Growing babies for body parts?

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A post mentioning stem cell research made me think of this.

Would you support the use of laboratory babies/other artificially engineered life forms (up until the point that the life form could survive outside of the lab environment) to grow and harvest body parts for replacement. If so why? Or why not? What issues about this are most compelling? What line should not be crossed, if any? Do you think this will a tool of the future?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

Answers

That is one of the creepiest ideas I've ever heard. That could, literally, give me nightmares. Babies aren't meant to be like parts cars! The idea reminds me of something out of Oswald or Huxley. Harvesting organs from babies... GOOD GOD.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

Uh, Jarvis, you are seriously twisting the concept of stem cell and fetal tissue research--it does not involve "laboratory babies" or "artificially engineered life forms."

For those who don't know, stem cells are an extremely promising potential tool in the treatment of many neurological disorders, including paralysis, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease, and other diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. While research in this field is still at an early stage, clinical trials have already indicated that transplanting fetal brain tissue into the brains of Parkinson's patients results in a partial reversal of Parkinsonian damage--something that no other therapy has been shown to do.

Researchers have an ample supply of fetal tissue from aborted fetuses. However, until this past year, research was severely hampered by a government ban on funding of such research imposed under President Bush. President Clinton appointed an NIH commission to look into the issue. The commission issued a statement in December 1999 recommending that the government resume funding of such research, and it is currently compiling ethical guidelines for stem cell research.

Stem cell research is extremely likely to lengthen and improve the lives of millions of Americans. This is done by taking tissues from babies who are already dead because their mothers decided to have abortions. These mothers are not compensated in any way for providing this fetal tissue, so there is no added incentive for them to have an abortion.

Of course, this is not to say that people aren't having children for the purpose of spare parts now--there was a highly publicized case several years ago regarding a family who chose to have a child in hopes that that child would be a suitable bone marrow donor for their other child who was being treated for leukemia. The baby was a match, and ended up being a donor.

(Ironically, the link I provided is to a Christian Broadcasting Network article on the subject which hails the Ayalas as heroes. I doubt they would be so lavish in their praise of the mothers of stem cell donors.)

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000


Actually, I'm pretty sure the source for stem cells nowadays is from cord blood from the umbilical cords from live births. And so the research can continue, if people will donate them.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

Cord Blood Donation

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

Some cells come from cord blood, but I know that some research is also being done on ES cells harvested from aborted human fetuses.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000


This is in the news big stylee in the UK this week - it's going to get OKed any minute.

I'm anti-abortion, so the idea of it is pretty horrible to me. However, if my mother was dying of cancer or something and this could save her, I'm not sure whether I'd feel so strongly about it. So while I'm morally horrified, I can understand why people think it's a good idea.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000


Jackie, I think what you're referring to is that a British government panel just recommended that cloning of human embryos be allowed to go ahead, which is a related ethical debate.

Basically, cloning of human embryos would enable researchers to have access to an infinite supply of fetal tissue without having to harvest it from aborted fetuses--you would take the cells from one fetus and then cause them to reproduce.

I don't understand why even an abortion opponent would find this "horrifying." After all, these abortions will happen whether or not fetal tissue research exists or not. This is just a way of using tissue which would otherwise end up in an incinerator and using it to help people.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000


Jennifer, I find it horrifying because it's the deliberate creation of human fotuses to be used as spare parts. They're not spare parts ... they're human fotuses, regardless of whether or not they were 'grown' from aborted cells or not.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Cloning of fetal cells is the creation of life for the purpose of spare parts--but it is NOT the creation of fetuses, because those cells are grown in petri dishes, and it's not technologically possible for them to actually develop into a human being.

However, current fetal tissue research is done using tissue from aborted fetuses, which in most cases are probably not created "deliberately."

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000


Yes, but I have big cloning issues as well. I'm just a big bundle of uncertainty and moral doubt when it comes to things like this. However, I do recognise my views on this could change if somebody I knew was benefiting from it, and I can understand the reasoning behind this research - it's just a bit 'science gone mad' for me.

Maybe I need to start relying on healers and writing on a slate ... I don't know.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000



Well, I definitely think that there have to be limits on cloning research and on use of embryonic tissues, but I think it's unfortunate that there's a natural tendency for people to be completely freaked out by this sort of research and dismiss its practices as unethical out of hand.

This stance is especially common among politicians, unfortunately. In the U.S., political candidates on both the right and the left have raised objections to this sort of research (both the Greens and the Republicans are opposed to it).

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000


Jarvis' question brings up something that's a frequent item in a lot of R.A. Heinlein's novels - people having a clone of themselves (grown in a lab, never conscious) to replace old or broken body parts. Bad heart? Here, replace it. Etc, etc, etc. It's a fascinating idea, but ethics would be such a huge debate that I doubt it would be common practice, even if there was ever the technology to do so.

