Why Women Should Care about Biotechnology

from FreakingNews.com

Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, the disgraced cloning researcher who claimed he cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells, was convicted this week of embezzlement and was given a two-year suspended sentence.   In my estimation, Dr. Hwang's major crime was not his fraudulent paper, or his misappropriation of funds.  It was his exploitation of female researchers in his lab for their eggs.  Cloning takes eggs, lots of them.  Donating eggs is not easy and has resulted in infertility and even death.  Whether female researchers in his lab were pressured to donate eggs or not, this was a huge breach of ethics.

Dr. Hwang's return to the spotlight reminded me that cutting edge biotechnology, especially in the reproductive arena, is a woman's issue.  Embryonic stem cell research and research cloning cannot continue without the precious eggs that reside in our ovaries.  In the future, reproductive cloning and genetic engineering of children cannot go anywhere without our wombs to gestate scientists' latest creations.  All of these come with significant risks for the woman whose biology is so essential.

Some would say that compensation is sufficient to insure that woman are not exploited by the biotechnology machine.  I disagree.  I call compensation for surrogacy and egg donation high-tech prostitution that preys on low income women.  Too many scientists view women as banks of harvestable biological material that they regrettably have to pay for. 

Recently, Dr. Sam Wood of Stemagen Corp. said he wants to pay women to harvest their eggs. He cries that he can't get them any other way. Forget about the health risks to young women, Dr. Wood wants the eggs to continue to pursue therapeutic cloning. 

"Give us the eggs. If we don't succeed, then be critical," said Wood. "You have to give people the tools that are required to determine whether the methodology will work."

Once again the ends justify the means, the only problem is that he is talking about young women putting their fertility and health at risk to supply him with raw material for his cloning experiments. 

I think some men just do not get that donating eggs is NOT like donating sperm.  I will go one further and say that if they required the harvesting of sperm cells directly from the testicles with hormone injections and needles, embryonic stem cell research and cloning would still be science fiction.  Guaranteed.

One of my favorite quotes on cloning is this one from Dr. Gregory Pence, bioethicist from the University of Alabama, where he nonchalantly talks about what it would take to make reproductive cloning a reality:

"If the primary moral objection to reproductive cloning is that it will likely result in genetic error in reprogramming, then of course we want research to prevent that kind of problem.  But how do we do that?  The best way is to see how cloned embryos develop and to study them, gestating them in female chimpanzees, artificial wombs, or human volunteers, then aborting them to see which are normal and which are not, then experimenting to see how to create only normally developing embryos/fetuses." 

Dr. Pence those "human volunteers" are real women who would be putting their own fertility and mental and physical health at risk by not only carrying a cloned fetus, but also going through an elective abortion in the name of science.

Even pro-lifers are not above falling into the women as "harvestable biological material" trap.  Remember Dr. William Hurlbut from Stanford who proposed Altered Nuclear Transfer with Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming (ANT-OAR) as an alternative to cloning for generating patient specific embryonic stem cells? Thirty five heavyweight pro-life academics, including Fr. Thomas Berg and Fr. Tad Pacholczyk signed a statement endorsing ANT-OAR.  The problem?  The oocyte part.  Oocyte means egg and ANT-OAR would require human eggs just like cloning.  ANT-OAR would have required the same number, if not more, women to donate eggs to satisfy this technique's need for eggs.

It is exactly the egg and embryo problem that has caused some stem cell researchers to abandon embryonic stem cell research and cloning altogether and work with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) instead.  IPS cells require no embryos or eggs and still behave like embryonic stem cells.  These iPS cells would also be a genetic match to the patient so there would be no need for cloning.

This is why should women care about biotechnology.  Because it is their bodies that will be exploited to make some of the visions of scientists come to fruition.  If we do not provide the raw materials, embryonic stem cell research and cloning cannot proceed and more alternatives like iPS cells will be found.  Women need to stand up and say, "Find another way." Some have already.  Hand Off Our Ovaries, of which I am a member, is a group of pro-choice and pro-life women and men who realize how advances in biotechnology will exploit vulnerable women.

Do your daughters a favor.  Teach them about biotechnology, the good and the bad.  Make sure they understand how valuable their bodies are.  Teach them how egg donation and surrogacy work and the risks involved.  Make sure they understand how not to fall victim to exploitation in the Brave New World.