by NexDev | June 14, 2016 | Medically Assisted Procreation
In an op-ed article published in La Croix (The Cross) newspaper, on Monday June 13, 2016, Tugdual Derville explains how, step-by-step, the human embryo has become the most coveted object. In-vitro experiments, cloning, CRISPR-Cas9… The transgenic embryo could now be a threat for humanity itself. Alliance VITA’s General Delegate calls for a firm bio-political commitment in France against the Anglo-Saxon utilitarianism which endlessly increases the commodification of the human embryo.
« The human embryo is becoming an increasingly coveted object. Some researchers are touching the origin of life with a determination to master it, in order to transform it, even though it means changing humanity’s destiny. Transhumanists have assumed this position as their openly declared intention.
Three phases have contributed to accelerating this process. In 1978, artificial fertilization outside the maternal body opened a wide range of possibilities. In 1996, the foray of cloning in mammals gave the impression that there could be a radical break between procreation and sexual alterity. The temptation to clone man, this enormous transgression, is still there, and no one knows what might be happening behind the doors in some laboratories. Today with the discovery of the very ingenious CRISPR-Cas9 technology, fantasies are being revived. It’s no longer a question of duplicating humans in the laboratory – by “replicating” instead of procreating in couples – but to reshape man, by editing his genetic code.
As always, sophisticated therapeutic objectives are purported. Although human cloning should be rejected in any and all form whatsoever, the use of CRISPR-Cas9 for humans is different. This technology can be used for the worst and the best. Applied to individuals suffering from certain diseases, these “genetic scissors” can in fact relieve them or even cure them. Even if this perspective is neither immediate, nor guaranteed, these are areas of future research to be encouraged.
It’s another story for applying the same technique to embryos or to gametes: this introduces an irreversible modification in the whole human genome… However, Chinese researchers already claim to have produced transgenic embryos. Although permission has been granted to edit the genomes of human embryos for research in Great Britain, it is nonetheless disquieting for the two inventors of CRISPR-Cas9. In reality, this represents an unprecedented infringement, with unfathomable consequences.
Firstly one should not forget that this perspective led to treating embryos – living human beings – as laboratory material, as if the lack of a “parental project” could confer upon them the status of an object. To legalize a research which destroys embryos constitutes an original breakdown leading to the commodification of life.
French law has authorized this drift by allowing more and more permissive stages. Surreptitiously, without any debate, the law has been made even worse: an amendment to the Health Law, with a particularly ambiguous wording, now allows gametes or human embryos conceived in-vitro to be used as objects for biomedical research “in view of bringing an infant to life”… A slippery slope towards a new form of eugenics?
Another boundary has been crossed with CRISPR-Cas9, with researchers acting at the center of DNA, in the earliest stages of human existence. Researchers argue that those genetically-edited embryos will be destroyed…On the one hand, treating a human being as a guinea pig is inacceptable. On the other hand, the technique of having a foot in the door and making headway is well-known: once experiments are well-advanced the temptation to legalize implanting a transgenic embryo which has been edited to correct a genetic abnormality will be insurmountable.
These GM babies, life-long guinea pigs as a consequence of the edition of their own genes, will transmit to their future descendants their mutations, of which the actual long-term effects are still unknown. Is it necessary to underline how much genetic science is fumbling around? Interactions between genes are relatively unknown. Interfering with one part of the DNA is taking the risk of destabilizing the whole genome.
We are all concerned. Desecrating « the sanctuary of human life” could provoke an unprecedented human ecological disaster worse than those which have already marked our history.
The more powerful man is, the greater his capacity for self-destruction. Examples of sorcerers apprentices abound. It is serious enough to call researchers to more wisdom, and humility, and to incite politicians to address these subjects without further delay. It is urgent to have bio-political regulations for monitoring striving scientists. The citizen’s awareness-raising campaign, Stop GM Babies, launched in conjunction with Alliance VITA, asks for the President of the French Republic to commit to a moratorium to the use of CRISPR-Cas9 on embryos and germ cells. Confronted with the financial interests at stake, our country is still refusing with the commodification of the body. This French exception in bioethics deserves to be congratulated. France is in a position to resist the Anglo-Saxon utilitarianism, using wisely its universal conception of human dignity, without excluding the embryo.
by NexDev | June 10, 2016 | Bioethics
For the first time, American researchers are proposing growing human organs in half-human, half-animal hybrid embryos called chimeras to allow more transplants.
