Draft 2

Stem cells have been associated with destruction and death, but how about an opportunity? An opportunity for the people who have been dealt a cruel card from fate. An opportunity for men and women, adults and children, fathers and mothers, who have had their lives shaken and their lives destroyed. An opportunity for the 58% of paraplegics and the 42% of quadriplegics to walk, to talk and to live out their dreams. Now imagine your whole life then it comes to the stop because of a catastrophic accident, everything changes, for a friend, a father, a mother or yourself. Confined to a wheelchair or trapped on life support never to walk, never to talk, never to live your life.


The leading cause of spinal injury are motor accidents involving people who have just received their drivers licence or are in the long journey of receiving their full licence. These are men and women who are 16 to 21 have their lives drastically changed. With the introduction of stem cell research this would be a thing of the past, with the proper resources and a rallying of scientists to refine the stem cell process men and women, adults and children, mothers and fathers would be able to walk, to talk and live their life as they lived it before the cruel twist of fate.


A spinal cord injury is when the spinal cord is damaged from an accident or disease which disrupts or destroys the neural pathways that run from our spinal cord to all parts of the body. In an accident when the damage is severe they may become a paraplegic or worse, quadriplegic resulting in them losing total motor movement.


Stem cell research has been disputed upon the point that would it be murder to destroy a fertilized egg that will most likely never be used to be implanted into a uterus. Stem cell research involves removing the uncharacterized cells in a zygote which has been artificially created for artificial conception. Stem cells can be used to replace the damaged cells in the spinal cord which allows a person to walk and move again, giving them the freedom to live out their lives.


In a late afternoon on a Summers day Cody Culwell was in a tragic accident she said "my mother and I had an accident in my mother's car. When I regained consciousness in hospital I was told that two cervical vertebrae, namely C5 and C6, were broken and that I had also suffered a spinal cord injury. The vertebrae were fixed with a neck brace for four months and the doctors tried to help me retain my body functions with physiotherapy but I was only 14 years old and paraplegic." Cody is no older than us but because of a tragic accident has had her life changed, never to walk again. Confined to a wheel chair for the rest of her life now the opportunities for her have now been limited, not from her fault or anyone else's.


So would you deny young Cody Culwell the opportunity to live out her life again? The opportunity to continue her life before the tragic accident? The opportunity to walk, to move and to live out her life? So why deny the opportunity for stem cell research which will heal people like Cody so they will never have to live the rest of her days confined to a wheel chair or in a bed for the rest of their life? Stem cell research will help the people who cannot walk or move. It will help the people who are friends or family, mothers or fathers, sons and daughters. So would you deny the opportunity for people like Cody to fix their lives and to let them carry on after their accident?