ABAC Quarterly

Spring 2002

THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ARTIFICIAL HUMAN UTERUS

By Fr. Joseph Howard

Many attacks and assaults on innocent human life continue to be perpetrated today under the guise of a possible medical treatment or "cure." Issues of human cloning as well as human embryonic stem cell research are of paramount importance throughout the world, given the current climate of modern society that has refused to recognize that the human embryo at fertilization is indeed a human being. Now appearing on the scene is the attempt to construct an artificial uterus in order to "gestate" a child for the nine months of pregnancy.

The world first heard of an attempt to construct an artificial uterus for a fetal goat in 1999. Yosinori Kuwabara and his colleagues at Juntendou University in Tokyo began this experimental procedure. They designed a clear acrylic tank that was the size of a large toaster oven. In the tank were eight quarts of amniotic fluid kept at the appropriate physiologic temperature. The umbilical cord was threaded into two machines that jointly perform the task of a placenta — pumping in blood, oxygen and nutrients and cleaning out wastes. In this case, the fetal goat was 20 weeks old, weighed six pounds and lived in the artificial uterus after being removed from its mother by Caesarean section. The creature behaved like any other fetal goat — it blinked its eyes and kicked its limbs around. The goal was to have the fetal goat survive for a 21-week period at which point the goat would be "born": it would be lifted out of the tank and its umbilical cord cut.

Application in humans

Now move from the realm of fetal goats to fetal human beings. The goal of Kuwabara and his colleagues is clear: to design an artificial uterus that will sustain a developing infant when a mother's uterus either "will not" or "cannot" do the necessary job of gestating her "fetus" for a nine-month period. Imagine that with such perfected technology, a woman could in theory conceive her child in a glass dish — in vitro fertilization — and come back in nine months and pick her child up from an incubator and bring the child home. There have been significant problems developing this technology, as the artificial environment has eventually failed. It is clear, however, that key scientists expect to work out these problems within a decade. Research moves along while the attacks and assaults on innocent human persons grow ever worse in the name of medical science.

Eugenic selection

We should first examine the psychological issues surrounding such a technology. One question that must be asked is, can one love a child who is a genetic stranger to them? The processes of in vitro fertilization, along with surrogate parenting and cloning, have already raised this question. The artificial uterus is, in fact, the ultimate attempt to control gestation, which translates into controlling the lives of human persons who begin their existence at the moment of fertilization. This technology will be deeply rooted in eugenics — the process in which parents and scientists "select" and "reject" children in their embryonic stage of development for their children whose particular genetic traits match pre-conceived subjective criteria. Those who carry "defective" genes for disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, etc., will have their lives destroyed at the very start. Of course those involved in creating this technology believe that this could easily solve the problem of prematurely born infants, giving them a greater chance of survival. Authors of this technology, however, have already gone on record stating that what begins as a response to illness will in all probability become a lifestyle choice. In other words, it is already acknowledged that eugenics will play a central role in the use of the artificial uterus. What effects will be observed in destroying the maternal-fetal bond that naturally exists during the nine months of gestation? Can we really believe that severing the maternal-fetal bond will have no pronounced effects on both mother and child?

Surplus children

We should also carefully examine the moral issues that are at stake here with this technology. We have already seen the attacks that exist upon innocent human life from in vitro fertilization, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research. There are at least 100,000 human embryos who are alive, yet frozen in liquid nitrogen from the process of in vitro fertilization. Today, many erroneously refer to these human embryonic persons who are alive as "surplus material" to be disposed of in any manner researchers deem suitable. How can we be surprised that at present, utilitarianism has once again taken over with the proposal to extract stem cells from human embryos, even though removing those stem cells kills a living human embryonic person each and every time?

These technologies are immoral for several reasons: they fail to recognize that no one — not even a married couple — has a moral right to a child. This mistaken notion leads to manipulation, exploitation and destruction of innocent human persons who are embryonic. The disassociation of the unitive and procreative aspects of conjugal intercourse is a violation of the natural right of each and every human being to be conceived and gestated in his mother's body for the nine-month period. This disassociation is what allows innocent human life to be assaulted and destroyed. It fails to recognize each and every human life as a gift that no person has a moral right to, regardless of the circumstances. In vitro fertilization opened the pathway for such attacks to occur as long as one successfully achieved one's goal: delivery of the desired child of choice. The extraction of stem cells from human embryos that results in their death and human cloning have furthered the attacks upon innocent life. Now more radical attacks upon innocent human persons come to light with the planned construction of an artificial human uterus. This technology is something that we must both individually and collectively denounce, regardless of how tempting its results may seem. How many more innocent lives will be destroyed before we say that enough is enough?