In order to overcome the organ donation shortage for transplants, researchers in California have developed a method for growing human organs inside pigs. The chimerical animal thus serves as a holding tank for the organs, a “biological incubator” where they can grow and develop. In order to achieve this result, they use a technique known as CRISPR-Cas9 which, among other functions, allows gene segments to be edited.
In the current study, the part of the DNA responsible for developing the pig’s pancreas is deleted and replaced by human stem cells. Thus, the pancreas will develop with human cells. The embryo is then implanted in the sow until gestation is interrupted on the 28th day. Pablo Ross, a reproductive biologist, explains that they hope “that this pig embryo will develop normally even though its pancreas is almost exclusively made out of human cells and is compatible with a patient for transplantation.”
However, this technique raises several ethical issues, both towards man as well as towards animals. In fact, implanting human stem cells in pig embryos requires the destruction of human embryos. There is also a risk, although minimal, of transmitting animal viruses to the receiver. From a medical point of view, the main difficulty concerns the risk of immune rejection by the individual receiving the transplanted organ.
One of the major worries remain that of seeing the animal’s brain develop human cells which could change its behavior. Stuart Newman warns: “If you have pigs with partly human brains, you could have animals that might actually have consciousness like a human.”
For these reasons the NIH (US National Institute of Health) imposed a moratorium on the research on these “chimeras” in September 2015, until there is a better understanding of its’ implications.
« One of the concerns lots of people have, is that there is something sacrosanct in man, expressed in his DNA,” says Jason Robert, a bioethicist at Arizona State University. “To insert a part of the DNA into other animals and to give those animals potentially some of the capacities of man could be a kind of violation, even playing God”
by NexDev | June 10, 2016 | Medically Assisted Procreation
Surrogacy to be discussed again in France and Europe.
At the launch of the newly published book The Era of Mankind – by its General Delegate, Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA is publishing a short extract entitled « Rebellious Surrogate Mothers ».
“ By reducing women to the status of producing children, as if they were machines, surrogacy foreshadows the appearance of real machines for producing children. These « artificial wombs » are a call to progress for those who consider the necessity of a surrogate mother as the ultimate obstacle to their own omnipotence. Although the surrogate mother may have decided intellectually not to become “emotionally involved » in her pregnancy, she has a mother’s heart which can rebel and become deeply attached to the baby growing inside her body. Even by increasing the amount of the financial compensation, her submission cannot be guaranteed. The simplest solution would be to replace the woman by an obedient technical device.
For the sponsors, the surrogate mother seems to be the weakest link; this is due to her humanity. When a top-quality finished product is expected, the gestational carrier can constitute an obstacle, despite the specific provisions signed by the contracting parties. The most significant examples of submission demanded by the “future parents” from the « gestational carrier” are in cases of abortions: for multiple pregnancy, « embryonic reduction », or in the event of a suspected handicap, « medical » abortion. An American woman, Melissa Cook, thus fought against her sponsor, a 47-year old man, when he demanded her to abort one of the triplets she was expecting. They had been conceived in-vitro with his sperm and a 20 year- old donor’s ovocytes. The father invoked a clause in the contract but the surrogate mother did not want to abort one of the fetuses. « These are human beings; I have become attached to these children » declared the mother. Henceforth Melissa Cook objects to surrogacy as being a « baby business ». As stipulated in the contract the babies were forcibly separated from their mother following their birth on February 22, 2016. Although unsuccessful, her defense lawyer argued: « The attachment process between the pregnant mother and the child she is carrying for nine months is simultaneously physiological and psychological, and it’s the same process and the same experience for every mother, whether she is genetically related to the child or not ». The young girl’s lawyer explained that hospital workers did not allow her to see the infants, taking them away immediately following their birth: « Here we have a mother who loves them, who fought for them, who defended their right to life, and who is ready to take care of them. You can’t tell a mother who just gave birth to these infants that no matter what happens it’s none of her business. »
Although no one can force an American woman to undergo a selective abortion, nothing can prevent a sponsor from having the new-born babies delivered, even though his intention is to separate them immediately, offering up one or several babies for adoption! The infants belong to the buyer. The imbroglio reveals how absurd it is to separate pregnancy and maternity, leading the protagonists to fight in court for the future of unborn infants. Marie-Anne Frison Roche, Professor of Private Law, involved in the collective for the Respect of the Human Person (known as CoRP, in France) – which demands a ban on surrogacy, underlines the fact that it is the legalization of surrogacy that leads to prosecutions: « Some claim that if French law accepted to abandon the ban on surrogacy, a principle laid in article 16-7 of the French civil Code, trials would cease. Whereas when we look at it closely, we observe the reverse: court trials keep multiplying and they are particularly sordid. »
For further information on « The Era of Mankind » and to order the book
by NexDev | June 8, 2016 | Medically Assisted Procreation
Portugal’s president has just vetoed a law authorizing surrogacy on June 7, 2016.
