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The Immaculate Conception of Stem Cells
Not all stem cells are created equal.
2024-04-23T15:36-07:00
Immaculate conception extends beyond the Bible into the realm of modern science. Biologists have observed self-fertilization — also known as parthenogenesis — in various plants and animals, including humans.
While this phenomenon can occur in women, it has never yielded a viable embryo. Medical professionals are interested in parthenogenesis for another reason: it may answer the question of how to ethically produce stem cells.
One way that researchers can collect stem cells is from the embryo of a terminated pregnancy. Opponents of this practice argue that it ends a human life in its earliest form. However, the same logic does not apply to a self-fertilized egg that, according to scientists, doesn’t constitute a human being.
Since parthenogenesis never forms a viable embryo, only an embryonic tumor known as a teratoma, collecting its potent stem cells doesn’t interfere with the development of life. It is a loophole that researchers have been pursuing for decades.
While parthenogenesis can happen during a pregnancy, it is rare, which means that scientists can’t depend solely on these naturally occurring parthenotes for their studies. They stimulate the process instead.
They do this with a woman’s extracted eggs by “mimicking the calcium wave induced by sperm at normal fertilization, with the use of a calcium ionophore, and [stimulating them] to divide,” according to the National Library of Medicine.
Stem cell research is legal in the United States, but the ethical mire surrounding the issue has led to numerous state restrictions and reduced federal funding. The debate over what constitutes human life has publicly resurfaced since 2022’s Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, in which the justices removed federal protections for abortion access.
Despite the scientific community agreeing that stem cells from parthenogenesis come from teratoma tumors and not human beings, the method of creating these cells still raises concerns among the religious right. The most conservative in this group do not even permit birth control, much less “playing God” with a woman’s eggs.
Many in the medical community take a different stance, claiming the possible benefits of stem cell research outweigh the destruction of an embryo lacking consciousness. Some members of this community even see the ethical emphasis on parthenote stem cells as a distraction from their research.
Scientists in a paper from the Oxford University Press state, “We believe that the [alternative methods’] fixation on avoiding embryo destruction for research downplays the importance of the benefits of embryonic stem cell research. People... will have to balance the future positive consequences of research and therapy against the respect due to the embryo at an early stage.”
For those not willing to do that moral balancing act, self-fertilized eggs might be the answer to stem cell research’s ethical questions.