The BBC tell here how a new technique has been developed whereby an egg can be fertilised by any cell from the body; no sperm required.
This was developed as a new fertility treatment which could benefit infertile men, but I take it this is exciting news for lesbian couples, who could now have a baby girl of their very own.
What do you see as the ethical implications of this (if any)? It could come to the point (if we later found a way to treat genetic disorders easily) where a person could have a baby with themselves…
Mangetout: I suppose so, technically, but it feels different to me. I think a couple would prefer a child that was biologically both of theirs, rather than a clone of one of them.
And what about kabbes point. Are males now biologically redundant?
Do you consider there to be any moral issues in this at all? No human child has ever had two female parents…
If you fertillized one of your own eggs it would be different than cloning. This process is called “selfing” and occurs in many species that produce both male and female gametes, the most obvious examples being plants. Most plants produce both types of gametes. Some have flower structures that inhibit selfing, others have flowers that promote it. For instance, some peas have flowers that only open after the ovary has been fertillized, so the only source of pollen is from the flower itself.
The process wouldn’t create a clone, since the offspring would have a reshuffled genome. Most individuals have plenty of heterozygous alleles, so the offspring would inherit in a classic punnet square fashion…half would be heterozygous like the parent, one quarter homozygous dominant and one quarter homozygous recessive. So the offspring wouldn’t be exactly identical to the parents, but still much closer than a typical child, sibling, or parent.
However, I imagine that this wouldn’t be a good idea for most mammals. Plants that do this typically produce thousands of seeds. If one seed gets two doses of a lethal recessive, it simply fails to develop, no big deal. But humans have a different reproductive strategy. Having even one child with severe deleterious recessives would be a disaster. So, human selfing is almost certainly a bad idea. Human cloning however, would simply produce a copy of the parent, and so it wouldn’t expose the deleterious recessives.
I think it will be great for lesbians. I don’t think there will be as many problems as with cloning. I doubt the male species will be wiped out, all females aren’t lesbians.
I personally find the news very exciting. As a lesbian, I would love to have a child of mine be the direct biological child of myself and my partner. (Or at least have it be an option up there with adoption.)
I don’t imagine it will be an excessively popular option, but I’d be grateful to have it.
See “I Shot Andy Warhol”. The woman who shot him was the founder of SCUM…the Society for Cutting Up Men, a rabid male-hater. I imagine she’d be pleased by the news that men were not required for reproduction.
Just thought I’d point out a major difference between this fertilization and cloning:
The daughter produced by this fertilization will have her own combination of chromosomes and not be a copy of either parent.
If I understand the story correctly, they induce meiosis in somatic cells, so genetically, it would be as if the donor were donating sperm, even if the cell came from a donors breast.
So, except for the lack of sex involved, I don’t see the problem. (Of course, this presumes all the practical problems are worked out, since they haven’t even been able to produce a live birth with the process.)
I think I understand. So AHunter3 is implying membership in this group? Am I the only one that thinks that linking to a hate-filled diatribe against half the human race is, at the very least, kinda pushing the “don’t be a jerk” rule?
Although I can understand your distress, since men are the only group (besides fat people!) which can be almost universally belittled with impunity in “polite” society in the US today, I think AHunter3 is making a joke. My perception is that the joke is not against men, but against SCUM. Valerie Solanas was an intelligent but very mentally ill individual whose writings are amusing in much the same way that Chick Tracts are. The fact that one acknowledges their existence does not imply that one is in agreement with their contents. The “Eat your heart out, Andy Warhol” comment was kind of borderline, considering that Ms. Solanas nearly murdered him outright, and that I am given to understand that lingering complications from the shooting contributed to his eventual death, but even GD is no stranger to a little archness sometimes.
Add me to the list of people who would like (or “would have liked,” since my wife is dead) to have a biological baby with my female partner. As it was, the only sperm-donor options available would have been her father or her brother, which was too creepy to contemplate! The clone question is kind of dicey, though. I don’t know if I would be comfortable raising a child who would have to face the knowledge of her own biological non-uniqueness. It doesn’t help that I just saw A.I. yesterday.
Originally posted by casdave:
casdave, I don’t know how this has anything to do with the subject at hand, which is reproduction without male gametes. Divorce is not the issue, nor is alimony (properly known as “maintenance” or “spousal support,” and equally applicable to both ex-husbands and ex-wives). In addition, alimony is rarely awarded these days, and when it is, it is usual for a finite period of time. If you or someone you know has been burned in a bad divorce and are bitter, I can understand, but your posting here implies an anger which is so strong that it permeates any discussion revolving around women. I find that I am almost as disturbed by it as The Ryan was about the S.C.U.M. Manifesto reference. Why not start a thread about your subject? GD, MPMIMS, IMHO or The Pit – your choice, depending upon the slant you take in your OP.
