Embryo Research Flashcards
Embryo
The earliest stage of development of a human being.
Sanctity of life
The belief that life is sacred/holy and belongs to God. God is the only being with the power over life and death.
Possible benefits of embryo cloning
- understand and prevent miscarriages
-more effective contraceptives
-prevent growth of cancer
-testes for inherited diseases
-increases success rate for IVF
-potential sibling donors frozen
-twins rather than 2 pregnancies
Therapeutic cloning- potential uses
Organ transplants :
-no rejection of transplant
-no pain or risk to ‘donor’
-no waiting lists
-organs would be brand new
-lives saved
Cure for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and others
Treatment for diabetes, paralysis and countless other conditions
Cloning
-Embryo is referring to earliest stages of human development up to the beginning of the third month of pregnancy.
-After which it is called a foetus.
-Embryo research is where scientists extract ‘embryonic stem cells’ from human embryos, mainly those that have been left over from IVF.
What are embryonic stem cells?
-They are those cells from which all the 200+ kinds of tissue in the human body originate.
-Human embryo research is undertaken because animal embryos are not sufficiently compatible to be used in research affecting humans.
-The aim of embryo testing is to find cures for the diseases that affect humans, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Uk law on embryo research
-UK law allows experimentation on human embryos up to the 14th day.
-The reason it is this day, so the argument goes, is that this is the point in an embryo’s development when the individual person starts to develop.
Therapeutic cloning
-Stem Cell Research.
-Stem Cell Research could provide cures for a variety of illnesses and diseases
What is therapeutic cloning?
-A more reliable method for carrying out this research is to make an ‘embryonic clone’ of the patient.
-Cloning is the name given to a process by which scientists make biological duplicates of an organism.
-The embryonic clone is destroyed to harvest its stem cells.
-This is called ‘therapeutic cloning’, and since the cells are cloned from the patient, they are less likely to be rejected by the patient’s immune system.
-Therapeutic cloning has the potential to lead to cures for a whole range of diseases and conditions, including diabetes, stroke, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and heart failure.
Ethical concerns of cloning
-Harvesting’ embryonic stem cells destroys the embryo, in order to extract its cells.
-Is the embryo to be seen as a person? If the embryo is regarded as a person, then it has rights and killing it can be seen as murder.
-Cloning is seen by some as ‘playing God’.
Designer babies
-DB are the result of the editing of DNA cells or embryos.
-An embryo is first made with IVF. Within 5 days a single cell is removed from the embryo and genetically tested.
-If the parents decide to go further, it is implanted in the mother’s womb or else it is destroyed.
-The process of genetic selection of the embryo is called Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), which means doctors can check for conditions such as Down’s Syndrome and cystic fibrosis.
-This information can be used to select the sex of the child, to treat a sick sibling and eventually it will become possible to engineer the intelligence and appearance of children.
DB right or wrong?
-Designer babies are something which are often up for debate in politics.
-With people who can afford it already starting to select the gender of their baby.
-Chrissy Teigen and John Legend picked the gender of their first baby and chose a girl. Many doctors in America called the practice ‘unethical’.
Ethical threats of DB
-Gene selection: PGD means we can select the embryo without disease to implant in woman. But also, can check other traits, I.e., sex or eye colour.
-Could affect human evolution. Could reduce human suffering, eliminating disease, but could also eradicate some human traits.
-Mistakes are made in research, which have social and political effects. Immigration act 1920s AMERICA based on incorrect scientific data, suggested DNA from Nordic (Northwest Europe) countries were healthier, so based their policies on this.
-Rich kids are on average 10/15% healthier and achieve better grades at school. Only rich can afford this process, meaning this will increase even further and widen the gap between rich and poor.
Dystopia
We could create a society for the rich and a society for the poor. Rich people could ask doctors to engineer their children with superior physiques, intellect or beauty. Poor people would have no access to this technology.
Valuing a child based on personal preference.
-I value these things, so I want to give my child these things.
-Do we want this scenario? A parent may not value sports, but their child could be good at them.
-A parent may not value artistic ability, but their child could be good at it. This means we value a child for what we want them to be rather than what they are.
