Hey, guys, your precious jewels are on the forefront of stem cell research. You may become your own best source of replacement parts.

WASHINGTON – Cells taken from men’s testicles seem as versatile as the stem cells derived from embryos, researchers reported Wednesday… The new type of stem cells could be useful for growing personalized replacement tissues, according to a study in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

But your ladies aren’t included:

…because of their source, their highest promise would apply to only half the world’s population: men. “It’s exciting. We could do it for males; that leaves women without as easy a method,” said stem cell scientist George Daley of Children’s Hospital in Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He was not part of the new research.

However, the gals don’t have to give up hope just yet. What Washington and Harvard decline to do for women, the Irish can:

Human embryos created using a so-called “virgin conception” technique have been made in the UK for the first time, [according to Edinburgh-based The Roslin Institute]. They are made by stimulating a human egg to start dividing like an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell. “At the moment we have not managed to get stem cells from these embryos but that continues to be our ambition,” Roslin’s Dr Paul De Sousa told the British Association’s Festival of Science in the Irish capital.

This announcement came less than 24 hours after Newcastle researchers said they would be creating embryos using genetic material from three parents – a father and two mothers – as a means of tackling rare diseases.

Sounds exciting all around, doesn’t it? Uh uh, not so fast.

…others have doubted its use on technical grounds, arguing the degree of genetic manipulation required to achieve parthenogenesis (Greek for “virgin birth”) makes this route to ES cells an unnecessarily complicated one. Even the cloning of human embryos would appear to be a more straightforward approach, they argue.

They didn’t decry the three parent (one male/two female embryo — every man’s dream fetish) or the sole father embryo, just the sole mother embryo. Even a clone is more acceptable than an embryo guaranteed to have two X chromosomes. Used to be religious leaders believed a woman was a defective form of man. Scientists put the kibosh on that theory when they discovered the Y chromosome is a defective X chromosome. So surely we’ve moved beyond that bugaboo. Haven’t we?

However, the calls for a moratorium following so close on the heels of the sole mother research gave me pause. Why didn’t the specter of Frankenstein and grotesque endeavors arise over the testicular embryos with two defective Y chromosomes?:

Matthew O’Gorman, of the charity Life, commented [about the ovarian research]: “It is another example of Frankenstein science which illustrates how out of touch with public opinion these recent scientific developments are.” Mr O’Gorman said Life was concerned the experiments exploited women, as eggs could only be made available by undergoing treatment that posed a potential risk to health.

Question: wouldn’t this risky treatment also be necessary to produce an embryo with two mothers and one father? Shouldn’t he oppose two women undergoing this risky procedure before he opposes one woman enduring the same?

Since his stated opposition is to keep damsels in distress from being treated like hens in a cage, I was sure Mr. O’Gorman would want to protect women from other adverse consequences of their eggs, like preventing teen pregnancy. Shockingly, that isn’t the case. Protecting women from stem cell research that might save their lives is one thing, but girls who do the big nasty are on their own.

…Matthew O’Gorman, spokesman for the pro-life charity LIFE, blasted the deliberate marketing of the condoms to young teenagers as “sick and irresponsible.” “We know that teenagers engage in risky behaviour. If it’s messing around on roads or taking drugs, we teach them not to – because it’s bad for them,” added O’Gorman. “But when it comes to sex, we do the opposite – by throwing condoms at the problem.”

Yet he opposes medically accurate sex education.

However, the excuse I love best is credited to the quaintly named, Ms. Quintavalle. She’s absolutely right. We should stop all research until we have enough knowledge to “do it better than nature.”

Josephine Quintavalle, of [anti-abortion] Comment on Reproductive Ethics: “We know so little about the mechanics of embryology that at the very least we should wait until we know a lot more until we say we can do it better than nature. These are very big steps indeed, and the whole area is running completely out of control.”

She didn’t define what she meant by “doing it.” Or if she supports using stem cells from aborted embryos made the natural way. Or how we’re supposed to get the knowledge without research. She must know a way, but she hasn’t shared that with us yet.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Men, Religion, Research, Sexual politics, Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.