When people talk about using embryos for stem cell research, the word “embryo” tends to conjure the mental picture of something like this which isn’t what they’re researching on since their subjects are a lot more like this. At the point in development that the embryos are useful they’re just a few cells. If you took one away, it could grow another embryo just like the first; that’s how identical twins form in nature. If the embryo was four cells, you could split those four cells and make identical quadruplets and so on up until the time the cells become to specialize.
This in mind, I’ve begun to wonder about something… What if cells for stem cell lines were taken from an embryo that would go on to become a baby? If one or two cells are removed to provide a new stem cell line, and the rest are implanted in Mommy as was planned when his parents used IVF in the first place, producing little Timmy nine months from now. All along Timmy’s one or two cells that he didn’t really need anyway are helping cure disease.
Since Timmy is born anyway, would that be more or less controversial? The research wouldn’t cause babies not to exist, right? I’d think that would sooth the minds of people who have that objection, anyway. But would the controversy die down if something like this was implemented, or would it instead turn to the fate of Timmy’s poor octuplet siblings, who, even though they weren’t “supposed to be” babies like Timmy was, are never going to be born…Or is the American public saner than that?
And would many people who are both having fertility difficulties and think stem cell research is right, volunteer to give science a cell or two of their unborn? Or would the fear of intervening leading to the embryo not implanting and expense (if this lead to them having to do it again in order to have a successful pregnancy) mean there would be no takers?
Suppose that CNN announces tomorrow that a leading stem cell research team is planning to talk to prospective parents about doing this. Does the stem cell debate become more or less heated?