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A new study released by a group of scientists based in Great Britain this week claims that “within 5 to 15 years” new advances in stem cell research may make it possible for infertile and gay couples to have children.
According to the group, “artificial” sperm and eggs could be produced from stem cells, allowing the carrying and exchange of DNA cells among infertile and gay couples.
Though the new research presents a number of rather striking ethical dilemmas, the group of scientists, organized into a group known as the Hinxton consortium, argued that scientific research should continue unabated and not blocked by what the group referred to as “divergent moral convictions.”
"Societies have the authority to regulate science, and scientists have a responsibility to obey the law,” the group conceded.
“However, policy-makers should refrain from interfering with scientific inquiry unless there is a substantial justification for doing so that reaches beyond disagreements based solely on divergent moral convictions," the group asserted.
Professor John Harris, a member of the consortium, argued that more pressing than any immediate moral implications of the research, was whether or not science would be allowed to proceed its rightful course.
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"At this stage the real ethical issue is to ensure that the science can continue ... Is society ready for it? We don't know that, and of course if it isn't, then it won't happen, but there is probably some considerable time in which this could be discussed," he said, according to The Independent newspaper in London.
"Any tool can have applications that people can object to, from kitchen knives to anything else,” he added.
Ultimately, however, depending on how the British Parliament decides to vote on its Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill currently in session, all potential fertility treatments may be hands off and delegated only to the laboratory.
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