Stories tagged with: bioethics

• First gene-edited babies 'a bridge too far'

  by David Roach, posted Tuesday, November 27, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  Screen capture from the Associated Press

  HONG KONG (BP) -- Evangelical bioethicists have joined many of their secular peers in condemning research that reportedly led to the birth this month of the world's first genetically edited babies. In addition to echoing secular scientists' concern about so-called "designer babies," the evangelicals objected to destruction of embryos which occurred in the gene-editing process.

  The reported birth of genetically edited twins in China has not been confirmed, according to media reports, and the research has not been published in an academic journal. Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who led the project, is scheduled to discuss his work in Hong Kong at an international conference on gene editing that begins today (Nov. 27). Read More

• Posthumous conception raises 'host of ethical issues'

  by David Roach, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- The legal and moral propriety of conceiving a child with a dead person's egg or sperm is among the latest fronts being discussed in bioethics.

  In Ireland, legislation is under consideration that would permit reproductive cells from deceased individuals to be used by their spouses or partners to conceive children posthumously, according to media reports. The Irish legislature's Joint Committee on Health discussed the bill once in January and again in February, a spokesperson for the legislature told Baptist Press. A final bill could be drafted in the coming months and put before parliament for debate. Read More

• Cloned monkeys spur warnings against human cloning

  by David Roach, posted Thursday, January 25, 2018 (5 years ago)

  

  iStock

  SHANGHAI (BP) -- The first-ever primates cloned through a technique that produced Dolly the sheep have been cited by Christian bioethicists as a potentially valuable development in animal research. But they warned that two monkeys engineered by Chinese researchers must not become a step toward cloning humans.

  The cloning method used by the Chinese scientists "should not become a test case for the perfection of human cloning techniques," said Raymond Johnson, a Pennsylvania pastor who received a financial award from Trinity International University last year to help him study the relationship between Christianity and science. Read More

• DNA editing, ethics & biblical truth

  by David Roach, posted Thursday, August 03, 2017 (5 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock/License purchase required

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Scientists have successfully edited the DNA of human embryos for the first time ever. But a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary bioethicist says the research in question was unethical for its destruction of embryos and raises moral questions about genetic engineering.

  The research -- published Wednesday (Aug. 2) in the journal Nature -- used a gene-editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas9 to correct in dozens of embryos a genetic mutation that causes a potentially fatal heart condition. The embryos were purposefully created with the mutation and destroyed following the experiment. Read More

• Pig embryos with human cells deemed 'problematic'

  by David Roach, posted Thursday, February 02, 2017 (6 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock/License purchase required

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- The first successful growth of human cells in a pig embryo has drawn mixed reviews from pro-life bioethicists.

  Biologists at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., announced Jan. 26 that they generated stem cells from human skin, then injected them into a pig embryo and allowed the embryo to grow four weeks in a sow's uterus. Read More

• Motherless, designer baby specter increases

  by David Roach, posted Monday, September 26, 2016 (6 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Two developing reproductive technologies -- one that could facilitate motherless babies and another that could open the door to so-called designer babies -- have drawn warnings from Christian ethicists.

  In one experiment, researchers at the UK's University of Bath altered unfertilized mouse eggs so they took on properties like "ordinary" cells, such as skin cells, the BBC reported. Then they created mouse embryos by fertilizing the altered eggs with sperm cells, leading scientists to speculate that two human men, or even one man, may one day be able to conceive a child with similar technology using sperm and another donated body cell. Read More

• Human-animal embryo research likened to sci-fi

  by David Roach, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (6 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- A National Institutes of Health proposal to fund research that inserts human stem cells into animal embryos has provoked warnings from evangelical bioethicists.

  The focus of the proposed research would be studying human diseases and growing human organs in animals for transplants. But potential side effects of so-called "chimera research" -- a reference to Greek mythological creatures that were part goat, part snake and part lion --include destruction of human embryos, creation of animals with some semblance of human intelligence and creation of animals with the ability to produce human offspring. Read More

• Same-sex parents: 'possible,' not 'moral'

  by David Roach, posted Friday, February 27, 2015 (8 years ago)

  "We're talking about manufacturing children. ... It's of great concern."

  -- David Prentice

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Same-sex couples could soon have their own biological children by utilizing a reproductive technology being developed by researchers at Cambridge University and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. But Christian bioethicists have classified the potential new technology as rife with moral problems. Read More