolutely not.

Most people have only heard one side of the debate. Embryonic stem cell research is the only way to go, even though it hasn't produced a single piece of positive scientific evidence. At the same time, you've probably also heard that adult stem cells just "don't work as well," that they don't have the same potency or that they can't change into as many cells as embryonic stem cells can.

Now you get to hear the other side of the story.

Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos. This is the only place from which you can harvest embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells could more accurately be called "non-embryonic" stem cells, and are derived from many places in a human (not just adults), as well as from the umbilical cord blood from a live birth (called cord blood stem cells). People talk about embryonic stem cells because they believe that, unlike adult stem cells, they have the ability to change into any cell in the body. Adult stem cells possess the exact same ability (called pluripotency), no better or worse. And in addition to the over 70 conditions which are CURRENTLY (meaning today, right now) being treated effectively with adult stem cells, their ability to change into any cell from any of the three germ layers offers limitless possibilities about what they can treat in the future.

In other words, we can do everything with adult stem cells that we can do with embryonic stem cells, and we can do it all without the destruction of human life.

Think about it, and this is important. Embryonic

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