Abortion is always a personal and touchy subject. My parents were pregnant with me at 18 years old. At the age of two months, I already had my first brush with death, and I am thankful every day my parents chose to keep and raise me to be the woman I am today.

The recently proposed law on limiting stem cell research is not an assault on the university or scientific exploration, but an ethical approach toward stem cell research. This is evident in the narrowly tailored language of the bill.

The proposed legislation prohibits a person from receiving or transferring a fetal body part, whether it is for money or experimentation. A fetal body part is defined as “a cell, tissue, organ, or other part of an unborn child … who is aborted by an induced abortion.”

It specifically prohibits researching only on aborted fetuses. It does not exclude research on adult stem cells, miscarriages, stillborn children, umbilical cords, placenta, amniotic fluid or frozen human embryos donated by women using in vitro fertilization. This leave plenty of options open to researchers and alternative means for stem cell tissue.

I understand the arguments for such research – the abandoned fetuses will just be thrown away otherwise, so they might as well be used for some good – but the ends never justify the means.

Science will always need to be held accountable to ethical standards such as morals and human dignity. This will prove more difficult as science advances through human testing, cloning and possibly artificial intelligence. But, the farther we go, the more cautious we need to be.

This bill will go a long way toward protecting the humanity of a life tragically lost. No longer would aborted fetuses be leftover scraps their mothers toss to the side so researchers can swoop in to experiment and use them for own ends. The life of the child taken unjustly from the world will at least maintain the only thing it has left: dignity.

The current practice devalues humanity, something civilization should always continue to protect. Once the life of a human becomes less valuable than that of scientific research, abuse will run rampant and humanity will be lost.

It is true that it is impossible for me to separate my beliefs on abortion from the use of this type of stem cell research. My colleagues might say this is a bad thing, that I need to separate religion and morals from such scientific decisions. However, in a world of secularism and atheism, my religious beliefs are often all I have and I will always hold them close to my heart.