Just Like Brave New World, Babies Will Be Made Without Mothers
Mitosis
The ultimate methodology of eugenics is to create specifically engineered humans from scratch in the laboratory, making obsolete the real wombs of youthful mothers. This was the exact model of Brave New World.⁃ TN Editor
Babies made without mothers could come sooner than we think, leading biologists claim.
Late last year, a team at the University of Bath discovered that sperm and skin cells – or any other kind of non-egg cell – might be all you need for conception.
At the time, they said the scenario of men conceiving with men was ‘speculative and fanciful’.
But in a new report published today, the top embryologists at Harvard and Brown Universities urge nations to begin contemplating the legal minefield that would surround mother-less babies.
‘With science and medicine hurtling forward at breakneck speed, the rapid transformation of reproductive and regenerative medicine may surprise us,’ they write.
‘Before the inevitable, society will be well advised to strike and maintain a vigorous public conversation on the ethical challenges of IVG [in vitro gametogenesis].’
Eggs can be tricked into developing into an embryo without fertilization, but the embryos, called parthenogenotes, die after a few days.
Scientists at Bath have developed a method of injecting mouse parthenogenotes with sperm so they can go on in many cases to become healthy pups.
Working with mice, the team produced healthy offspring while bypassing the normal process of fertilising an egg cell with sperm.
Although the embryos in the experiment started out as egg cells, the experiment raises the prospect that one day they could do the same with adult cells.
Writing in Science Translational Medicine, Dr. Eli Adashi of Brown University, I. Glenn Cohen, professor at Harvard Law School, and Dr. George Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, warn this is something that they have contemplated for a while.
‘These things may happen, and it may just be a question of time,’ said Dr Adashi, who has been tracking the development of IVG, mostly in Japan and the United Kingdom, since 2005.
For years, scientists at their institutions have been looking at the idea of IVG, which holds the promise of radically advancing fertility and the ability to intervene against disease at the pre- or post-embryonic stage.
But it also could lead to ethical nightmares – if people become empowered to create and choose among scores of embryos in the pursuit of ideal children, for example.
‘There’s something troubling about an inexhaustible supply of gametes that can be fertilized into an inexhaustible supply of embryos,’ said Dr Adashi, professor of medical science and former dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown University.
Producing sperm or eggs without the need for functioning reproductive organs could help patients for whom reproductive function has been lost.
0 comments:
Post a Comment