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Bioethic information and analysis newsletter

Following Letter

N°58 - October 2004

Importing of embryonic stem cells

The decree and order covering the procedures for authorising the import of embryonic stem cells for research purposes, were published in the Gazette on 30th September 2004¹.

A transition device
Pending the establishment of the biomedicine agency in January 2005, covered by the law on bioethics dated 6th August 2004, and in order to enable research scientists to respond to European invitations to tender, an ad hoc committee was appointed by joint decree of the health and research ministers. A decree which is due in the spring of 2005, will organise research on supernumerary embryos which are held in French laboratories.

How many embryos ?
The Minister of Health recently requested a survey of the deep frozen embryos held in France. The previous figures date back to 2000. At that time, 118 379 embryos were preserved in French laboratories, of which 23 393 were no longer subject to any « parental project », and for 29 661 embryos, the medical teams had no information. Yet the public health code demands that laboratories provide yearly figures of the number of embryos preserved and the deep freezing duration. For several years, no consolidated figures had been requested on a nation-wide scale, as if an accurate survey might have revealed the magnitude of the problem... Nevertheless, these figures are important because the human embryos conceived more than five years ago and which parents will not wish to implant or donate, could be used by research scientists to produce generations of stem cells, as allowed by the law on bioethics. A survey together with a precise follow-up of the parents wishes should therefore be organised.

Tomorrow, therapeutic cloning?
During the presentation discussion of the decree on 5th October 2004, the Minister of Health explained: « with the decree which has just been published, research scientists will familiarise themselves with the existing unwanted embryos. Tomorrow, the next stage might be the intentional creation of human embryos in order to be able to graft patients with their own cells. The open mind required for the forthcoming debate on the creation of embryos to treat certain diseases (Ed. note : this is often known as therapeutic cloning) is only matched by the severity with which the practice must be condemned if the creation is aimed at giving birth to an artificial human being. Reproductive cloning : never ! » Thus the law on bioethics, prohibiting the creation of embryos for research and therapeutic cloning, has hardly been passed, that the Minister of Health is already considering authorising them for a certain period... No doubt long enough for public opinion to get used to the idea...

1 - Decree dated 28th September 2004 concerning the import of embryonic stem cells for research purposes, study and research and preservation protocols for such cells and covering the application of the provisions of article 37 of law No. 2004-800 dated 6th August 2004 and decree dated 28th September 2004.

Neurones from human stem cells ?

Cells and neurones

The team working under Dr Lorenz Studer (Stem cells laboratory at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York) claims to have shown that human embryonic stem cells can be differentiated into neurone cells producing dopamine¹. This molecule is the chemical messenger, used for communication between neurones, which is lacking for instance in Parkinson's disease. By cultivating together embryonic stem cells and bone marrow cells, biologists were able to convert more than 70% of the stem cells into dopamine producing neurones. French scientist Anselme Perrier, who was the first signatory of the article explains : « This is a key milestone. We now have the tools required to move to the next stages, in particular to start testing on animals. »

With adult stem cells

This work will reactivate the ethical debate on the use of embryonic stem cells which involves the destruction of human embryos. Embryonic stem cells are not, however, the only research path for degenerative diseases; several studies have shown the effectiveness of adult stem cells in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Nature Medicine magazine, in May 2003, published the results of cellular therapy conducted on five patients suffering from that disease. A year later, their ability to perform day-to-day tasks had improved by 61%.

1 - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 14th August 2004

Cloning at the UNO

Therapeutic cloning ?
The UNO General Assembly are in full debate on whether or not to prohibit therapeutic cloning under the international convention on cloning. The UNO must give a ruling on a resolution presented by Costa Rica calling on a prohibition of all forms of cloning. Two positions are confronted between nations who favour a total ban on cloning (the vast majority of nations) and those who would merely ban reproductive cloning¹.

France's ambiguous position
Although France has prohibited therapeutic cloning through the recent bioethic laws, is supportive of the UNO's position of merely banning reproductive cloning and allowing each nation to make up it's own mind on therapeutic cloning. Remember that cloning always involves the reproduction of a human embryo, it is therefore always reproductive. But the term therapeutic is used to indicate that the embryo will not be allowed to develop up to birth because it will be used for research.

1 -See Gènéthique No. 47 « No prohibition of human cloning by the UNO ».

The belly empire – Another history of maternity - Marcela Iacub

Must one give birth to be a mother ?
Nothing could seem more natural and universally recognised. And yet... Marcela Iacub, a lawyer and research worker at the CNRS, wishes to demonstrate by looking back through history at the rights of descent and by crossing boundaries, that nothing could be less obvious... or desirable.

Children are no longer born from marriage
From the 1804 civil code till the 1972 reform, children were not necessarily born from the bodies of their parents, but from their marriage ; supposed children1 (condemned in criminal law but in fact, difficult to prove) enabled certain sterile married women to have children.
This was a method of creating a legitimate descent according to the parents' wishes, devoid of any foundation through the « biological truth » which would have been provided by the mother's giving birth. The law dated 3rd January 1972 put an end to the empire of matrimonial appearances.

The belly empire
Faced with the marriage crisis, childbirth itself has become an institution, in which the mother is free to enter or not right up to the last moment, since she can not only choose to abort, but also can give birth anonymously. Marcela Iacub denounces this total maternal power which is in fact alienating for women which nature discriminates to the sole benefit of those who are able to give birth.... and to abort.

Adoption and surrogate mothers
Plenary adoption has become suspicious. In the 1980s, resorting to substitute maternity (through the adoption of a child by the wife of the man having donated his sperm and having recognised the child of a surrogate mother having given birth anonymously) was condemned in the courts and Marcela Iacub is astonished : « at a time when ovules, sperms could be torn from entrails and test-tube embryos to be assigned to various parental projects », pregnancy itself, could not be delegated. The 1994 law on bioethics, by authorising all the assisted reproductive techniques apart from surrogate maternity, recalls this « uterine exception » on which French family rights are founded. Whereas the ovule and embryo are free to circulate between couples without any legal consequences, where is the logic in keeping childbirth as the criterion that the child has in fact been conceived by this woman ? Germany, Switzerland and Austria have opted to ban both the donation of ovules and surrogate maternity and support genetic truth; other nations, such as the United Kingdom and Israel allow both, founding the descent on the principle of willingness.

Anonymous childbirth : danger ?
Due to the widespread use of contraception and abortion, anonymous childbirth has become anachronous, through a « lack of children to be born ». But the crisis of that institution is the same as that affecting adoption and the movement of militants for the right to know one's origins, claims that it is better to abort than to give birth anonymously, with the risk of giving birth to a « nobody's child », unless it is purely and simply prohibited.

Genetic truth or parental willingness ?
The belly empire is being threatened and is confronted with two alternatives : either to found all descents, including maternal, on the willingness to have a child, in which case there would no longer be any reason to oppose homoparenthood, each assuming the consequences, not of their sexual acts, but of their reproductive decisions; or to see the triumph of the principle of genetic truth. What about the child in all this ? After claiming the right to abort, the free use of their body, feminists are now up in arms against the inequality afflicting those who cannot become mothers due to their sterility or their homosexuality. The very foundations of the right of descent are being shaken by the possibilities becoming available through new assisted reproductive techniques. Which way will this go, towards genetic truth, the right for childbirth or the rights of children ? This work, which is nevertheless very interesting, holds back from any attempt at answering that question, by ignoring the rights of the human child.

1 – Supposition consists in claiming that a woman has given birth when in fact she has not.

Marcela Iacub. The belly empire, for a history of maternity, Published by Fayard, September 2004.