Ales Rarus

Well well, what have we here, a Washington Post article on possible non-controversial human embryonic stem cell (hESC) sources. Let's see what they are:

Approach One—You Really Don't Need That Cell, Right?

"In one approach pioneered by Robert Lanza and colleagues at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., researchers pluck single cells from eight-cell embryos — embryos so young they do not have stem cells yet. Fertility doctors have known for years that early embryos seem unfazed by the removal of any one of their eight virtually identical cells, called blastomeres. In fact, it is common today to remove a single, representative blastomere from a laboratory-conceived embryo and test that cell for disease genes before deciding whether to transfer that embryo into a woman's womb."

Well, you aren't killing 'em, but if you consider embryos persons, removing a chunk of mass from them without a by-your-leave is not very neighborly. Sure, they can regrow, but it still strikes me as ghoulish, and if we let ourselves do this, how do we guarantee that we can prevent other actions on embryos? Moreover, this has to be done by IVF, whose ethical concerns are being discussed elsewhere on this blog.

Approach Two—Let's Get Together

"Other researchers are experimenting with variations on a second approach. Chad Cowan and co-workers at Harvard University, for example, use chemicals to get an adult human skin cell to fuse with a human embryonic stem cell. The two cells become one with shared cellular contents, including two full batches of genes. Experiments indicate that something in the stem cell "reprograms" the skin cell's genes, putting the hybrid cell into an embryonic state. The team is now developing ways to remove the original stem cell's DNA after reprogramming is complete. What will be left is an embryo-like cell that can be made to grow into all kinds of tissues — all of which will be genetically matched to the person who donated the original skin cell."

The Post notes that a few research groups are working on this approach. For this to work, you need a preexisting hESC. Unless Santa Claus can give us these for Christmas, methinks you still need to kill an embryo to get starter hESCs. Back to square one.

So this really doesn't get out of the basic ethical debates, as eager as the journalist is to suggest that they do, though these approaches may well change the technical issues behind embryonic stem cell research and suggest new applications.

As a bonus for y'all, here is a great rhetorical specimen from the Post article—what would I do without journalists?

In the beginning paragraph, we have:

"If only human embryonic stem cells could sprout anew from something other than a human embryo. Researchers could harvest them and perhaps harness their great biomedical potential without destroying what some consider to be a budding human life."

Well, if it isn't a "budding human life", where did we all come from, the stork? Why is the pro-life position on embryos called "religious" (sneer when you say that), when we say that an human's life and identity are continuous from conception onward, whereas this limp journalistic rhetoric somehow gets a free pass?