FETAL TISSUE TRANSPLANTATION -- Professional and ethical essays

Ethical:

Fetal tissues have important characteristics that make them more useful and superior to mature cells and in addition, tissues of fetal cadavers can be used instead of raising and killing innocent animals for tissues. Acquired from the abortion clinics, fetal cadavers are used in fetal biomedical research. The biotechnological researchers like Patricia Schrock states that there are numerous properties that make fetal tissues superior to adult tissues when used in transplantation. First, fetal cells are capable of proliferating faster and more often than mature, fully differentiated cells. This capacity is particularly important for application to disease of the brain, because adult brain cells essentially lose their ability to regenerate. Second, fetal cells lack most of the cell-surface markers that trigger immune responses in transplant recipients. Thus, the chances of graft rejection are greatly reduced. Third, fetal tissues can survive at lower oxygen levels than mature cells, making them more resistant to the ischemic (decrease in blood supply) conditions found during transplantation or in vitro situations.

The innocent lives of animals are spared by using fetal tissues from aborted babies. Animal activists agree that instead of using live animals to obtain tissues for medical research it is the right ethical decision to use “already dead” fetuses. These unique characteristics of the fetal tissues have led to fetal tissue transplant (FTT) experiments for the treatment of several diseases that were once thought to be irreversible or incurable. Fetal tissue transplant is not a Justice issue of killing a human being to save another is unfair. Moreover, FTT is not a Rights issue of harming a human being is always wrong. The fetal tissue is taken from the abortion clinics where the fetus is already dead.