The Stigma Of Stem Cell Research - 896 Words

EDIT material Scientific research of all kinds is viewed by some as controversial, with one of the most controversial of these being the study of human stem cells. From the first uses of this technology there have been many who have fought to stop it. However, current advances in medical research have made it possible to reduce some of the negative stigma surrounding stem cell research and will lead researchers to develop new cures and other applications that could turn the health care industry further toward the current trend of preventative medicine. Much of the negative connotation surrounds the types of cells used and how they are harvested. New discoveries and techniques have allowed for alternate sources of stem cells and that research has led to new views of the cells and their functions. All of this has, in turn, led to new information about many genetic diseases and possible treatments using stem cells. Stem cell research has long been viewed in a negative light by many with concerns about not only the methods of harvesting the cells, but also with the applications of the technology. Originally, stem cells could only be harvested from embryonic cells which was quite unsettling for some. This led to further debate on what the implications of this research could be and if this knowledge would lead to human cloning. This is what concerns most people as the concept of â€Å"playing God† is quite unacceptable to some. In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, this is demonstratedShow MoreRelatedThe Stigma Of Embryonic Stem Cell Research2323 Words   |  10 PagesDespite the stigma surrounding embryonic stem cell research, there are many positives that outweigh the negatives in medical and scientific settings. Due to the knowledge of this, continued funding and support is critical for the advancement of these therapies and science as a whole. Diseases that can be aided by unabating fi nancial and moral support are but not limited to, spinal cord injury, heart disease, parkinson s disease, alzheimer s and Lou Gehrig s disease, more commonly known as ALSRead MoreEssay On Human Life1389 Words   |  6 Pagesdiscovery of human embryonic stem cells. This sparked curiosity and enlightenment in the eyes of medical professionals everywhere. Nineteen years later the world is riddles with a plethora of controversy, fabrication, and fallacies in regards to the use of embryonic stem cells. Contrary to this, these â€Å"super cells† have the growing potential to put an end to many medical disputes. Firstly, to understand the stigma and information behind embryonic stem cell research, there must be a common understandingRead MoreThe Issue Of Stem Cell Research1218 Words   |  5 Pagesbecause of the cells inside us. It’s called stem cell research and it could be the first step in medical revolution where we’ll be able to heal our bodies of any illness. Unfortunately, due to the controversies surrounding stem cell research, the government is unwilling to help and remain neutral with sides. Scientists first discovered stem cells in the early 1980s while experimenting with embryonic stem cells from mice. This later triggered the studies for human embryonic stem cells in the late 1990sRead MoreThe Debate Of Stem Cell Research1660 Words   |  7 PagesThe Great Stem Cell Debate In 1998, President Bill Clinton issued a National Bioethics Advisory Commission to begin to study the question of stem cell research (Stem Cells Fast Facts). Since then many advances have been made and stem cells have been used to aid in the alleviation of several medical conditions such as macular degeneration, bone marrow deficiencies, and growing new sheets of new skin for burn victims (Hug). Even though there is much stigma surrounding stem cell research, the medicalRead MoreEssay about Stages of Spinal Cord Injury Research1096 Words   |  5 PagesSTAGES OF SPINAL CORD INJURY RESEARCH. IT ACTED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO MY PERSUASIVE SPEECH ON THE BENEFITS OF STEM CELL RESEARCH) There are about a quarter of a million people in the United States living with spinal cord injuries. In addition, between 7,600 and 10,000 new injuries occur each year. Nearly half of these new injuries will occur in young people between the ages of 16 and 30. As a person in this category, I have become very interested in the research to find a cure for spinal cordRead MoreInformative Speech: Spinal Cord Injuries Essay968 Words   |  4 Pages30. I have become very interested in the research to find a cure for spinal cord injuries and hope to share some of the information I found with you today. In order for you to fully understand the details I will be sharing with you, I’d like to begin with a general overview of the spinal cord before moving on to the three stages of research I will cover: past research which has lead to present treatments, recent research, and the present and future research. The spinal cord is basically a bundleRead MoreCloning Stem Cells From Cloned Embryos Case Study1693 Words   |  7 Pages A less common view holds that obtaining stem cells from cloned embryos poses fewer ethical problems than obtaining stem cells from discarded IVF embryos. Several Scientist and Ethicist have