The law modifying the conditions for recourse to medically assisted procreation (MAP) was passed in parliament last May 13th by a slim majority. The new law extends MAP to single women and to lesbian couples, without any stipulations for medical indications. It also allows recourse to surrogate mothers for couples faced with medical infertility due to uterine dysfunction.
Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, decreed the law on Tuesday June 7th, but vetoed surrogacy practices, invoking the recommendations set out by the National Council of Ethics for the Life Sciences.
According to Caroline Roux, Director of VITA International:
“The vote by the Portuguese Parliament was in contradiction with the current international momentum against the practice of surrogacy. Last December, the European Parliament condemned all forms of recourse to surrogacy by a large majority. The Portuguese president’s veto has a far-reaching political impact. Several countries such as India, Nepal, Thailand and Mexico are in the process of changing their legislation to be more restrictive on surrogacy. There is no “ethical” Surrogacy even without paying the surrogate mother. It is the very principle of having recourse to surrogate mothers which is contrary to women and children’s rights. However it is disturbing to see MAP be legalized without any medical stipulations, thereby deliberately depriving a child from having a father. This constitutes a serious injustice for the children thus conceived.”
Alliance VITA is an active partner in the international collective initiative No Maternity Traffic promoting the universal abolition of surrogacy. This European petition was recognized admissible last May 26 by the Council of Europe, and thus transmitted to the Committee on Social Affairs charged with evaluating surrogacy in order for European citizens to have their voices heard and be taken into consideration.
by NexDev | June 6, 2016 | Bioethics, Medically Assisted Procreation
On June 5, 2016 a majority of Swiss voters (62.4%) approved a modification to the law for medically assisted reproduction to authorize “pre-implantation genetic diagnosis” (PGD), in spite of misgivings expressed by disabled persons’ associations.
PGD consists in sampling one or several cells from an embryo conceived in-vitro to perform DNA screening for genetically transmissible diseases. The aim is to test the embryos for genetic defects in order to implant in the woman’s uterus only those which do not carry a gene which could lead to a genetic disease.
The draft for an amendment was introduced in 2013 to authorize PGD for cases of hereditary disease. In December 2014, the amended law adopted by Parliament went beyond the initial framework and was very controversial, allowing screening of chromosomal diseases during PGD or other in-vitro fertilization practices. In June 2015, a first vote was held to modify the constitution which only permitted creating 3 embryos at a time. The revised law allows doctors to produce up to 12 embryos during an IVF cycle and to store some of them via freezing.
A referendum was held against the amendment for the procreative medicine act. Out of the 58,634 signatures, 58,112 were considered valid upon submission to the Federal Chancellery. On January 27 of this year, the Federal Council decided to hold a popular vote on June 5, 2016 for the amendment to the procreative medicine act, which had been decided on December 12, 2014.
This law has raised very serious ethical issues because Switzerland has adopted a legislation which badly discriminates disabled persons, by employing an extremely vague definition for the concept of serious illness.
According to the Swiss daily 24 hours reporting the Federal Council’s explanations, “It could be very extreme pain resistant to treatment, or severe limitations in mobility, severe psychological illnesses or a permanent dependence on machines such as oxygen concentrator”.
In their press release, Procap, the main collective association for disabled persons, deplores the results of the vote and declares that they now expect “the political parties and public authorities to firmly commit with concrete actions in favor of assisting disabled persons”. The group of 19 associations voiced their opposition by conducting a campaign against the new law entitled “Diversity instead of selection”.
