The making of a
human being
Biotechnologies: do they endanger
Mankind?
The growing mastery of techniques
for medically assisted reproduction, combined with advances in genetics, points to the
possibility, in the near future, of making children on demand.
By Emmanuel Thévenon,
journalist
On February
24th, 2002, the first French test-tube baby, Amandine, celebrated her twentieth birthday.
What was, at the time, a technical feat has since then become considerably widespread: in
order to enable infertile couples to have a child, ten thousand babies conceived by in
vitro fertilisation (IVF) are born every year in France, and a million throughout the
world. Until 1992, IVF consisted of putting an ovum in contact with sperm, before
transplanting the resulting embryo into the womb of the mother-to-be. Since then, ICSI
(Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection) has been used to inject the sperm directly into the
ovocyte. The advantages of ICSI is that it gives the majority of infertile men the chance
to have children.
Like every new
technology, IVF, and more generally, Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR), has given rise
to abuses in some countries: post mortem fertilisation, traffic in oocytes, wombs
"for hire"1... The most striking example is undoubtedly the case of a sixty-two
year old Frenchwoman who gave birth in May 2001. Nine months earlier, she had had
implanted abroad an egg, from an American donor, fertilised in vitro by the sperm of her
own brother, aged fifty two. This "social incest" profoundly shocked Professor
Axel Kahn, member of the Comité consultatif national d’éthique (CCNE)2 [French
national consultative committee on ethics]: "The most important thing," he
pointed out indignantly, "is that doctors were involved in this process, and they did
it because they were paid handsomely."
From
selection to discrimination
The recent links
between MAR and genetics, along with an increasing level of competition between
biotechnology firms, might be a source of new abuses, but on an altogether different
scale. ICSI already allows, at least in Great Britain and the United States, the sex of a
baby to be chosen (with an 80% success rate). This decision, if it were to become
widespread, might badly affect the balance of sexes in countries where, because of the
social discrimination that affects women and the declared inferiority of the female sex,
the birth of a girl is considered a tragedy.
"Prenatal"
diagnosis, involving tapping the amniotic fluid, can avoid the passing on of certain
particularly serious illnesses as it enables the use of therapeutic abortion.
"But," observes Professor Jacques Milliez, head of the obstetrics and
gynaecology department at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine in Paris, "the spread of trisomy
21 screening to all pregnant women might be the first step towards a hunt for the bad
gene, towards an organised health policy aimed at eradicating a human group, people with
Down’s Syndrome."
This step is in
the process of being blithely taken with "preimplantation genetic diagnosis"
(PGD). Its aim is to discard any embryos that carry genetic disease and transplant the
"best one" into the mother’s womb. The technique – restricted in
France to detecting only one serious pathology – enabled the birth in France, in
November 2000, of a baby lacking the gene for an enzymatic disease from which the first
three children of the family had died. But some North American in vitro fertilisation
centres are already offering "convenience" PGD concerning around fifty genetic
abnormalities as well as genetic predisposition to diabetes, high blood pressure or breast
cancer. "It is no longer a compassionate alternative to foetal euthanasia,"
protests Professor Jacques Milliez, "but a first step on the road to seeking the
perfect child."
Another
possibility being explored for therapeutic purposes and which results from bringing
together PGD and cell therapy, the conception of babies designed for therapeutic purposes.
An embryo unaffected by a disease carried by one of the children of the couple is chosen
for implantation. When the child is born, the stem cells are taken from the umbilical cord
then transfused to the sick child in order to repair its damaged organism. Thus in the
United States a child suffering from Fanconi’s anaemia, a seriously progressive
disease of the blood, has been cured. But what would the perception have been of the
new-born child if the cell transplant had sadly not worked. A failed product?
The end
of the sexual dimension of reproduction?
And what if men
were to become unnecessary for reproduction? An Australian team has managed to fertilise
mice in vitro by using, instead of sperm, non-sexual cells, which therefore do not come
from the reproductive organs. All that remains to do is implant them in a surrogate mother
in order to obtain offspring. If the operation proves effective, it might enable a totally
infertile father to reproduce without having to resort to donated sperm. Or be offered to
couples of gay women wanting to have a biological child, which would undoubtedly give rise
to much controversy.
Nor is there any
need for sperm with reproductive cloning, which consists of transferring the nucleus of a
non-sexual cell into an ovum that has had its own nucleus removed. On April 6th, 2002, the
Italian gynaecologist Antinori announced that a first cloned human baby was on the way.
According to him, there is no shortage of clients: couples infertile due to the absence of
gametes and homosexual couples who want a baby that shares the genetic heritage of one of
them; single people; people unable to come to terms with the death of their child... The
highly sceptical scientific community reminds us that it was necessary to restart the
experiment 277 times before Dolly, the obese cloned sheep who is now showing signs of
premature ageing, was produced...
The theoretically
possible birth of a clone would drastically change the way we see man and humanity, as
well as our identity and the family. Because a child produced by this method would be
neither son nor daughter, but the twin of the parent who donated the nucleus. In an
article published recently in the newspaper Libération, Dominique Boulier, professor at
the University of Technology in Compiègne, sounded the alarm: "The human child would
now be a product to be ordered at will from super-technicians, according to the requested
format and characteristics, complete with quality assurance.(...) How far can we try to
wrench ourselves free from our sexual marking and from the biological conditions of
reproduction without lapsing into madness?" (Courtesy: Embassy of France, Label
France Magazine) |
