When does life become a person?When can we use life to save the life of another?Is there already life at the point of conception or life begins only when the body develops characters and personality?All these issue require us to search within us our beliefs and we ought to have a stand in view of the significant move within the scientific community to harvest stem cells from embryonic life form for the declared purpose of researching into the possibility of treating illnesses and chronic maladies which are heretheto untreatable.Stem cells are harvested from about 14-day old embryo. These stem cells are then subjected to various growth conditions which affect their rate and differentiation into various specialised tissues such as nerve, muscle or bone. With these researches, medical conditions which arises as a result of demage to organs which are not amendable to repair could be given a regenerated lease of life by transplanting these embryonic cells and causing them to differentiate committedly to return all or at least part of the functions originally sub-serve by the demaged organ. This offer chronic sufferers a renewed hope of resuming health to a certain extent and therby returning them to social functioning once again.The problem is with the striping of the embryo of the stem cells, the embryo is also stripped of its intrinsic life and therby sacrificing itself for the benefit of another who has lived life and had a more established personality and social relationship ie. more of a person than the embryo.The 'means' may sound very evil to some but the ends may be very good in itself especially to those sufferers and their family who toil each day with chronic and unceasing sufferings, pain and incapacity.So where do you stand? Pro-Life or Pro- Personhood?
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