1st Speaker's Speech

This may sound a little bit strange... But here it goes:

"Good afternoon! Today, my team and I will discuss our moot which is "We Believe that New Treatments and Cures Vindicate the Destruction of Embryos", i. e., we believe that the use of human embryonic stem cells created in labs will treat a variety of diseases and impairments such as spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease and it can be worth to kill those stem cells to reach that purpose.

We are affirming the preposition that the ends justify the means. As leader I shall show that the benefits of stem cell research outweigh the cost in terms of embryonic "life" and my speakers will indicate the reasons for this.

Firstly, we will start by supporting the Utilitarianism argument. This acclaims that embryonic stem cells have the capacity to grow indefinitely in a lab environment and can differentiate into almost all types of bodily tissue and, by that, this makes embryonic stem cells an attractive prospect for cellular therapies to treat a wide range of diseases. Additionally the social, economic and personal costs of the diseases that embryonic stem cells have the potential to treat are far greater than the costs associated with the destruction of embryos.

Secondly, our next arguments go hand-in-hand with the Utilitarian argument. Embryos, while of value, are not equivalent to human life, they only have the potential for life. Blastocysts are a cluster of human cells that have not differentiated into distinct organ tissue, so cells of the inner cell mass are no more "human life" than a skin cell.

Thirdly, we will apply the ideas that come from the Efficiency argument. This refers that In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) generates large numbers of unused embryos and many of the IVF embryos are slated for destruction; so, by using them for scientific research utilizes a resource that would otherwise be wasted. Nonetheless, while the destruction of human embryos is required to establish a stem cell line, no new embryos have to be destroyed to work with existing stem cell lines. It would be wasteful not to continue to make use of these cell lines as a resource.

Finally, we just want to question this: abortions and IVF are legal in many countries and jurisdictions - if these embryos are being destroyed anyway, why not use them for stem cell research or treatments?"

Fishing for Jasmine

The major part of my class doesn't know my short story choice of the second semester and, because of that, I decided to put it one more time.

I hope that you'll like it. =)

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/FishJasm.shtml

Images about therapeutic cloning

I think that these images will help us to understand better what are we going to talk about on the day of the debate. =)

Links for the cloning debate

Here are some useful links for the cloning debate about therapeutic cloning:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_controversy

MOOT for the cloning debate

Here's our moot for the cloning debate:

"We believe that new treatments and cures vindicate the destruction of embryos"

Hi everyone! =D

I hope that you'll like it!