Exclusive: Breakthrough could aid research into genetic disorders but raises serious ethical and legal issues
  • disdyakis@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    I wonder what exactly about this innovation is, ethically speaking, problematic. The article says the embryo possesses no brain or heart. Sure, I could see this eventually being used to create artificial humans, but right now, this is huge for just growing organs. I personally don’t even see a problem with real humans being grown. It means people no longer need sex to make children. Of course, this could potentially lead to eugenics issues and designer babies, but that’s problem which you shouldn’t fix with a blanket ban on this incredible science. That’s a problem which you fix using dedicated restrictions on eugenics- not artificially grown embryos.

    • Kevin Herrera@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      The only questions I have are:

      1. Whose DNA is this from?
      2. Do they know what researchers are doing with it?
      3. What qualities or abnormalities does this DNA have?
      4. What safeguards are in place to prevent it from fully developing?
      • cnnrduncan@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        According to the article it seems like this tech doesn’t currently require any safeguards to prevent it from fully developing as the artificial “embryo” simply can’t develop into a full human baby!

    • Hirom@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Human being grown raises so many question: who are the legal parents, can they inherit, who’s responsible for the chid education and welfare, what’s the effect on culture, what’s the effect of human generic diversity and evolution.

      • cnnrduncan@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        At the moment these artificial “embroys” aren’t really human beings though, any more than a kidney is a whole ass person. These clumps of cells don’t grow lungs, a brain, or any of the other structures required to form a full person and they are extremely unlikely to form viable pregnancies if implanted into a womb.

        The ethical questions are likely to be more related to how long scientists should be allowed to grow these artificial embryos for in a lab and more generally whether the laws for scientific growth of real human embryos should apply to artificial ones or if the potential benefits outweigh the ickyness.

        Any debate about actually growing full humans using this tech is probably decades away from being really relevant and could potentially harm research into pregnancy - research that could easily save a lot of lives.