I think there are probably four main ethical objections to animal-human hybrids. The first one is that, like our objection to embryo research in general, this is destructive research on embryos. We are using embryos as a means to an end, producing them in a laboratory, using them for stem cells and then destroying them in the process.
I know some Christians don't consider that the embryo is a human being with potential. They think of it as more of a potential human being. My own view is that human life begins at fertilisation, that these are human lives, they are vulnerable, they are worthy of the utmost respect and they are protected under law, although I know that was all eroded with the Abortion Act and Human Fertilisation Embryology Act. I would like to go back but I'm recognising that isn't possible.
There is also the issue of crossing species, that we are crossing a rubicon and creating a being that is part animal and part human. This has never been done before.
The opposition will argue that since 1990 they have the 'hamster tests', whereby the fertilised human eggs and hamster sperm were used to test contraceptives. But they were never allowed to go beyond penetration. Fertilisation doesn't even take place.
This is an embryo that is going to last for 14 days. And we know that nothing ever created in a laboratory every stays there. This is portacabin technology that you can do unobserved and is impossible to police.
The third objection is that we think it is unnecessary and that the public has been lied to. Those are strong words, but I think the public has been misinformed and lied to about the therapeutic potential of these entities.
There are four kinds of embryo that the Act allows - true hybrids or human eggs with animal sperm or vice versa, the chimeras, which are produced by mixing embryonic stem cells from an animal into a human embryo, and there are transgenic embryos. There is no research application at all that anyone has come up with, so the question is why are we doing them at all?
The only one of the four with any potential application is the cybrid - the so-called 99% one. But the thing about the cybrid embryo is that it is doubly abnormal. It is a mixture of two species and is produced by cloning technology, not by fertilisation. Here, you are taking a nucleus of one cell and putting it into the cytoplasm of another egg from which the nucleus has been removed. That is the same cloning process that produced Dolly the Sheep.
This is where the truth telling comes in. No one anywhere in the world, anywhere, has produced a single embryonic stem cell line this way. Nowhere. The Newcastle experiment produced an embryo that lasted for about 48 hours and then died.
The whole idea of cloning is that you produce cells that are recognised as immunologically the same as the donor who gave the nucleus, so supposedly you are getting around immune rejection problems from genetic mismatches. But no one has produced embryonic stem cells. On top of that there has not been a single therapy produced from human embryonic stem cells of any kind. There are some trials being done but there is very little promising coming out of them. There have also been a few animal experiments using embryonic stem cell advantages but very little has been observed. So after five to ten years of trying no one has produced a single therapy from embryonic stem cells. That's just a fact.
There have also been huge problems with embryonic stem cells transplanted in that they cause tumours to form. The scientists working in this field who started off by saying this is going to produce stem cells we can transplant, are now saying that's a possible application but if so it is at least 15 to 20 years off, and now they are talking about them being there just to test drugs or observe how diseased cells divide.
CT: Scientists claim the research on stem cells from embryos are necessary to help find cures for serious diseases. You're saying that's not the case. What alternatives are there?
PS: Adult stem cells from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood have already produced therapies for over seventy different diseases which are used in clinical applications around the world at the moment. There are 300 odd trials going on. We think the truth is not being told to the population.
