The government recently passed a bill legalising use of animal-human hybrid embryos in medical research. Namrata Turaga and Nela Cicmil argue on the ethical, scientific, and societal implications. 'Human-Animal' Stem cells: Growth towards the future
Namrata Turaga argues that hybrid embryos are a step forward for humanity
On the 8th October, stem-cell research in England changed forever. The government revised the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill to legalise the use of Human-animal hybrid embryos in research. Interspecies embryos can now be used under HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) license, though subject to tight regulation. With so many moral issues at stake, you may be asking: is this support from the government justifiable?
Before trying to answer this question, one needs to understand exactly what these hybrid embryos are, and what their scope for usage is. In order to make them, the entire DNA from a cow egg is extracted via an opening created by using a laser, and human DNA is then inserted into this cell. Then an electric shock is then applied, making the cell divide into an embryo, thereby providing human stem cells for extraction. In this way, all the hybrids created are 99.9% human and only 0.1% cow, hardly justifying the claim that this research is blurring the lines between animal and human species.
The embryos are kept alive for only 14 days. It is not the intention of the research to actually create a bizarre ‘cowboy’ or ‘cowgirl’ hybrids), but to use these stem cells to further our understanding of and find revolutionary cures for a plethora of diseases like Alzheimer’s, Motor Neuron Disease, Parkinson’s and even spinal cord injuries, which have so far frustrated researchers and clinicians alike, devastating hundreds of thousands of lives. Stem cells form the building blocks of the human body and have the potential to transform into any cell needed, making them invaluable for such degenerative diseases.
Currently, the formation of these cells relies on human eggs left over from fertility treatments, which are in short supply and not always of good quality. Allowing the use of hybrid embryo stem cells makes the process less cumbersome and yields much better results, increasing the scope of research by several factors. Not only will this pave the progress of British science into the realm of world class groundbreaking research, but more importantly, it gives hope to all the people with degenerative diseases. With more materials at their disposal, scientists are more likely to achieve a breakthrough sooner. In real terms, this means many sufferers have a greater chance of regaining a quality of life currently impossible to achieve.With so many positive outcomes in sight, the use of human-animal embryos has been backed by not only the government and the HFEA but also by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Commons Science and Technology Commission and Nobel Prize winners like Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Tim Hunt, to name but a few. The HFEA stated, "we have been calling for an updated, clear framework that is fit for the scientific, moral and ethical pressures of the 21st Century and this response has brought that another step closer.” But what exactly is this morality and what is this issue of ethics?
The French philosopher Paul Ricouer offers his views on morality by saying ‘The moral law commands us to make the highest possible good in a world the final object of all our conduct’ while Nobel prize winning Philosopher Albert Schweitzer summarises ethics by saying, ‘A man is truly ethical when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.’
Given that all the research with hybrid embryos is purely geared towards clinical outcomes, all the objections pale in comparison to the bigger picture of truly helping humankind. Hopefully people will realise the implications of the use of the hybrid stem cells and the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill will be accepted by all, thereby materialising the hopes of all sufferers of debilitating diseases.
Hybrid monsters – Ethically Unsound
Nela Cicmil argues that creating human-animal hybrids is scientifically and ethically unsound
The use of embryos has always been controversial and provocative. The new bill allowing part human, part animal embryos in medical research has unsurprisingly sparked a heated debate. The loudest voice of dissent is often that of “faith”- based and pro-life groups, who are on principle also against many other types of medical research. But you don’t have to be religious to see there are ethical reasons why the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes is morally no better than the creation of human embryos for research purposes, and why in many ways it is worse.
It is currently illegal to create human embryos purely for research purposes. Scientists must depend upon the few rejected embryos from fertility treatment, which are often in poor condition, or donated embryos from the same source, which are in also in short supply. Research groups, from the University of Newcastle and King’s College London, wish to perfect their experimental techniques on hybrid “practice” embryos, so that the few human embryos they receive can be put to more efficient use. Hence, banning the hybrid embryos will not cut off entire routes of research into potential treatments into diseases such as MS, Alzheimer’s, motor neuron disease and Parkinson’s disease – if stem cells are even the answer.
The Newcastle research group also plans to insert disease-causing human DNA into the animal ovum to create a hybrid embryo. They hope that this will give some clue to the development of certain genetic disease. However, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) prohibits the replacement of nuclear DNA of a human embryo by DNA from another human source – so why should replacing the same DNA into an animal ovum be an ethical improvement? Additionally, it is likely that the stem cell of such an experiment would be so contaminated by the animal components that it would differentiate in a way that is nowhere near “normal”. The results would be extremely difficult to interpret at best.
So, we are left with the ethical considerations. Medical research uses the principle that humans are special in some way, and different to and better than animals. That is how animal testing in medical research is justified. Additionally, human life is assumed to be sanctified, which is why creating and destroying even the earliest and least developed human embryo purely for research purposes has been deemed to be morally unjustifiable for any ends/ benefits. Therefore, the mixing of 99.9% human and 0.1% animal genetic elements at such a basic level, with the potential to grow into a kind of life form, is abhorrent because it violates and perverts this human sanctity and challenges our understanding of what it is to be human.
When researchers in Korea injected human stem cells into a mouse embryo and developed the mouse to full term, the experiment faced widespread public outrage, especially after it was found that some of the human stem cells had found their way into the nervous system. In the UK, there is an agreement not to perform such procedures. Was the mouse partly human, because it contained some human stem cells? Is the 99.9% human embryo partly animal, because it contains some animal components? The creation of such entities should not be allowed until we have satisfactory answers to these questions. At this time, the challenge to our idea of what it is to be human is enough to make the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes morally equal to, or more abhorrent than, the creation of human embryos for the same purposes.
Lastly, it must not be forgotten that there are other, legitimate ways to obtain useful human embryos, such as from the blood of the umbilical cord. Improvements in storage and donation procedures of unused IVF embryos would help researchers more than would the creation of hybrid embryos, whose stem cells would always be subject to animal genetic interference. There are other active pathways for research into treatment of the serious diseases described above; hybrid embryos are by no means the only, best or most efficient method of finding the cure. Let us use procedures that do not violate the principles of human sanctity, and prevent the legalisation of the one that does.
