Since the first successful birth of in vitro fertilization in the late 1970s, research with human embryos has been subject to time limits and development parameters.
The essential reason for imposing these limits was that, although the practice is considered acceptable to benefit human health and improve reproduction, in vitro research must conclude 14 days after fertilization, that is, when implantation in the uterus is normally completed.
Progressive expansion
Now, however, an international team of bioethicists and scientists, led by a researcher at Case Western Reserve University, argues in a new study published in Science, which may be justified to go beyond the 14 day limit.
Insoo Hyun, professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and lead author of the article, thus urges policymakers and the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) to consider, with caution and a gradual approach, scientific exploration beyond the 14-day limit, also taking into account the benefits of doing so.
ISSCR is expected to publish soon updated guidelines for stem cell and embryo research. Potential benefits of studying human embryos beyond the 14-day limit include understanding how early developmental disorders arise and developing therapies that address the causes of infertility, developmental disorders, and failed pregnancy.
From 14 days onwards, the embryo's stem cells begin to migrate from here to there and begin to form a body. By then we measured one and a half millimeters. During This process Frequent problems occur that cause malformations or miscarriages without parents or their doctors ever knowing why they happened. It is not foreseeable where this process of manipulation and destruction of human beings in an embryonic state will end, but Hyun and his colleagues They propose six principles that can be used to assess whether research on human embryos can go beyond the 14-day limit, in incremental, measured steps.
Its principles, among others, include promoting that research proposals are peer-reviewed by qualified and independent science and ethics committees. The viability of the culture over the past 14 days would also need to be first assessed and, if so, whether those newly permitted experiments were beneficial enough to justify further human use.
In other words, draw new red lines, which are still a set of ideas where culture, science, values and worldview converge:
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The news
The limit of 14 days after fertilization should be extended in experiments with human embryos, according to bioethicists
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.