Do you have a cite for this, because it was my impression that aborted fetuses are never, or very rarely, the source of embryotic stem cells for research.
For one, they are not embryos anymore, but fetuses. Where would the pluripotent stem cells be coming from?
IVF blastocysts are, or would be, better sources, and most of them are destroyed anyways as well.
Perhaps not. But it is potentially harmful to the mother’s health to have repeated pregnancies and abortions. And I think from a pragmatic standpoint, it makes sense to discourage excessive abortions because they’re controversial and might cause backlash.
You are absolutely correct. Aborted fetuses would be in fact almost useless for the derivation of ES cell lines. ES cell lines are derived from blastocysts at 4-5 days past conception.
I was referring to tissue banks derived from aborted fetuses that are used for immunohistochemistry or quantitative PCR–studies that assess the expression of various genes.
Unless it’s actually harmful I don’t see the point.
There’s already opposition to abortion and to stem cell research. Is that opposition sensible and is it a reason to change policies or limit research, though? From what I’m seeing, the answer is no.
But it certainly is in some cases. There’s documented cases of toxic shock following pharmacologically-induced and surgical abortions. Trauma to the reproductive tract can occur. Uterine hemorrhage sometimes occurs. Furthermore, there’s huge emotional and psychological effects that come with being pregnant and then subsequently having an abortion.
I mean the vast, vast majority of abortions go off without a hitch, and I’m in favor of loosening restrictions on abortions in most circumstances. I just think we should work to minimize abortions as a practical matter because they are somewhat invasive and controversial medical procedures.
I’m wandering somewhat far afield here on the following point (ethics doesn’t really enter into it), but it hopefully will address my primary objection to what you’re saying, Marley.
Getting your appendix taken out is no big deal. Almost always goes just fine. There’s tons of appendix tissue available for study. Let’s say you’re interested in studying the appendix. I recommend using the appendices that are removed every day from patients in which it is inflamed. In about a fifth of cases, appendicitis is misdiagnosed but the appendix is generally removed anyway–so you can even get healthy appendix if you want it. I would not recommend taking your own appendix out so you can study it. Right?
The abortion hypothetical is provided because a human conceptus is purposefully terminated for the purposes of scientific gain, which I feel has bearing on the ethical issue of human cloning for research or therapeutic purposes. I see the current situation of harvesting from leftover IVF embryos as more or less incidental since the embryos are fated to be destroyed anyway. I don’t want to mislead anyone into an abortion debate.
I’m a biologist, and I although I haven’t done any cloning myself, I know and have collaborated with people in several labs who are pursuing both animal cloning and human therapeutic cloning experiments. There are two different types of cloning, that both get called “cloning” but are quite different in end result:
Therapeutic cloning. The goal of this is to produce patient-matched cells that can be used in medical procedures or for research. No-one objects to this (as such) except for right-to-lifers who don’t approve of the use of human oocytes/embryos for research; there are some methods being investigated that don’t use embryos, or which use animal embryos, which may bypass this objection. Note that therapeutic cloning explicitly does not involve re-implantation of the cloned embryos; therefore, no baby can result. (There are some practical objections at the moment that preclude direct therapeutic use of the cloned cells produced to date, but hopefully the relevant technical issues will soon be resolved. There are also some ethical issues, mainly related to privacy, that are not very different from currently-dealt-with issues regarding any cultured cells of human origin.)
Reproductive cloning. The goal of this is to produce a baby. Absolutely everyone on the scientific side objects to this, at least given the current state of the art, because the animal cloning experiments done to date indicate that the resulting child would be overwhelmingly likely to have severe health issues. This is probably an inherent limitation of the method used to produce clones at the current time; it is potentially possible that improved methods may produce healthy offspring, but no strong candidates for such are currently known. Even if the methodological issues are resolved, however, there are immense ethical problems associated with reproductive cloning, most having to do with the welfare of the resulting child, and no particularly good arguments in favor, aside from the narcissistic pleasure parents may get from having a child genetically identical to themselves.
This is an argument for therapeutic cloning but not for reproductive cloning.
Shouldn’t that be phrased “the narcissistic pleasure a parent may get from having a child genetically identical to him- or herself”?
Well, now – this is an extraordinarily informative post. I try to follow general trends in a variety of areas, but my woeful ignorance is plain – I didn’t understand the difference between theraputic and reproductive cloning, nor did I know that the former is both legal and considered fruitful.
I’m off to do some research to attempt to educate myself a little better, but from what you’ve said, this is a reasonable and principled distinction.
Glad to be of assistance. 