The embryonic stem cell research debate recently made headlines and garnered, if possible, even more public attention when United States President Barack Obama announced that his government would reinstate federal funding to embryonic stem cell research laboratories. This brought up ethical questions about the nature of life, when life begins, and at what point does one life outweigh another. Whatever side of the debate you take, it is important to be thoroughly educated about the subject at hand before making a definitive statement about the moral and ethical issues surrounding the embryonic stem cell research debate.

Whenever you are dealing with a highly technical or subjective matter, it is important to go beyond the news media as your information source. Because embryonic stem cell research is simultaneously technical, subjective, and highly emotional, this is especially important. News media, though they are intended to report impartially, tend to slant an issue in one way or another without ever really giving the full picture. If you are going to make an informed decision, it is up to you to inform and educate yourself so that you can form an opinion and be able to stick with it.

Libraries are a great source of information, whether you are looking for theological information, biological, or technical information about how humans develop in utero or about what the technical details are about stem cell research. What kinds of tests are being done? What illnesses are scientists looking to treat? How is it decided which stem cells are used and from what source? These are all questions that an opinionated voter should be able to answer for his or her own satisfaction.

Aristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." With that notion in mind, whatever side of the embryonic stem cell research debate you fall on, be sure that you have carefully considered and scrutinized the other side of the debate, for only then will you be able to form a truly educated opinion, and an uniformed choice is really no choice at all.