argued that embryos resulting from SCNT do not have the same moral status we normally accord to other embryos: the combination of a somatic nucleus and an enucleated egg a â€Å"transnuclear egg†, is a mere â€Å"artifact† with no â€Å"natural purpose† or potential â€Å"to evolve into an embryo and eventually a human beingRead MoreCause and Treatment of Mental Illness807 Words   |  4 Pagesillnesses and what it entails. The paper will discuss my thoughts on mental illnesses as well as what exactly a mental illness is. I will begin telling where some of the stigma of someone suffering with a mental illness stems from. I will talk about how the media such as newspapers and national advertisements play a role in this stigma. I will give insight on some of the causes th at may contribute to someone dealing with mental illness. Genetic, biological, psychological, and environmental factors willRead MoreThe Importance Of Blood Relations Towards Men902 Words   |  4 Pagesof sexual contact with other men for one year (Canadian Blood Services, 2016). This paper studies how this policy contributes to stigma against MSM. This paper also aims to address this social inequity by promoting an advocacy that focus on donors’ risky sexual behaviors than their sexual identities. The CBS manages the supply of blood, blood products, and stem cells in Canada, excluding Quebec, and operates under national rules, regulations, and policies (Canadian Blood Services, 2016). One ofRead MoreThe Stigma Of Mental Illness1745 Words   |  7 Pagestested by the stereotypes and preconceived ideas that stem from the misunderstandings about mental illness. As a culmination of both, people with a mental illness are stripped of the chances that define a quality life such as a good job, safe housing, adequate health care, and a connection with a varied group of people. Although research has gone a long way to understand the affect of the disease, it only recently has begun to explain the stigma of mental illness (Corrigan). The  lives of people who

A Good Man Is Hard to Find By Flannery O’Connor Free Essays

Courtney BarnesPage 1 Intro to Lit. Prof. Rupp Feb 18 2013 You’ve Got Good Blood Literary Analysis of â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† By Flannery O’Connor â€Å"You’ve got good blood. We will write a custom essay sample on A Good Man Is Hard to Find By Flannery O’Connor or any similar topic only for you Order Now † â€Å"I know you come from nice people,(504) cried the grandmother. â€Å"Pray! †(505) she pleads using grace and religion to plead to the better nature of what she thinks is still a good man. The story â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† is about a family on vacation to Florida. The family takes a detour down a dirt road to look at an old plantation house that the grandmother tells a story about. She describes the house in such an intriguing way that most of the family is very eager to see it. However on the way the grandmother realizes that the house isn’t in Georgia at all but in fact in Tennessee, where she was longing to go instead of Florida. This startles her and she begins knocking things around and the cat jumps out of the basket landing on Bailey’s neck causing the car accident that leaves them stranded on the lonely road. When a passing car stops to help the grandmother quickly recognizes one of the men as â€Å"The Misfit†, a dangerous man who has escaped from prison. The grandmother confronts him and he tells her â€Å"It probably would have been better for your family if you had not recognized me at all lady. †(504) While the Page 2 Grandmother and the Misfit have a conversation about being a good man and how even a man who has turned bad can in fact be good again, the two men that came with the Misfit start breaking apart the family into small groups taking them into the woods to be shot and killed. While her family is being murdered in the woods behind her the Grandmother is pleading for her dear life shouting â€Å"I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! (507) She continued on conversing with the Misfit knowing her family was being brutally murdered, trying to persuade him back to a good man. She asks him what he did to go to prison in the first place and he tells her he don’t remember, but they tell him that he killed his dad and they must be right because they have the papers to prove it. As he goes on describing what has ha ppened to him and what they done to him the reader gets the impression that he was wrongfully convicted. The Grandmother goes on telling him to pray, pray, pray. If you would pray† â€Å"Jesus would help you† (507) She goes on telling the Misfit that God has the power to fix things and to bring people back from the dead. She stresses over and over again during the time of their conversation the importance and power of prayer. If you dig deeper into the meaning of the story you can also see that the Grandmother is also pleading and praying for her own forgiveness and life. After all it is her fault that her families fate had become this. The outcome of the story was all consequence of the direct actions of the Grandmother. If she hadn’t suggested visiting the old plantation and made up things to entice the family to want to go then they never would have