After reading all of this and taking time to absorb it, I keep coming back to the same personal conclusion. I just don't see a group of 32 cells as being a living person. And if we can ease the indisputable suffering and illnesses of
actual living people who
have developed to the point of having entire bodies, minds, and emotions by conducting experiments on groups of 32 cells, then that's absolutely fantastic in my opinion.
When exactly do cells transform into an actual person? I don't know, but I would say with absolute certainty that it's not at the 32 cell stage. Do I view this early stage of development as being
"silly little cellular clusters to be discarded without remorse"? Not at all. In fact, I'm absolutely awe-struck by the formation of life. But again, in choosing between living people suffering from
paralysis,
Parkinson's,
damaged hearts,
cancer,
Alzheimer's, or any of the other problems that we can potentially solve through stem cell research, or a group of 32 cells that doesn't even have a brain to think or feel with, the choice is easy for me. I'm sure we all know someone who is suffering, or has suffered from one or more of these diseases, and it's a hands-down, absolute certainty that what they had to go through was indescribably worse than what a cluster of 32 cells being used for research does, no matter how amazing that cluster of cells is.
I'm all for being as sensitive as we can be to the moral hesitations that some people have in pursuing this important research, but not to the point that we're actually hindering progress towards curing these debilitating, deadly diseases and conditions.