Researching on Embryos?

Posted by Joanna Karpasea-Jones Aug 9, 2009

Firstly let me say I fully empathize with couples going through the agony of infertility. I myself have suffered from several miscarriages, a threatened miscarriage, repeated infections and vulvodynia - preventing me from getting pregnant for nearly a year. I was told at one stage I probably would not be able to have children, which spurred my desire to be an egg donor a few years later.

However, I confess to feeling physicially sick whenever I read study papers on stem cell research.

I personally believe that human life begins the moment sperm and egg join, as the full genetic blueprint for that human life is there, from the gender of the child to what color eyes he will have and how tall he will be when he is fully grown. Even some aspects of his personality are determined by genetics.

Proponents of embryonic research say that none of this has developed yet and the cluster of cells does not have a human consciousness and this is true, but the blueprint is already there and if allowed to unfold without intervention, the embryo will develop into a fully formed human being in the majority of cases.

It seems rather perverse to be doing all this research to create babies for infertile couples by testing on embryos, which are, after all, unborn babies themselves. I see an embryo has a baby in an early stage of development, just like a baby in any other stage. Crawling, eating solid food and learning to walk are all stages like this, just later stages. Would society think it acceptable to test on a crawling baby in this way?

I love the idea of being able to grow stem cells and I have numerous ill health problems. I would love new brain cells so I could recover from cerebral palsy. I would love new ears to replace my nerve damaged ones and I could say goodbye to my female health problems forever if I could just grow new nerves, but I couldn't in good conscience, use another human being to achieve that aim.

Scientists have known for years that they can obtain stem cells from the umbilical cords of babies. Would it not be more ethical to use these to grow new cells? The baby would not know anything about it and no one else's life is wasted as a result. Could sperm be grown from the cord blood of male babies?

Or would it be better to research in preventing infertility rather than trying to fix it after it has already happened?