I would support it, having so many loved ones with things wrong with them. If one of my closest friends could get a new pancreas and not have to worry about diabetes anymore, that would be grand. If my mother could get a new liver instead of one scarred and dying from hepatitis C, I would do anything. I support it wholeheartedly.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000


Stem cells are more commonly collected from surplus embryos created during in vitro fertilization. Once the parents have had all the children they want, they are given the choice of having the unused embryos destroyed or donated. Any number of stem cells can be grown in a lab from the donated embryo.

The term embryo is kind of misleading here as people tend to picture tiny babies. What's frozen is, at most, a blastocyst. That's a hollow sphere of cells that can only be seen under a microscope.

The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance website has some interesting ideas and info on both practical and ethical considerations on a lot of topics. They seem very even handed. Their embryo and stem cell research area is at

By the way, I support stem cell research. I'd have to hear more about theraputic cloning and give it a lot more thought before I'd commit to an opinion on it.

midori

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000


let's try that link again: http://www.relig ioustolerance.org/emb_rese.htm

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

In Heinlein's novels, the clones (and genetic code) were the property of the person they were cloned from. Absolutely no one else had access to that clone. Not the government, not industry, not researchers. And it was thought incredibly unethical when Lazarus Long's clone was used without his knowledge to provide a foot for one of his many children.

I think that's an interesting way to resolve the ethical issues that arise from human genomics. Individuals would have ownership of their genetic code and it would be their prerogative to decide what to do with it. I also think that it's not going to happen that way. It's far too much of a Utopian vision -- predicated on the idea of the existence of this society of super-long-lived and hence not selfish and grasping humans, who kept moving through the galaxy, leaving anyone who started to turn into "homo neophobus" behind at every step.

Heinlein was a nasty old fascist, but he also brought up a lot of interesting issues in science/medicine/human evolution long before any of this human genome business got off the ground. The notion of the Howard Foundation (essentially a traditional stock-breeding program for humans aimed at increasing lifespan) existing in the 1800s, prior to any understanding of molecular biology -- it's pure science-fiction genius. And the long-lived humans maintaining anonymity until the modern electronic/identification-obsessed culture developed. Almost makes you wonder if it didn't/why it didn't actually happen.

Copyright your DNA!

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000



Jackie, out of curiosity, what are your problems with cloning? I've heard some people say they have problems, but I've never heard anyone articulate them.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

A lot of people do seem to regard cloning as primarily being of live beings, whereas afaik most cloning is being done on single cells (not even single-cell organisms, just single cells). Think about it. You're a medical researcher or a biochemist and you want to see how cells will react to infection and/or treatment - making clones of a single cell allows you to eliminate the uncertainty error from genetic variations between cells.

The Heinlein solution of everybody having a brainless clone to provide transplantable organs is very neat and tidy, but in real life I doubt it would be economically feasible. Leaving aside all moral considerations, it's just plain expensive to maintain a living body on artificial respiration.



-- Anonymous, August 20, 2000

I need help with leukemia. I need information on body part/system affected. Symptoms/sign/statistics/treatment/side effects of treatments/analyyxe the cause/lifestyles/genetics/heredity/short term/ long term/interconnect between ffive component/social/physicial/ mental/emotional/spiritual of health

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2001

Well, then, you've come to the right place!

Actually, you haven't. I'm not sure what led you to this forum topic, but this is a general discussion message board, not a medical information site. Best of luck to you, though.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2001


Damn those homework deadlines!

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2001

Why does cloning freak people out so much? I mean, identical twins have identical DNA; so what? It doesn't freaking matter, man! They're still different people.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001

Cloning freaks people out for a number of reasons. Here are just a few off the top of my head:

1. Current mammalian cloning techniques have a high failure rate. With the current technology, attempts to clone a human will inevitably result in many failed experiments resulting in the creation of people with serious genomic abnormalities.

2. Ethical guidelines have not been established for human cloning. Should people be allowed to "own" their genetic code? What if people sold cloned embryos and thousands of copies of the same child got sold?

3. Many people have ethical issues with the concept of creating a "customized" human. The current practice of accomplished people selling their sperm and eggs at outrageous prices to couples who want a baby with a Harvard pedigree or a tendency to be tall and thin is considered unethical by many. Cloning would take this customization even further.

The normal human reproductive process of genetic recombination has been the keystone of our evolution. Identical twins are a rare phenomenon. We don't know what the long-term effects of introducing multiple individuals with the same genetic code into our population will be. Decreased genetic diversity would leave us collectively more susceptible to disease as well as reducing the diversity of our collective talent pool.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001


That was one of them there rhetorical questions.

I'd say for most people the root cause is ignorance.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2001


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