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• Parthonogenetically created stem cells: A middle ground to take
  Bing H. Tang
  Published on: 18 May 2017
• The problem is destruction of a human organism
  Beverly B. Nuckols
  Published on: 18 May 2017

• Published on: 18 May 2017

  Parthonogenetically created stem cells: A middle ground to take

  • Bing H. Tang, M D, M P H

  Dear Editor,

  Unfortunately, scientists have used fetal tissue in research since at least the 1930s, now the secrets of the Dead-Baby Industry reveal that aborted fetuses being dissected alive, harvested and sold in pieces to fuel a vast research enterprise. There are social implications of its existence. We all need moral intensity these days. We all need to take it very seriously. Patel¡¦s paper is written to obvia...

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  Dear Editor,

  Unfortunately, scientists have used fetal tissue in research since at least the 1930s, now the secrets of the Dead-Baby Industry reveal that aborted fetuses being dissected alive, harvested and sold in pieces to fuel a vast research enterprise. There are social implications of its existence. We all need moral intensity these days. We all need to take it very seriously. Patel¡¦s paper is written to obviate the need for a discussion of the "unfettered fetus industry"; the central thesis is that we can harvest totipotent stem cells from something other than an embryo. The argument is that there is no need to develop an embryo, much less a whole fetus, before we can harvest these important stem cells -- they may be derived from enucleated eggs, which are never fertilized, as well as parthogenically activated eggs that again, are never fertilized by a sperm. Hence, there need never be "embryo harvesting" or "fetus harvesting" because stem cells can be derived from non-embryonic tissue.

  The next step should certainly be cultivation of discarded tissue, i.e., utilization of "damaged ova" to create useful stem cells from growingly incapable destroyed cells. Now what matters is to found how to sift through an abortus to discover the destroyed ovum; and how to use this damaged ovum once we found.

  Note that there is 'The problem is destruction of a human organism' by Beverly B. Nuckols. (4 April 2006)

  Nevertheless, in Patel¡¦s article, there is an effort trying to express some of the ideas behind what we should and should not value, irrespective of whether or not we call it an embryo. The argument that a blastocyst is untouchable with regard to full moral contemplation is disproved by the appearance of "blighted ova" in Patel¡¦s article. More over, the deliberation of "in some remote sense" the somatically transferred nucleus constitutes an embryo is still not a good argument, since under that circumstance every single cell of the human body could have been called an embryo.

  In my opinion, I do agree with Nuckols¡¦ viewpoint that it is important to define an embryo. Even though this critique may eventually have its merit, her argument seems without exploring the reasons why we call "a blastocyst with an inner cell mass" an "embryo." Hence, her critique appears to miss the key point of Patel¡¦s paper, which is that we ought to establish technologies that meet the middle ground, such as parthonogenetically created stem cells -- so that there will be no need for us to debate on where the stem cell comes from.

  In my view, unfortunately, fetal tissue applied to both clinical aspect and its experimentation thus far is only the first step. Once it is stood it will be accepted. Once accepted, what will be followed? How long before we have an unfettered fetus industry in which the organs of unborn babies are bought and then put up for sale as commonly as pints of blood. At least in my opinion, we certainly need very badly to take some middle ground, such as parthonogenetically created stem cells for research and therapy.

  Bing Tang, MD
  Research Ethics
  Danville
  California

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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• Published on: 18 May 2017

  The problem is destruction of a human organism

  • Beverly B. Nuckols, Physician bioethicist

  Dear Editor,

  P Patel’s article in “Research Ethics: A natural stem cell therapy? How novel findings and biotechnology clarify the ethics of stem cell research,” in the April issue of the Journal did not clarify as much as it could have.

  Rather than exploring the “naturalness” of stem cell therapy, a better understanding would come with examining “destructive” and “non- destructive” stem cell therapy. Firs...

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  Dear Editor,

  P Patel’s article in “Research Ethics: A natural stem cell therapy? How novel findings and biotechnology clarify the ethics of stem cell research,” in the April issue of the Journal did not clarify as much as it could have.

  Rather than exploring the “naturalness” of stem cell therapy, a better understanding would come with examining “destructive” and “non- destructive” stem cell therapy. First of all, however, we must clarify the definition of the term “embryo.”

  The blastocyst, with its inner cell mass, is by definition, an embryo , without regard to how that organism began. In animals (Dolly the sheep, Hwang Wu Suk’s “Snuppy,” and the cats, horses, mice, etc.) that have been cloned by somatic cell nuclear transfer, there is no immediate fertilization of the oocyte. In nature, the the generation of cell division is initiated by the penetration of the zona pellucida by the sperm, in the lab, it may be the electrical stimulation of a “renucleated oocyte” or even of the oocyte, itself, in some species. Nevertheless, the donor nucleus did, remotely, result from the fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm. Science fiction has dealt with the parentage of the clone and the consensus of these thinkers seems to be that the “parents” of a clone are both the donor and his/her parents. (Try Lois McMasters Bujold’s Vorkosigian series.)

  As to the determination of the ethics of stem cell research, those of us who object to the destruction of the embryo by technology and intentional intervention are concerned with the destruction of a living human organism, who is developing – as nearly as we can tell – in the same way that other human organisms do at that stage or age. On the other hand, there would be no ethical problem if there is no organization and/or no life.

  I’m afraid that the biggest problem is one of time – the time since the author submitted his article (and possibly, the time since I wrote these lines.) There is a report of a human embryo that was created from the replacement of the haploid nucleus of an oocyte by the diploid nucleus of an embryonic stem cell. In Korea, Hwang Wu Suk able to produce one very damaged line of stem cells, although there is dispute as to whether the line came from a human clone or as a result of apparent parthenogenesis.

  Beverly B. Nuckols, MD
  Life Ethics.org
  New Braunfels, Texas

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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