1. Where do the embryos that are experimented on come from?

Scientists conduct experiments on babies that have died as a result of an abortion or miscarriage, if the mother gives consent. Scientists also create embryos in the laboratory using IVF or cloning techniques and use these for experimentation.

2. How old are the embryos when they are experimented on?

IVF or cloned embryos can be experimented on until they are 14 days old¹. When IVF began in 1978 the Warnock committee was set up by the government to decide on the rules and guidelines for IVF and experimentation.

The Warnock committee first debated when human life begins which suggests that they thought that killing or experimenting on human beings was wrong. They wanted to find a stage of development when the embryo could not be considered human.

A widely used medical school textbook states:

"Human development is a continuous process that begins when an ovum from a female is fertilised by a sperm from a male"². Biology therefore tells us that human life begins at conception and that no stage of development is less important than another. After all, we have our complete genetic make-up, all that makes us who we are and what we look like, from the moment of conception.

The Warnock committee however put biology aside and decided that human life began 15 days after conception. On the fifteenth day what will become the spine appears. However, the committee did maintain that human development was a continuous process and that no stage of development was more or less important than another³. It is difficult to see why they then believed that experimentation should be allowed before the embryo was 15 days old.

3. Are there any benefits from embryo experimentation?

Many researchers claim that embryo experimentation will bring great benefits helping to cure many diseases and disabilities. Since the passing of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 1990 there have been no cures or benefits for people with disabilities or diseases despite using between 300,000 and 500,000 embryos for experimentation.

Researchers will claim that the development of PGD technology has prevented disability. However, by prevention they mean that embryos found to have disabilities have been destroyed instead of being allowed to develop and be born. This is not an acceptable way to treat disability as it devalues the lives of people already living with disabilities. People with disabilities see that if the technology had been around before they were born they might not have been born at all.

The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki in 1975 (amended 2000) stated that humans should not be used for medical research where there are no benefits for that person⁴. Embryos are experimented on and then destroyed; this is clearly not a benefit for the human embryo. The question is therefore why human embryos as human beings are not treated and valued in the same way as other human beings.

4. What are stem cells?

Stem cells are cells that can develop into other specialised cells like skin, muscle and nerves. Scientists want to use stem cells to replace damaged cells in people with diseases or disabilities or to grow body parts to replace those damaged by disease or disability.

5. Where do we find stem cells?

Embryos have lots of stem cells because they have not yet developed into other kinds of cells. We can also find stem cells in the umbilical cords and placentas of newborn babies.

However, stem cells also exist in adult tissues such as bone marrow, the brain and the connective tissue of our organs.

6. Are embryonic stem cells better?

Researchers claim that the best type of stem cells are found in cloned human embryos. This is because if the cloned human is made from the DNA of the person who needs the new cells, the person’s body will not reject the new cells made from their clone. However, this may not be true as the clone would inherit some of the genetic make-up of the egg donor5.

However there are many problems with using cloned embryos for their stem cells. The first is that taking the embryo’s stem cells will destroy him/her. The other problems are the dangers of using cloned embryonic stem cells for the person receiving them.

Dr Lorraine Young of the Roslin Institute, which cloned Dolly the sheep, believes that the defects seen in cloned animals, such as being abnormally big, shows the difficulty of being able to control the growth of the cells⁶. The failure to control the growth of embryonic stem cells was seen when they caused uncontrollable jerking in patients with Parkinson's disease after being injected into their brains; this process is irreversible. Abnormal growth in cells is also what causes cancer.

Adult stem cells however will only produce different types of cells if they are programmed to do so. This means that their growth and development can be managed and so they are safer⁷. They are also a more ethical option.

7. Can we justify experimentation on embryos?

Embryo experimentation cannot be justified on ethical or scientific grounds.

Despite embryo experimentation having been carried out over the last twelve years there have been no benefits or cures produced by this research. No one is benefiting from embryo experimentation, especially not the embryo.

Embryo experimentation is clearly not ethical. Embryos are human beings like you and me. They are used for research and then they are destroyed. Human beings are not biological or scientific material to be used in experiments. Human beings can only be experimented on with consent, for example using new drugs on a cancer patient. This is because a person should not be subjected to any treatment that is a burden to them rather than a benefit. Experimentation is clearly a burden for the embryo as he/she is destroyed in the process.

Remember, we all began life as embryos.

1 Ann McLaren, the English geneticist who established the concept that the human embryo should not be accorded any recognition as a person until 14 days after fertilisation, has written an essay expressing her regret at inventing such a morally and biologically arbitrary distinction. Source: Fr Angelo Serra, reported by Zenit news agency, 31 October 2000
2 The Developing Human, K L Moore, W B Saunders, 1988, page 1
3 The Warnock Committee, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology, London (1984), HMSO, p.60
4 The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki (revised 2000).
5 Dr David Prentice, professor in the department of life science at Indiana State University and an advisor to the US Congress on stem cell research, explained to participants in a bioethics seminar in the European parliament on 20 November 2001 that proponents of experimental cloning had overstated its potential because there was no guarantee that the use of stem cells extracted from clones would solve the problem of rejection in recipients. Cloned embryos created by cell nuclear transfer would inherit some of the genetic make-up of the egg donor in the mitochondria.
6 Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2000
7 G. Vogel, in Science, 25 February 2000

SPUC Scotland Paper 8
Designer Babies
June 2002

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