Mouse pups are created from lab-made eggs.
Kyoto University in Japan managed to make viable sperm from stem cells. Now they have made eggs. From stem cells to mouse eggs to baby mice! Bravo Kyoto University!
I hope Kyoto University will soon be able to make human eggs from human stem cells. And human babies will be born from lab-made human eggs. We do not need more humans though. We are already seven billion. But still we need to make some human babies only to prove that we can. So much fun! We are our creators!
Is this irony? Because it is difficult to imagine a worse environment for a child to grow up in than a laboratory by persons whose emotional investment in you is really only for their egos and for the fun and excitement of the project.
Why would the children be raised in a lab?
“Test- tube babies” don’t spend their lives in glass tubes. The stem cell babies would still be gestated and birthed by women,
Pretty sure this is irony though:
Really? Really? I mean, that never happens at the moment does it?
And it’s not something to be encouraged, now is it?
Test tube babies have biological parents. I forgot to take into account there would still be a birth parent. My mistake. But to do such a thing just to prove we can would, at the very least, be unethical. The only moral reason to make a baby is the intent to raise it in a supportive and loving environment.
Irony or not, it’s akin to cheap, reactionary journalism, which I would not expect to find on a reasonable forum. This research is about accruing knowledge on germ cells, which are difficult to work with; and about helping people afflicted with infertility. The sensational tabloid-esque headline is as ignorant as that first comment.
Developments in this area are great for trans people who want to be genetic parents and would prefer the gamete donated match their sex/gender. If we can get enough adult stem cells with a reasonable method, trans men would be able to father children (the old-ass verb usage of “father”), and trans women would be able to provide eggs for implantation a surrogate with their own DNA.
And in response to Taslima’s derision of the research, making sperm out of adult stem cells makes vasectomy a viable option for widespread male birth control.
Hell, if we don’t need the tubes connected to make children, it suddenly becomes way more ethical to explore paying people to get certain sterilization* procedures. Conservative religious assholes would oppose it for the usual reasons, but how great would it be to be able to give teens money for college and a guarantee that she won’t get pregnant/he won’t get her pregnant in exchange for virtually eliminating teen pregnancy (actually eliminating it if they can get it at high school age without their parents’ consent) and the associated costs to society as well as getting more people educated.
This would also open up an ethical way to solve (if it’s even a real issue, and not conservative assholery) the “well, we can’t just stop giving you welfare, and we can’t not help your new kid, because you being an asshat isn’t their fault, but seriously, fuck you for having more kids on welfare.” problem.
Technology isn’t an automatic solution to societal ills, but applied technology certainly would be. I think you should seriously reconsider your position on this research.
*Assuming that there is or can be developed a procedure that leaves the implantation -> birth parts functional.
You don’t need mythical future surgeries to prevent pregnancy.
Certain LARCs* are better at preventing pregnancy than vasectomy or tubal ligation. They’re also easy to fit and remove and are very well tolerated.
Sadly, America has bizarre hang-ups about contraception. Not only that, if you’re one of the many people who can’t afford health insurance then a LARC (and ironically, an abortion) is almost certainly out of your price range.
Offering them free on demand, as in other countries, would drastically reduce unwanted pregnancy. Combine it with condom use and the risk is vanishingly small.
We don’t need to invent something for a problem that already has a safe, effective solution.
*Long-acting reversible contraceptive. The Mirena IUS and Nexplanon implant are the most efficacious of these, are impossible for a partner to sabotage, do not have to contend with user error, and can be removed when pregnancy is desired.
I guess at that point it comes down to pragmatic efforts to actually get something funded. LARCs look great (other than the burden solely on women thing, but that’s a different issue). Damned religious conservatives.
IUDs are almost universally covered under insurance. It makes sense for the company to cover $1500 now, instead of the tens of thousands of dollars that goes into natal care. Mine was a $20 co-pay, and my insurance is mediocre at best.
And what of those people without insurance?
If someone can’t afford insurance then they certainly don’t have $1200+ (and the ability to miss work for a day or two) lying around.
Those same people who can’t afford to prevent unwanted pregnancy are the same people who can’t afford to terminate said pregnancy.
America needs to take a big deep breath, jump into the 21st century, and provide LARCs to anyone that wants to use them.
Then where will god live?
A woman I know just donated eggs for a friend of hers.
It’s not a fun experience. There are daily injections, the roller-coaster of hormonal stimulation way stronger than what one would naturally have (to ripen the maximal number of eggs), the discomfort that is an inherent part of the desired result, the “egg harvesting” procedure, and the dangerous side effects of over-stimulation are things that would be a good thing to avoid. (Particularly when the donor is seen as a kind of breeding animal and her safety and well-being is prioritised lower than the odds of a successful outcome with good stats… sadly, it does happen.)
Oh, and at least around here, the donor must not accept any payment or other compensation, even though the procedure means a lot of appointments and fuss for her and prevents her from working for a couple of weeks or so. Apparently women’s time and earning capacity are worth zero, and a donor is to offer up all of that in addition to her eggs and well-being.
So why exactly is this preferable to growing the eggs in the lab?
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see.
I really don’t know what to make of this. Important research turned into a strawman of human cloning??
Human eggs from human stem cells. It has nothing to do with human cloning.
Do I understand this properly? With this technology it is possible to be both the father and the mother of offspring. Amazing.
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