Science often moves faster than moral thought progresses, leaving the public disoriented and exposing the limits of legislators’ imagination. Many people will be struggling to make sense of the astonishing breakthroughs presented at this week’s International Society for Stem Cell Research’s (ISSCR) annual meeting in Boston. The work by Prof Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz, of Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology, creating human embryo-like models from stem cells, without the need for eggs or sperm, raises questions about life itself. There seems an element of playing God in growing a tiny human-ish beating heart in a lab, however scientifically desirable is Jitesh Neupane’s work at Cambridge’s Gurdon Institute.
Persuading stem cells to develop until clumps of them resemble an embryo or an embryonic organ in conditions that mimic the womb is currently an unregulated process in the UK, though transferring these into a woman’s womb is prohibited. However, given the similarities that these stem cell models have with human embryos, they offer enormous potential to unlock the secrets of early pregnancy and give an insight into what leads to miscarriages or birth defects. Without clear guidelines to promote responsible research and maintain public confidence in it, though, scientists only have their conscience – and the fear of losing their reputation – to guide them.
Already the technology can grow these cells beyond the equivalent of the 14-day limit placed on human embryo experimentation. This restriction was put into place because of the philosopher Mary Warnock’s belief that, before a fortnight, “the human embryo hasn’t yet decided how many people it’s going to be”. Her 1984 report on infertility treatment and embryological research undergirds existing law. But these clumps of stem cells are not human in the way we understand that word. Bioethics is the ethics of life. But what does the term “life” mean? In ancient Greek, life is expressed distinctly as bios and zoe. The latter is a term that designates life as bare or animal life. Bios, by contrast is about a “course or way of living”. Stem cell clumps have no bios. They perhaps might obtain it if they were allowed to band together and form a brain that had feelings and thoughts. Such an experiment would be justly unacceptable to current public opinion.
In 2021 the ISSCR issued research guidelines saying that human embryo models are not governed by the laws covering the use of human embryos. But the ISSCR is a scientific society, not a court or a lawmaking body. Countries around the world may reach different conclusions. Stanford University’s Hank Greely has said that “if the embryo model has a significant possibility of ultimately leading to the birth of a baby, it should be treated, ethically and legally, like a human embryo”. The trouble is, he said, that there is no way of judging this definitively – short of the unethical implantation of embryo models in wombs.
Prof Greely wrote a book in 2016 suggesting that within a few decades most people in developed countries will cease reproduction through sex, using sex exclusively for pleasure, and instead will rely on reproduction through pluripotent stem-cell-derived gametes. What once might have been science fiction now seems less outlandish. But such developments must not move society along a dehumanising path toward a brave new world. Ministers should be alert to the forces and practices taking us down this road and vigilantly steer another course. Covid-19 increased public trust in science. The birth of Louise Brown, the world’s first IVF baby, led to the British government setting up the Warnock committee to investigate whether the technology was acceptable and how it should be regulated. Perhaps it’s time for a new panel to convene and find an ethical consensus.