“Everybody has a father and a mother…” that’s a
truth universally acknowledged; however, how would you react if I said that in
a close future there could be children with just one parent?
This is going to be possible thank to the magic
of stem cells. Researchers at Tokyo University
in Japan have developed sperm and egg cells from stem cell in mice, fertilizing
them to create healthy offspring. The
leader of the team sustains that stem cells can morph into any cell, including
the reproductive ones, so babies might de conceived using those cells from one parent
(man or woman).
Hank
Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University claims that it is a big step in reproductive medicine, considering all the gay and lesbian couples who would be capable
of having their own children, who will be genetically their own. Women who have
passed their childbearing years or who are infertile for medical reasons could
be also beneficiated by this discovery.
The next step in the research is to perform the
experiment using human stem cell, but due to the similarity between humans and
mice, there are highly chances of duplicate the results successfully.
As any other genetic experiment, there are a lot
of moral questions to solve. Is morally acceptable to create children using
this method? Would this newborn be a clone from its parent? Is this the beginning of
an even more individual society?
In response to the first question, Daniel
Sulmasy, a professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Chicago said: “Whatever we’ve done in humankind — whether
it’s discovering fire or creating the wheel — you can use these things to do
lots of good and you can use them immoral ways.”
(For further information please visit: http://www.advocate.com/health/health-news/2012/10/05/fertility-research-opens-possibilities-gay-and-lesbian-couples
and http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/10/03/science.1226889.full)
