Ethical judgments about the use of embryonic stem cells in research and therapies flow from the status accorded to the embryo. Those who feel that an embryo is a human being, or should be treated as one because it has the potential to become a person, contend that it is unethical to do anything to an embryo that could not be done to a person. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people have expressed the view that the embryo is nothing more than a ball of cells that can be treated in a manner similar to tissues used in transplantation.