been on that road. If she wouldn’t have brought the cat the accident wouldn’t have happened and if she wouldn’t have spoken of recognizing Page 3 â€Å"The Misfit† murderer then he wouldn’t have killed her and her family. She unknowingly led her family to their tragic deaths. In the story the Grandmother is but of course the prominent character. By showing imperfections in her character the author shows the biased property of grace that she possesses. The Grandmother is portrayed as a typical southern woman of this era. She even dresses very sophisticated for a car trip. She wants to make sure she is recognized as a woman. If she was in an accident â€Å"anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady. † The main theme of the story is religion. The plot intends to symbolize the spiritual grace passed from one human being to another with no regard to kindness or evil at all. You get a clear understanding of this in how the Grandmother misinterprets the word â€Å"good†. Grace is clearly used when the Grandmother say’s to the misfit â€Å"why you are one of my babies. You’re one of my own children! †(508) This was used to show him and get him to understand that they are both human beings. The Grandmother believes that because the Misfit is a good man that he cannot shoot a lady, his conscience just won’t allow it. This is where she misinterprets â€Å"good†. The Grandmother is the portrait of blind faith that so many of us operate daily from. She beliefs with all her soul that somewhere in this man is good if she digs deep enough she can bring it out in him. Despite all the bad things he has done, even in killing her family she appeals to the good side of him. Page 4 We all want to belief in the good of mankind. In the face of evil it’s that very hope and belief that bring back the balance of good to evil in the world. The story focuses on Christian beliefs and values depicts sin and punishment, belief and disbelief, good and evil. The Grandmother is representative of good and godliness. She reminisces on how times were good in her younger days and you could trust people The Misfit represents evil. At one point he symbolizes himself with Christ as they were both punished for crimes they did not commit. Christ died for the sins of others; however the Misfit murdered innocent people. The children in the story also play an underline role that you have to pay close attention in order to catch. They are the symbol of the breakdown of respect and discipline of future generations. In a way the story foreshadows into the way the world will be if we don’t teach our children respect for people and heritage. The Grandmother also plays a foreshadowing role when she warns her family of the Misfit and his crimes, â€Å"here this fellow calls himself the Misfit is a loose from the Federal Pen and headed to Florida. (497)†¦. giving the reader the first clue that the family will eventually run into the Misfit. Page 5 The author’s symbolism throughout the story represents faith/lack of, and death. When the family stray’s from the course in which they set out on where they eventually are murdered symbolizes how people often stray from their faith in Jesus. Even the town â⠂¬Å"Toombsboro† is a symbol of death. The graveyard on the plantation is a concrete symbol of death. â€Å"It was a big black battered hearselike automobile,† symbolizes death has arrived. The author brings the reader to the conclusion that modern society is drastically changing for the worse. Every day we see the evil growing and prevailing in our society. And in the story the author suggests that if everyone would find Jesus our society would once again operate on Christian morals, values and beliefs. If we teach our children about spirituality and respect while holding them to the up most standards we would be fixing the future of our nation. Works Cited â€Å" A Good Man is Hard to Find† Flannery O’Connor / Literature and its writers 6th edition 1955 How to cite A Good Man Is Hard to Find By Flannery O’Connor, Papers A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor Free Essays In â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find†, by Flannery O’Connor, the theme is grace, the idea that nothing we do can save us from our own faults. In the beginning of the story, the grandmother talks about how you cannot even trust anybody in the world, while she is actually being more untrustworthy than those of the world. After reading the story, you can see how her actions and her words are ironic because she is actually lying and cheating the family. We will write a custom essay sample on A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor or any similar topic only for you Order Now Analyzing the characters, setting, and irony of the story, we can see how trust is a major issue throughout the story and how they have a rather dysfunctional family. In â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find,† the characters are important because their thoughts and actions mold together and make the story what it is. If there were one character missing, the story would not be the same. The mother is a character that hardly plays any role, and hardly ever says anything. Also, in the wreck, the mother was the only one who got hurt. The main thing the