Explain the current state of stem cell research and provide a pro and con argument for its expansion

In 2009, President Obama removed limits on federal funding of stem cell research and
called for the National Institutes of Health to produce new guidelines covering the process within 120 days. Advocates believe this will lead to therapies that will revolutionize medicine while critics condemn the research as immoral. Those who argue against stem cell research generally do so on the basis of a duty argument that life is sacred and that life begins with conception. No duty-oriented argument could be made for taking the life of a child or adult in order to make raw material for biotechnical research. Assuming that you place human life at conception, then it would seem that these embryos would also fall within this argument. Those who argue for the use of human embryos for stem cell research generally do it on the basis of utilitarian reasoning. They argue that the benefits from stem cell research are of such great magnitude that the required destruction of human embryos in the process, especially ones that are to be discarded anyway, while not desirable, is permissible.