Medical research in the past few years has flourished and continues to grow every day. Scientists, doctors, and researchers discover new advancements all the time using all kinds of experiments, tests and examinations. Embryonic stem cell research is a rapidly growing field in medical research that has caused a lot of controversy. Embryonic stem cell research involves using an embryo that developed from egg cells in vitro. The embryos are taken out and grown in a culture dish in a laboratory, a process aptly named cell culture. The cells are then differentiated, which changes the stem cells into more specific cells such as heart muscle, blood cells, or even nerve cells. These cells can then be used to treat diseases such as spinal cord injuries or diabetes. This process is very complicated and does not always work, but the outcome is astounding. Recent developments have been made curing blindness, ALS, Alzheimer's, and the list goes on. So why is it that people have such a problem with something that sounds this good? Like everything in life, stem cell research has a price, not just a monetary one, but an ethical and moral one as well. Now everyone has turned this into an issue, with each side weighing the odds trying to figure out if it's worth it and really provides that much of a benefit to society. It does, and it could lead to something that could revolutionize medicine as we know it. 

In December of 2014 I got a really bad stomach bug that hospitalized me and kept me in bed for 2 weeks. It was a virus that thankfully finally went away, bud sadly left its mark. The virus had sent my intestines into shock and had basically turned it against itself. This led to the development of ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease that causes my large intestine to be constantly covered in ulcers. It has proved difficult to handle but I feel like I have done a good job managing it. But when I was diagnosed it really started to hit me; there are people out there with diseases just like me that need to be cured. All I have to do is jack myself up on 13 pills a day, whereas some people have to go get chemo, or gets shots every day and some people don't even get to live their lives because of a disease with no cure. Some people say I got unlucky that I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, when in reality I was one of the lucky ones. While I'm away at college having the time of my life there is someone out there with some disease, maybe even the same one I have, who doesn't get to live their life the way they should. Most people argue that stem cell research is unethical and immoral because you have to take a fertilized embryo out of a womb. People say that the embryo never got a chance at survival. This is where the debate of human equivalence comes in. People always assume equality only revolves around issues like race, and sexual orientation but when it isn't a minority versus a majority and it's just one person's life versus another's things get complicated. The embryo that never survived doesn't get a chance to defend itself and is sacrificed for stem cells, but those stem cells can be used to treat someone else's disease, someone who sees their life go by and can barely participate in it. The embryo doesn't get to survive but the sick person doesn't get to live. This is the main point of distinction for me between both sides of this issue. I think it is sheer torture to see the world move around you while you lay in a hospital bed. So for that reason I think the use of stem cells in research is essential to our future. My life has been greatly influenced by disease so who knows how badly others have been affected. 

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (both inflammatory bowel diseases) have had research done on them using stem cells but have come out with inconsistent results. However I am hopeful in the future that some sort of treatment will come out of embryonic stem cell research on IBDs and many other kinds of diseases.

 I hope to accomplish one thing when I write my paper; I want to make people realize that something embryonic stem cell research could benefit people (and even animals for that matter) all over the world. I think I can get this point across well in my paper. Honestly as much as I tend to lean more towards "logos" based arguments, my paper will be predominantly "pathos" driven for the sole reason that I have witnessed firsthand the effects of life changing illnesses, and I plan to encompass as much of my own personal experiences in my essay. Most of my sources for my essay are very logical and pack quite a bit of information into them. So this will give a good balance between the pathos I'll be presenting and the logos brought in from the sources. I also feel that I already have at least some sort of knowledge on the subject and as I said earlier firsthand experience giving me the ethos to bring my paper together in a balanced way. Many revisions will have to be made to my research question, but I am proud with all the information I have gathered for it. All of my sources are differently opinionated and come from a wide range of information outlets.

 Embryonic stem cell research used to be a huge and very complicated issue, surrounded constantly by controversy thanks to politics and the media. Thankfully over time the issue has lost most of its hype and now stands as a fairly neutral issue on the controversy scale. It still is very complex due to the fact that so few people truly know what embryonic stem cell research entails. The scope of this issue is fairly neutral as well since the media and politicians have stopped making it such a big deal, but I hope to bring some more attention to the importance of this field. It could change medicine forever and the more people who support the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research, the better. 