mother does is take care of the baby. With that being said, the character of the baby is mostly just to take up the mother’s attention. Also, taking some of the grandmother’s attention when she holds the baby in her lap for only a few minutes during the ride. June Star is Bailey’s daughter. Throughout the story, we learn that she is a rather disrespectful little girl. She makes rude remarks to everyone like â€Å"I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks† (O’Connor, 408) to Red Sam’s wife when talking to the baby. For the most part, she is just a bothersome little girl. Her brother, John Wesley, is almost just as bad. During the story, he mostly torments the grandmother and kicks the father’s seat repeatedly throughout the whole car ride. He, along with June Star, is disappointed when they realize there were no fatalities in the car accident. Red Sam is the restaurant owner where the family stopped to eat. Red Sam states, â€Å"a good man is hard to find† (409), when explaining to the grandmother about the men who never paid their tab. He wants to see the good in everybody, but explains, â€Å"Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more. † (409) Bailey is the grandmother’s only son. He is June Star and John Wesley’s father, also the driver of the car. Bailey likes to think that he is in control of everything, when in reality he is not. He lets the grandmother persuade him into going to Tennessee instead of Florida, where he had primarily intended on taking his family. Bailey and John Wesley are one of the first the get shot after the accident. The grandmother in the story is rather manipulative. From the beginning to the end, she is constantly nagging and talking the family into different plans. Not only is she this way towards the family, but she also tries to talk the Misfit out of killing her and tries to convince him that he is a good boy. She does so by saying things like â€Å"You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (415). Also, the grandmother is very conceited; an example would be when the narrator says, â€Å"In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady† (406). The grandmother is so tied up with herself that she doesn’t want to admit when she is wrong, when on several occasions in the story, she is wrong. The Misfit is a character who comes along towards the end of the story. Arthur Bethea describes â€Å"The Misfit† is an anti-Christ. Jesus loved children, whereas children make the anti-Christ Misfit ‘nervous’† (247). He, along with his two-gang men, has escaped from prison and now on the loose. They come along after the accident, looking like they are going to be good Samaritans, when actually they turn out to be murderers on the run. Along with the role the characters play in the story, the setting is also essential in which it starts in the house, moves to the car, and ends in the woods. At the beginning of the story, all the characters are in the house in an unknown city, debating on where they will go on vacation. Of course, the grandmother does not want to go where Bailey has planned. After they argue and figure out where they will go, they get in the car and head for Tennessee. While riding in the car, the grandmother starts remembering her childhood and demands that Bailey go to an old plantation she remembered. Putting them off track, they end up on a dirt road in Georgia where the grandmother realizes but does not say that they are in the wrong spot. After having a car accident, they family ends up in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. Little by little, each character is taken into the woods and do not return. In the woods is where the story ends, where the Misfit and his gang members ultimately kill the whole family. The characters and the setting are both important, and they come together to create irony that is shown throughout the whole story. At the beginning of the story, the grandmother tells us â€Å"The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida† (405) this being her reasoning for not wanting to go to Florida. Little did they know, along the way, the grandmother would get them lost and lead them right into the Misfit’s path. Before coming intact with the Misfit, the grandmother had nothing good to say about him and judged him without knowing the slightest thing about him. Not until later, when coming face to face with him, she automatically changed her tone when she knew that her life was in jeopardy. Another example of irony would be dealing with the cat. At first, the cat was not supposed to come along on the trip. With the grandmother being so hardheaded, she brought the cat along anyways. The cat jumped up, which is when the accident happened. If the grandmother had just done as Bailey said and left the cat, then the accident may not have ever happened. After analyzing the characters, setting, and irony of â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find,† we see how these elements are essential for this story. We can see how certain behaviors of certain characters, like the Grandmother, lead to dangerous circumstances. If only the Grandmother would not have thought she was superior and had to have everything her way, the entire ruckus would not have happened. Work Cited Bethea Arthur F. â€Å"O’Connor’s A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. † Explicator 64. 4 (2006): 246-249. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Feb. 2013 O’Connor, Flannery. â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find. † Literature 8th ed. Eds Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. Boston:Wadsworth, 2013. 599-621. Print. How to cite A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, Papers

