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The easiest way to deal with ethics in the embryonic stem cell debate is don't use any. If you use adult stem cells the debate goes away. There are some researchers who say that adult stem cells maybe able to do every thing we really need them to do and that there will therefore be no ethical debate.

But life is rarely without its complications. Suppose that there is no other way to cure certain diseases than with embryonic stem cells. Even that is not entirely clear since you may be able to get the stem cells you need from the placenta or from cord cells. But again, for argument's sake let's say that even this last ditch effort failed and we were forced to consider embryonic stem cells.

Well first, why consider stem cells at all? What do they have or do that other cells don't? Stem cells are cells that can become any structure in the body. They could become nerves or bones or organs depending on how they are stimulated. Imagine a science fictional man who could lose an arm or a foot and such grow a new one. Or more practically, supposed we could replace the diseased or defective parts of the aged or infirm. That would surely be a boon.

Now an ideal way to do this would be to clone tissue from your own body to replace your aging organs since there would be no rejection issues if we used your own flesh to replace your own flesh. There would also be no ethical issues since your liver cell was not a human being in and of itself; nor did it have he capacity to become one.

The problem people have with fetal tissue research and embryonic stem cells is that you do have something that could potentially become a human being.

Even now, I firmly believe dictators around the world are having themselves cloned in hopes of harvesting the organs and keeping themselves alive. Most of us who are not hideous dictators are horrified by that prospect because unlike the dictator we can empathize and ask ourselves how we would like becoming conscious that we live and breathe only so that some day a chain smoker can rip our lungs out and live a few more months.

So for most of us that part of the ethical dilemma is solved. We say no to raising people just to harvest their organs for our own benefit.

But what about taking the eggs of a consenting woman and using them for research? On the surface, there appears to be no ethical dilemma in this. Just ask yourself what would have happened to those eggs if they proved unnecessary? They would have eventually been discarded.

Well what

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