“So far, scientists have obtained embryonic stem cells by taking groups of cells from early embryos before they implant in the uterus. However, this process involves the destruction of the embryo.<\/p>\nLanza’s new paper improves on research his team did last year. In that study, the Massachusetts group succeeded in cultivating mouse embryonic stem cell lines by removing just one cell from the mouse embryo. The procedure is similar to that used for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, used to check for genetic disorders during in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this case, the mouse embryos survived.<\/p>\n
But then, a roadblock. “We tried to apply that to a human system and found that it does not work,” Lanza said. “We had to work out a different technique and initially we weren’t sure that it was going to work. It was pretty tough. Eventually it worked like a charm.”<\/em><\/p>\n
Key word “eventually”…how many living human individuals lost their lives in this experiment to begin with? Was that ethical? <\/p>\n
2. Assuming that it is absolutely true that the embryo is not compromised at all by the removal of one cell, is it ethical to force living donation without permission of the doner? <\/p>\n
3. I for one doubt very much that this removal is as benign as quoted. How would you prove that? I remember our embryologist telling us that even if a few of the cells of any given embryo had been damaged by the cryo process, the embryo COULD go on to develop normally. He teasingly said “Just because a cell has died doesn’t mean the child will be born without an arm.” However, this embryologist was not able to say that because A cell had died the child WOULD live…only that it COULD. Therefore, do we KNOW beyond shadow of a doubt that we aren’t jeopardizing the life of the embryo by removing cell(s)? <\/p>\n
Here is a scenario: You have three 10 celled blastocysts. All three have one cell removed making them 9 celled blastocysts. Twins are born, one is miscarried. Why did baby three miscarry? Would the scientific community KNOW that the third child didn’t miscarry BECAUSE of the cell removal? Would they use the survival of the twins to prove cell removal irrelevant? Twin survival wouldn’t prove that. It could simply indicate survival of the fittest. Who is to say the 9 celled embryo wouldn’t have continued development had the cell removal not happened? For example, some may say the abortificient quality of birth control is “bunk” because some people do carry children to term after conceiving while on birth control. Because SOME survived does not prove that others weren’t so lucky. Following me?<\/p>\n
4. Jim and I don’t believe in “growing” embryos to begin with. The reason that embryos are grown to a blastocyst stage is that the assumption is if they are healthy enough to survive outside of the womb to a blast stage, they have a better chance in the womb. This allows Dr.s to narrow down their picks for transfer to the “healthiest” embryos. Survival of the fittest at its best (or worst). Who is to say that the embryo that died during the grow process wouldn’t have lived if it was at home in mama in it’s God ordained environment? By the way, Tanner was frozen as a 2 pro nuclei embryo. He was not grown. Our Dr. therefore had no way of knowing if Tanner was a “healthy” embryo or not. Often times in this scenario they will ask the parents to allow them to grow the 2 PN embryo to a blast before transfer. If they survive that long, the transfer has a better chance. If they don’t, you don’t spend money on a transfer that would “likely” have been unsuccessful (according to their reasoning). Our Dr. did not ask us to grow them but we were already prepared to say NO to this. So, if this research can only be done at the blastocyst stage, is that putting embryos at risk? Jim and I believe yes and the medical community has not been able to sufficiently convince us otherwise. When in doubt, you don’t jeopardize life. <\/p>\n
5. Are these embryos from a fresh transfer or are they cryopreserved? If cryopreserved (which I would assume based on the quantities scientists would want), cryopreservation itself can cause cell death. Cryopreserving an embryo may cause death. We know this first hand – that was the cause of death for one of our children. Thus why Jim and I don’t support cryopreservation.<\/p>\n
6. In order to get the embryos in the first place, we are putting women on potentially harmful drugs to increase egg development. Another thing I have first hand experience with.<\/p>\n
7. I confess to being a skeptic but I do not think this new form of research was performed out of respect to embryos. It writes as though saving the life of the embryo would solve all ethical dilemmas. It doesn’t say though how these scientists are getting the embryos in the first place? Are we supposed to believe that only embryos on their way into the womb are having a cell removed? My point…there is a whole other ethical dilemma involved with creating embryos for research. Even if scientists invented a “but we didn’t kill the embryo” loop hole, that is not to say that the embryo post cell removal is going straight into mama’s womb. It may be going right back in the freezer at risk all over of abandonment and or cell death from the freeze. For this reason, I doubt this new research was ever promoted by conscious over human life…I think it is more likely that scientists gave their research a face lift to get ESCR through legislation and the end result will be embryos on demand with no respect for allowing the embryo the opportunity to continue development to birth. How does this respect life?<\/p>\n
So….for now…this “compromise” will not satisfy me. It is not ethical to perform research on any living human without their express permission. Adult stem cell research has had phenomenal results and is totally ethical. Let’s be compassionate and choose the win-win!!!<\/p>\n
UPDATEat 11:30 PM: Another snowflake mom sent me THIS <\/a><\/strong>refuting article tonight. Maybe I SHOULD be an ethicist because we both said essentially the same things. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"…an ethicist when I grow up. \ud83d\ude42 Last month it was a political commentator, this week bioethics. Just continuing to expand my horizons. My sister in love Christine emailed an article to me this week that she thought I would find interesting. She was right \ud83d\ude42 . This article takes on a new edge to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mamas-diaries"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}