Creep Alert: In Vitro Eugenics Just a Matter of Time

Bioedge reports that an Australian bioethicist, RobertSparrow of Monash University, says that using stem-cell technology to breedbetter humans in a petri dish is a real possibility.

First, researchers could create sperm and eggs from stemcells, as has already been done with mice. Such research has been touted forits potential to create gametes for infertile people or for allowing homosexualsto produce gametes without having to involve both sexes in reproduction. (Isanyone asking “What about the kids?” Might they be so backwards as to want botha biological father and mother?)

The production of embryos using sperm and eggs generatedwith stem cells, Sparrow says, would be splendid for eugenics. With generationsof humans cultivated in petri dishes, scientists say they could eliminate unsatisfactorygenes in the quest for better human beings. "In effect," Sparrow writesenthusiastically, "scientists will be able to breed human beings with thesame (or greater) degree of sophistication with which we currently breed plantsand animals."  

He calculates that two to three generations of human beingscould be produced in a single year—rather than the 60 or so years that the paceof natural reproduction requires. "An in vitro breeding program of thissort would give future eugenicists a power undreamed of by governments and would-begenetic reformers of the past. In a 10-year research programme, scientistsmight produce 20–30 generations of human beings in vitro—enough to achievesignificant changes in genotype. Advances in cell culture technology and in thescience of gametogenesis might increase this figure still further. Obviously,the more generations it is possible to proceed through each year, the morepowerful this technology will become."

What about the ethics of this development? On the plus side,Sparrow noted it would be possible to eugenically enhance people without havingto ask people to choose particular partners or to gestate numerous experimentalembryos. On the minus side, the people who result from the procedure would be "orphanedat conception." With each generation in the petri dish, they would be moredistant from their forebears. Dr. Sparrow is persuaded, however, that "adequatelove and care from their social parents is sufficient to allow children toflourish socially and psychologically.”

Safety is definitely an issue, of course, becauseresearchers would be navigating unknown waters in embryology. However, Dr.Sparrow points out that such was also the case with IVF and ICSI. "Thus,in vitro eugenics would not raise any issues we have not confrontedbefore."