Ethics

HFEA and Regulating Reproduction:Triumph for Rationality and Victory for Secular Ethics

by Julian Savulescu
May 22, 2008

MPs voted on Tuesday on two of the most controversial issues surrounding reproduction- the provision of IVF treatment, and the availability of legal abortion. Under the new laws, IVF clinics will no longer have a legal requirement to consider the need for a father, but will instead be asked to ensure provision of ‘supportive parenting’, removing any barrier to single women and lesbian couples conceiving through the treatment. In a separate amendment, MPs were asked to consider the legal time limit on abortion, which currently stands at 24 weeks. Given the option to reduce this limit to 22, 20 or even just 12 weeks, MPs voted by a comfortable majority to stick with the status quo.

The UK is now at the forefront of rational reform to legislation governing reproduction and research. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has now approved the creation of human admixed embryos, with important implications for scientific advance.

Blog on Admixed Embryos
Savulescu, J., The Case for Creating Human -Non Human Cell Lines, Bioethics Forum
Human Enhancement papers, media and other resources for free download

It has also reformed the regulation of reproduction in a thoroughly sensible manner.

The New Law on Admixed Embryos and the Genetic Heritage of the Living Kingdom

by Julian Savulescu
May 21, 2008

Scientists in the US recently created a fluorescent human embryo. This was achieved by inserting a gene for green fluorescent protein. This shows that it is possible to successfully transfer a gene from a non-human animal to a human and for that gene to express its function. Other animal studies have shown that such gene transfer is both safe and effective, creating super animals, such as mice with colour-vision derived from human genes transferred.

Saviour Siblings Saved!

by Mark Sheehan
May 20, 2008

Two attempts to amend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill’s provision to allow ‘saviour siblings’ failed in the House of Commons yesterday. The first attempt was to block the practice and failed 342 to 163. The second attempt was to limit the provision to life-threatening cases. It was defeated 318 to 149. As it stands the Bill allows embryo testing and hence selection for ‘saviour siblings’ provided that “there is a significant risk that a person [the sibling ‘to be saved’] … will have or develop a serious physical or mental disability, serious illness or any other serious medical condition.”

Humane Evolution

by Anders Sandberg
May 19, 2008

Professor John Harris wonders Who’s afraid
of a synthetic human? in the Times. He argues we should support
the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill because it will help us develop
effective therapies and enhance ourselves. Science is about bettering our lot,
after all. In particular, he says, synthetic biology may help us avoid going
extinct due to our vulnerabilities and instead enable us to choose (or become)
our successors as a species.

Many people become confused by the
possibility of a posthuman future. The traditional view of the future is a
stark one: either humanity extinct, or humans roughly as they are today. The
posthuman options would be that we either change ourselves so radically that
the resulting species is so fundamentally different from humanity that we
would regard it as something entirely new, or that we create some kind of independent
beings that continue our culture even as traditional humanity retires from the
forefront (hopefully as proud parents of the new beings). The range of possible
options within these scenarios is endless, inviting equally endless and loud
speculation. That tends to distract from the key message of Harris’ essay: we
are leaving the realm of natural evolution and entering what he calls a realm
of enhancement evolution.

The Ethics of ‘Human Admixed Embryos’: Concerns and Responses

by Julian Savulescu
May 19, 2008

By Loane Skene, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne and Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) Bill, currently before the UK Parliament, will, if passed, permit HFEA to license the creation for research of embryos that combine human and animal genetic material (called, in the Bill, ‘human admixed embryos’). These embryos include cybrids which are formed by inserting the nucleus of a human body cell into an animal egg that has had its nucleus removed. Cybrids would produce embryonic stem cells that are 99.9% human. The Bill would also permit other types of embryos to be formed from human and animal genetic material that would be up to half animal. This post explains why scientists want to create human admixed embryos. It then outlines some ethical concerns about the creation of these embryos and responses that may be made to those concerns.

A Pipeline to Truth? Fighting Absenteeism with Voice Analysis

by Anders Sandberg
May 16, 2008

The Daily Mail warns that bosses want to
use over-the-phone lie detectors to catch out workers pulling a sickie. The issue is the new generation of voice
analysis software that listens in when someone calls in sick, and prompts the person
talking the call on whether the person is suspiciously stressed. Yet another step towards
1984, a great way of
saving money and improving the truthfulness of people, or a double deceit?

Looking for Biopolitical Trouble

by Anders Sandberg
May 14, 2008

Researchers at Cornell university have
developed a genetically modified human embryo expressing a green fluorescent
protein. This is a technology already demonstrated
in animals (and plants), including monkeys. But the news that it had been done to a
human embryo has stirred up reactions worrying about designer babies. Are we
already in a brave new world of designer babies? And how should we handle the biopolitical debate?

Hunger is the best spice

by Anders Sandberg
May 9, 2008

Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the stomach that
appears to stimulate appetite. A recent paper in Cell Metabolism shows that
giving ghrelin to volunteers made their brains respond more strongly to food
images, reward systems in the brain became more active and they rated their
level of hunger higher. An immediate reaction in the blogosphere
was to consider the practical applications: Stomach hormone turns hungry people
into junkies (New Scientist), Fast Food Joints Add
Hormone to Food That Makes You Want to Eat More (Io9). Are we moving towards a future where
food will be literally addictive?

The viability of fetuses and the abortion debate

by Dominic Wilkinson
May 9, 2008

A paper has been published online in the British medical journal today
suggesting that survival of extremely premature infants (less than 24
weeks gestation) has not improved in the last decade. This comes less
than a week before a debate in the House of Commons on the Human
Fertilisation and Embryo Authority bill. It has been claimed that this
paper “completely blows out of the water” the arguments of
anti-abortion MPs who hope next week to push for a reduction in the
cut-off for legal abortion (currently 24 weeks).

Sleeping policemen and garden sheds

by Janet Radcliffe Richards
May 6, 2008

Big Brother, it seems, has been asleep on the job. Even though it is said that we in the UK are more subject to surveillance than any other society, peered at by cameras wherever we go about our innocent business, today’s headlines tell us that this intrusion is not even fulfilling its purpose of catching the people whose business is not so innocent. The police apparently don’t like watching miles of boring video (and who can blame them?), so they don’t do it much, and the massive investment in equipment has brought street crime in London down by only 3%. Perhaps that is some consolation to people whose objections to surveillance are not just those of cost. Even if the cameras are there, at least nobody is bothering to watch us.

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