Disability in Society free essay sample

Students with disability have to confront many different barriers throughout the years they spend at school. Focusing on the issues relevent to one impairment group: 1) Clearly illustrate the effect that these barriers may have on the quality of education that they receive, and 2) Suggest steps and measures that can be taken for these disabling barriers in education to be minimized. Impairment can be defined as when one is unable to perform certain things due to being physically or mentally unfit. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) regards disability as neither purely biological nor social but instead the interaction between health conditions and environmental and personal factors. Disability can occur at three levels: †¢ an impairment in body function or structure, such as a cataract which prevents the passage of light and sensing of form, shape, and size of visual stimuli; †¢ a limitation in activity, such as the inability to read or move around; †¢ a restriction in participation, such as exclusion from school. The Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) states that â€Å"persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others† In the past, students with any type of impairment have been marginalised from society. Parents did not send them to school and they spent most of their days at home hiding from society. This was especially visible in those students who suffered from a physical impairment. Being physically impaired was considered to be a stigma. Nowadays the situation has improved. Students with a physical impairment are joining local schools and are no longer being hidden at home. The mentality within society that physically impaired people are some sort of other species has started to change, and in my opinion great progress has been done. However, having said this, there are still many barriers which physically impaired students have to encounter during  the days they spend at school. Throughout the years, models of disability have been developed. Models of disability help us to understand how people with impairments experience their disability. The two most influential models of disability are the medical model and the social model. The medical model states that disabled persons need to adapt themselves in order to fit into society and society need not make any changes to accom odate the disbaled persons. Disabled persons are seen as the problem in society and they must adapt. On the other hand, the social model (which has been developed by disabled persons) argues that society is responsible for the cause of disability due to the way it is organised and to the barriers which exist which discriminates against people with impairments and excludes them from involvement and participation. Therefore the social model states that society needs to cater for the needs of the disabled and eliminate the barriers which are present. Barriers for physically impaired people exist everywhere: at the work place, roads, shops, schools etc. I shall be focusing on barriers present at schools. Barriers which exist for physically impaired students within schools include: bullying, certain areas of the school which are not easily accessible, toilets which are not specifically designed for them, non inclusive education, other students do not integrate with him etc. All these barriers will obviously have an effect on the quality of education that a student with a physical impairment, such as Spina Bifida, will receive. In the case of bullying, it is quite obvious that the disabled student will not be enjoying his time at school. This will be making life at school hell for the student in a wheelchair. The student will thus not regard the school as a place where he can meet with his friends, socialize and learn. Therefore for this particular student, education will be inexistent within the school. Because education is not only based on academic achievement, bullying will not only reduce the quality of education received, it will eliminate education for the concerned student in my opinion. â€Å"Gathered in the school playground which seemed harmless in a simple sense echoed back to me in memory with most painful force. Words like ‘cripple’, ‘spas’, ‘mental’, ‘stupid’, ‘clumsy’, ‘blind as a bat’, and ‘deaf as a post’. † Sandy Slack in Corker and French (1999) Another barrier which has an effect on the quality of education that a child, with Spina Bifida confined in a wheelchair, will recieve is that certain parts of the school may be inaccesible or difficult to access for the child in the wheelchair. This can be quite of a problem especially if the school does not have a lift and a special WC. This can make simple things, like going into class, very difficult for a student in a wheelchair. They can make the