Stem cell research has always been an exceedingly debatable and controversial issue that has provoked various arguments among individuals. It has caused huge controversies in politics, ethics, and society. Imagine a world where terminal diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease could be cured. These diseases make up a large portion of deaths in the United States today. The most numerousof these patients are those affected by cardiovascular disease (79.4 million, American Heart Association 2007), autoimmune diseases (14.7 to 23.5 million, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2005), type 1 and type 2 diabetes (20.8 million, American Diabetes Association 2007), osteoporosis (10 million, National Institute of Arthritis and Mus- culoskeletal and Skin Diseases 2007), cancer (10.5 million, National Cancer Institute 2006), Alzheimer’s disease (4.5 million, Alzheimer’s As- sociation 2005), and Parkinson’s disease (1.5 million, American Parkin- son’s Disease Association 2003) (1 pg.37). This world could potentially be achieved by the usage of stem cells. Stem cells derive from the embryos of humans. Stem cell research should be a legal procedure and be able to be practiced, for it could potentially save lives without the risk of killing another human being.Stem cells are undifferentiated cells found in the embryos and the later life stages of animals, including humans (1, pg.37). They are found in the remains of unborn babies;these babies were never alive and never will be. Cancer is the leading cause of death in the United States today and has been for years. So if there were someway to cure this sometimes-terminal disease, why would anyone not want to do it? It has been estimated that over 100 million patients in the United States might benefit from stem cell–based therapies (1). Why not save 100 million lives at the cost of none? Everyday people diefrom cancer and other diseases that could be cured from the use of stem cells. 10.5 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year (1). Those 10.5 million lives could potentially be saved by stem cell research and this opportunity should unquestionably be taken advantage of. At some point, all human beings were all once blastocysts, which are one-celled organisms that are not able to store memory (1 pg. 63). Many people who dispute against stem cell research claim that it is unethical to use the embryotic cells. That may be the case if the baby was once alive and functioning. Many people can benefit and many lives can be restored and given a second chance with the implication of stem cells. The claim that a blastocyst is classified as a person is difficult to defend: it runs into the difficulty that the blastocyst has no conscious mind, no awareness, and no personal history or ability to remember, whereas persons, have minds and are identified strongly with those minds and with the associated abilities to think, remember, and have experiences (1, pg. 64). The reasoning that people who are against the usage of stem cell research because of its ethical issues, can also be used to support why it should be able to be used. Would stem cell research be considered unethical to deny someone a chance at life that is already alive? Those apposing stem cell research believe it is unethical because it requires the destruction of the blastocyst, which is regarded by some people as a human (2 pg.48). If stem cell research were to become legalized and practiced, how could you tell which people truly had a miscarriage, or whatever the reason for baby being unborn, and what people purposely would create a blastocyst just to destroy it? There would be no way to dictate that, therefore should remain illegal. People could start making babies just todestroy them, which could easily be considered as unethical. A third objection is that some of the research depends on donor oocytes, which could result in the exploitation of women (2 pg.48). Intensive studies would have to be done on women, which is unfair to them. People who are against stem cell research do not fully comprehend the millions of lives that will be saved from it. Terminal diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer, and Parkinson’s can and will be cured with the development of stem cell research. Stem cells serving as a cure first became a realization in 1998 after a car crash where the patient suffered pancreatitis (3 pg 11). The patient needed a new pancreas if she was going to live. By using a nucleus from one of her cells, it would be possible to create a new, genetically identical organ for her. The end result was, in fact, an exact duplicate of the pancreatic tissue that was slowly failing (3 pg 12). This is an example of the first occasion where stem cells were used. It shows that the attempt was successful and saved the patients life without the loss of another life. The fact that the first attempt ever was successful and saved a humans life, should be enough reasoning to make stem cell research legal. There are confirmed sources of stem cells in adult tissues, such as bone marrow, that maintain the ability to differentiate into the diverse cell types of that tissue throughout the life of an organism (4 pg 7). Stem cells can operate, function, and replace vital organs, which humans need in order to survive. If someone were to get in a car crashand they desperately needed a liver or a kidney, stem cells could replace the damaged organs and function as if nothing ever happened to them. A countless amount of livescould be saved with stem cell research becoming legal. Cells that maintain the ability to divide and differentiate into more specialized cells of different tissue types are rare in the adult. In contrast, the seemingly unlimited potential of the undifferentiated cells of the early embryo has made embryonic stem cells the focus of great scientific interest (4 pg.7). These reasons make it only possible to use the stem cells of embryos rather than adults. In general, stem cells from embryos have greater plasticity than stem cells from adults, although this distinction may change in the near future (5 pg.1). Adult cells that specialize in dividing and differentiating are very rare and are far from a certain thing of their ability to function whereas embryotic cells are a certainity and could easily replace vital organs. The plasticity of a stem cell varies depending on whether it originates from an embryo or from an adult