PARTHENOGENESIS

By C. Ward Kischer Ph.D.

Parthenogenesis has become a rather popular topic within the scope of human embryology in the public discourse in recent years. This is a phenomenon whereby cell division (cleavage) of an unfertilized oocyte occurs, either naturally or because of an external stimulus. Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in some lesser species, such as bees and in one breed of turkeys. It is not known to occur in the human.

This phenomenon may be induced artificially in certain amphibians and rabbits. In fact, inducing artificial parthenogenesis in amphibians is a routine laboratory exercise for graduate students studying experimental embryology. This is done in one of two ways: by simply pricking the animal pole of the frog oocyte a needle, or by applying a chemical, such as butyric acid, to the animal pole. It does not always work, but when it does, one can observe cleavage planes form under a dissection microscope.

In terms of development, the problem with artificially induced parthenogenesis is that it produces only half the required number of chromosomes in the dividing oocyte.

The development process

If this is the case, and no further development can occur beyond one or two divisions, how might bees or turkeys develop through this process in a natural way? For that answer, we must look at how the oocyte matures. The sex cells, commonly called gametes, oogonia and spermatogonia, are diploid cells; that is, they have the full complement of chromosomes: 44 autosomes and two sex chromosomes (XX or XY). The oogonia always have two XXs; but the spermatogonia always have an X and a Y During maturation of the oogonia (cell division), the chromosome number is reduced to half of the adult complement: 22 autosomes and 1 sex chromosome (an X). During one of these divisions, one daughter cell is destined to become a viable oocyte while the other daughter cell will become a "polar body." This polar body has very little cytoplasm and will ultimately degenerate and die. However, if the polar body is retained, we call it "captured": the full, adult chromosome complement is restored. Can development thereby proceed? It occurs only in a few rare cases, and the explanation is not really known. For those that proceed through any extent of development, the chromosomes are all maternal; such an embryo would also have many lethal genes and therefore, would likely not survive. No verified case of parthenogenesis in humans has been reported.

However, a 1991 report in Fertility and Sterility claims human parthenotes were developed from artificial activation and completed divisions to the eight-cell stage. It is clear that such "embryos" could never implant in the uterus as they lack paternal chromosomes responsible for forming the bulk of the placenta.

The question arises: are human parthenotes properly regarded as "embryos"? Although they have been called "embryos" in this article, human embryology textbooks and scientific literature only refer to them as "embryos" in the broadest sense of the term. The oocyte from which they are derived is a human germ cell, but technically, they are not true embryos because the chromosome complement is abnormal. Although they mimic cleavage in a normal human embryo, they cannot (as far as we know now) proceed beyond two of three division stages.

Human parthenote research

In 1938, E.B. Harvey demonstrated in sea urchins that non-nucleated fragments of ova could be treated with parthenogenetic agents and would divide several times and even form blastula-like structures. The identical processes were subsequently shown in amphibian species, too. One could hardly refer to these cells/entities as true "embryos." In addition, the question must be asked if a cell without a nucleus is truly a cell. There are some ambiguities in biology. Blood platelets, for example, have no nucleus and are usually referred to as "bodies"; and they do not divide. Yet, erythrocytes are red blood cells and are commonly referred to as "cells." But neither do they have a nucleus, and they do not divide. Therefore, common sense and propriety should prevail.

The 1993 NIH Human Embryo Research Advisory Panel found that the creation of human parthenotes for research purposes ethically acceptable, and they determined that this research should be funded by tax dollars. One must question the common sense and propriety of such a venture, considering that abnormal chromosomal makeup of the cells.

The idea of creating parthenotes, this time for obtaining "stem cells," has surfaced again. ACT (Advanced Cell Technology), headed by Michael West, has published a one-page article in the "Brevia" section (it is doubtful it was peer-reviewed) of Science in February, 2002. The authors, 17 in all, claim to have produced parthenogenetic stem cells from monkey oocytes. From 4 out of 28 "eggs" stimulated, one cell line was obtained. They claim that from that one cell line, more than four definitive tissues were formed in culture.

The authors from ACT state that an alternative to human therapeutic cloning may be parthenogenetically derived "embryos."

Again, common sense and propriety beg the question as to whether or not such cell lines would even be useful considering their abnormal character.