Viewed through a microscope, they have heads and tails and swim like normal sperm, and Professor Nayernia is 'convinced' they would be capable of fertilising eggs and creating babies.(See: Ethical storm flares as British scientists create artificial sperm from human stem cells - and do vote in the poll today if possible.)
He has more safety checks to carry out but plans to apply for permission to use some of the artificial sperm to fertilise eggs for research purposes.
John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester says:
I cannot see a downside to research that increases the range of human possibility and choice.(See: Independent, A world without men? That's not the real ethical issue here)
Well, the Daily Mail has managed to spot one or two possible ethical areas of "downside" such as the potential for cells to be taken from the dead in order to 'father' children, and the ethical problem of creating artificial sperm to create experimental embryos that will be used solely for research purposes.
Of course, "human possibility and choice" sounds a terribly worthy secularist aim but the children produced by this means will not have the human possibility of being conceived by a loving act of their parents. And if the possibilities and choices are extended further, they may not even have a living father.
In Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict has drawn attention to the way in which this kind of research poses disturbgin threat to our future:
In vitro fertilization, embryo research, the possibility of manufacturing clones and human hybrids: all this is now emerging and being promoted in today's highly disillusioned culture, which believes it has mastered every mystery, because the origin of life is now within our grasp. Here we see the clearest expression of technology's supremacy. In this type of culture, the conscience is simply invited to take note of technological possibilities. Yet we must not underestimate the disturbing scenarios that threaten our future, or the powerful new instruments that the "culture of death" has at its disposal. To the tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future - indeed it is already surreptiously present - the systematic eugenic programming of births. (n.75)
9 comments:
Ghastly.
Unsurprising, too, that the BBC's coverage this am focused on how viable the artificial sperm were, and didn't touch on the ethical issues at all.
Interestingly, I have just been in a radio debate on this issue with a scientist who described this work as having very little point or practical application. It appears to be little better than an act of shabby self-publicity on the part of a group of scientists, at the expense of early human life.
Well, all they need to do now is "create" a human egg, fertilise the artificial egg with the artificial sperm, and them indeed we have "created" life.
I'm not holding my breath though- look what happened to Dolly...
Dear Father Finigan
In my opinion physiological experimentation, without considering the unique God given soul, that is also created at the same instant as a sperm and an ovum marry/fuse together to form an embryo has got to be recipe for disaster.
I sometimes wonder if Josef Mengele's experiments in Auschwitz-Birkenau are in any way connected to these ongoing scientific developments in the same way that post-war space science and exploration benefitted from Nazi rocket science and the expertise of Dr. Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun.
On my return from a 'moving statue' tour of Ireland in 1985,when I visited Ballinspittle and the Mount Mellory Cistercian Monastery,I dismissed the notion that any motion was involved and abandoned hope of finding any proof of miraculous movements.
A sledgehammer attack on Ballinspittle's 'moving statue' occurred after my return to London and it made me reassess the significance of the reported phenomena.
As a contract surveyor I was due to start work for the London Borough of Southwark's Direct Works Organisation at Pelican House. The night before I commenced the Southwark contract I had a 'big dream' featuring Our Lady. The archetypal feminine may have remained completely motionless for me personally in the outside world, but inside my London psyche she was 100% active.
This post brings to mind the big dream that I had in 1985, which has since found it's way into verse, and will I hope provide us all with some true UNITY IN THE COMMUNITY soul development inspiration.
A SINNER'S DREAM OF MARY
When I was out a wandering upon the hills so green.
I spied myself a vision of a bright celestial Queen.
(Refrain)
A rosary,a rosary with rainbows all around.
A blood red cross she gave to me upon that hallowed ground.
"Corpus Christi woman" was the Lady that I saw.
Build inside she said to me mans inner self once more.
(Refrain)
A rosary,a rosary with rainbows all around.
A blood red cross she gave to me upon that hallowed ground.
In XtO "Vesper" (The symbolic name given to me by Our Lady in a later big dream)
This is surely a vehicle to transhumanism.
This is a cogent point, though horrible to relate - this does in fact remind me of the creation of the Orcs...
When will we ever learn to leave things alone? God gives us the perfect (and enjoyable) means with which to make babies, but no, we have to go and muck about with it....in the interests of 'advancement' of science and all that tosh.
God always forgives, man sometimes, nature never!
I thought they were already taking sperm from the dead and dying, freezing it and using it at a later stage?
It really is bizarre, on one hand we have the ability to abort babies at the same time create them artificially.
Brave New World?? The devil really does have a hold on society and because so few people pray, his strength is allowed to grow.
"Professor Nayernia is 'convinced' they would be capable of fertilising eggs and creating babies".
Begs the question 'what sort of babies would these be'? Human????
What is it with these biologists who never tire of playing God, and yet always proudly proclaim their atheistic views.
Ethics is dead and buried in the UK! There isn't a politician in the country with any moral backbone, ready to stand up to this Frankensteinian so-called research! What a complete waste of public money - simply to feed and fuel the scientists personal egos.
With all these chemical concoctions to create artificial 'babies' will the abortion industry step up its research campaign. After all plastic babies may need tougher tools or chemical solvents!
Still by using artificial eggs and sperm there's no need for sex anymore so STD's will cease to be a problem.
Somebody write a movie to include all this - you'll make a fortune and the story line is as good as written - as for the ending, well doesn't need too much of a creative imagination!
God help us.
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