student feel uncomfortable asking for assistance especially in the case of the WC. These situations might make the student see the school as an environment which is not suited for him, as a place where his needs are not catered for and also a place which presents situations that make him feel uncomfortable and perhaps shy. This will have an impact on the education he is receiving. Another barrier present in Maltese schools is the fact that most disabled students feel that they are alienated from their peers. They have very few friends and are unpopular. Most of the time other students label them by refering to them as less fortunate, crippled, brave etc. This puts them at a greater distance from their peers and has a great impact on their self-esteem. In an interview with parents of disabled students viewed on youtube the parents commented that their children were very sad when they were not invited for birthday parties and other events. Most of the times their children did not feel a sense of belonging in the schools and they started to dislike school and did not want to attend anymore. Their grades were also getting lower. In one particular case, the disabled child described friendship as the lack of malice rather than the sense of belonging and other traits which friendship is associated with. Therefore it can be seen that loneliness at school is a barrier which is reducing the quality of education being given. A lesson which does not include all the students is also a barrier for the disabled child’s education. Some lessons are not planned well to cater for the needs of a child who is physically impaired. The Physical Education lesson is one of the most evident cases where a child in a wheelchair is left on the side or simply stays tossing a ball on his own. A P. E lesson in which the physically impaired child is not included well within the lesson will make him feel greatly inferior to the other students and regard himself as a burden on other students when the teacher just puts him in a team to play with the others. In Paul Hunt’s seminal edited collection Stigma:The Experience of Disability (1966), Margaret Hill recollects her childhood memories of sport at school: â€Å"The ‘I wants’ of childhood become ‘I want to be normal’; ‘I want to run in races, play football, netball, tennis, like the others’. The reply from his classmates is invariably the hard truth: ‘We don’t want you; you are too slow; we shall never win if you are with us’; and when it is time to ‘pick teams’ the disabled child is always left until last† It is not only the P. E lesson which needs to be inclusive but all the other lessons which might involve some form of movement such as experiments in science and group work. All these barriers in education can be minimized if not also removed. In the case of bullying, schools can make an extra effort on the disabled children by keeping an extra eye on them to spot any bullying which is happening especially during break time. When this is spotted the teacher should stop it immediately, and tell the bullies that his life is already difficult as it is and try to make them emphatize with the disabled child. Communication with the parents is also important as the child might be experiencing bullying at school and only informing his parents about the issue. Helping the bullies understand his situation might make the accept him more and maybe become his friends. In the case of not being accepted and not having friends, the school might set up some social clubs during break time in which everyone is free to attend. The teachers can also spend some time during break speaking to the the disabled child if he is alone and can also invite other students to join in the conversation. This goes hand in hand with inclusion. If the child is included within the lessons this will help him to socialize and communicate with his peers. Inclusion is the key to breaking many barriers present in our schools. The inclusion policy can now be seen present in many of Malta’s school policies. This has been enforced by the Equal Opportunities (Persons with Disability) Act which was published in 2000. Maltese schools are nowadays giving equal opportunities to every student. Teachers must continue to be given training on how to put the inclusion policy into practice. I remember my secondary school P. E teacher who had organised a wheelchair race for us in order to include a particular student with Spina Bifida who was in a wheelchair. The student was extremely excited to show us how to use a wheelchair and surely felt included. This is a perfect example of how to put the inclusion policiy into practice and it’s benefits. In the case of the school not having the appropriate facilities to cater for physically disabled students the school can ask the government for some funds. The school might organise some fundraising events in order to collect enough money to be able to build the appropriate facilities. By doing this small effort we can all help in order to improve the quality of education being given to physically disabled students within Malta’s schools. This can only be done by working collectively together to bring down these barriers which are hindering the students from having truly a positive experience at school.