Creating eggs and sperm from stem cells: the next big thing in assisted reproduction?
[...] We are already in an age of disruptive reproductive technologies. Babies have been born using mitochondrial replacement techniques, often known as three-parent babies. News of mice born to same-sex parents went viral last year. The eventuality of IVG is obvious to many of us watching the field.
Literacy about emerging issues in the reproductive sciences is increasing, which is a good thing. But it still isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Writing in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine, one of us (I.G.C.), along with a complement of leading IVG experts, strongly suggest that now is the time for increased public engagement — surveys, focus groups, expert reports, op-ed debates, and the like — on this technology before embryos created by it make their way from the lab to the nursery. The group also argues that the public and regulators need to think about the ethical and legal challenges that this technology will present and get ahead of them.
As with other assisted-reproduction technologies, IVG is likely to spark heated legal and ethical questions. But some of them will be different than those arising from earlier technologies, which begin with sperm and eggs made by individuals’ testes and ovaries. This new process creates germ cells and, by that process, embryos from anyone’s existing cells. [...]
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bioethics biotechnology health law policy i. glenn cohen regulation reproductive rights reproductive technologies stem cells