By Jasmine Demers
Community News Editor

What if you were told that you had a 50 percent chance of inheriting a genetic disease by the time you were 30 years old? A genetic disease that will kill you 10 to 20 years after your diagnosis and that will slowly eat away at your nervous system until you can’t talk, eat or breath.

Huntington’s disease has been passed down in my family for five generations. I have watched it slowly take over my grandmother’s body and mind, and I am in a constant state of worry that it will begin to do the same to my dad, my siblings and myself. More than anything, I am afraid that I will be unable to experience the wonders of motherhood because I have to protect my future children from the burden that this disease will plague them with.

There is no cure for Huntington’s disease and not very many approved treatment options. Ever since I could remember, I have researched everything and anything possible about this disease and I have always laid my hope in this truly amazing scientific advancement called stem cell research.

Human stem cell research has the potential to cure devastating diseases and regenerate injured or destroyed bodies. However, since scientists discovered that they could remove stem cells from embryos in 1998, controversy followed closely thereafter.

The ethical concerns of stem cell research have created a widespread debate about the moral consequences of using aborted human embryos for research. This controversy has raised many questions about the right to life and whether or not there is a valid justification for participating in it.

More recently, however, scientists have introduced new study methods, which they call Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS). These cells are derived from a non-pluripotent cell in adults. Scientists can basically extract these cells and reprogram them to grow into any type of tissue that they might need.

I would like to argue here that the benefits of stem cell research significantly outweigh any issue of ethics that is presented. If a woman decides to have an abortion and that embryo is going to be destroyed, why shouldn’t people be able to use that for something that is useful, powerful and life-changing?

As a person who could directly benefit from this research, I definitely feel like stem cell research is an important and necessary idea. I would have the opportunity to spend more time with my grandma and my dad. I would be given a chance to bring children into the world and live a longer life. Stem cell research could create these opportunities and change the lives of so many other families all around the world.

Stem cell research has the ability to treat some of the most common and life threatening diseases (including cancer), replace or repair damaged organs, create copies of organs for transplant and so much more. We need to take advantage of this amazing medical discovery so that we can improve the quality of life for all human beings.