Eggs Over

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 20, 2001 | by Joyce Howard Price

Australian scientists have fertilized mice eggs without using sperm, opening the door to the possibility of single-sex procreation for humans.

Women who believe men are useless should be buoyed by new research that suggests males may not be needed lot conception. Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, say they've shown in laboratory experiments that female mice eggs can be fertilized without sperm, using cells from nonreproductive parts of a mouse's body.

Unlike cloning, which involves the duplication of an existing creature using genetic material from only one animal, the Australian process features a contribution of chromosomes from two partners. If the technique works in humans, it could be feasible to fertilize a woman's eggs with a human cell from any part of the body -- even a cell from another woman, according to lead researcher Orly Lacham-Kaplan, an embryologist at the Institute of Reproduction and Development at Monash University.

"I am not trying to play God," Lacham-Kaplan told the Associated Press. "I am not trying to replace God or play with nature. My belief is that if I can help people to have children, I will do that regardless of what other people think." While stressing that the research still is in the very early stages, Lacham-Kaplan believes the findings offer hope that both infertile men and lesbian couples can become biological parents.

At a news conference in July, Lacham-Kaplan announced that her research team had developed embryos up to 5 days old in the lab. The normal gestation period for mice is 21 days. The next step would be to transfer those embryos into the wombs of other mice that would serve as "surrogate mothers." The researcher hopes to produce baby mice within the next year, but expects "more failures than Success."

Critics are expressing serious doubts about the research. "God made it so that a sperm and an egg make a human being," says Heather Cirmo, spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, who fears the research amounts to "one more step toward totally removing intimacy" from human reproduction. "We took sex out of it, and now today, they are taking one sex out of it."

David O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, also worries that the new technology would tempt scientists into "creating human life and then destroying it for research purposes." He expressed concern about reports that the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va., has been creating embryos for the sole purpose of extracting stem cells for use in medical research.

Professionals seeking ways to improve fertility say it's far too early for anyone to get too excited about the ramifications of the Australian research. "It's a remarkable idea and an interesting study, but ethical issues are involved," notes Masood A. Khatamee, executive director of the Fertility Research Foundation in New York City.

Khatamee, also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the New York University School of Medicine, cites the genetic abnormalities that have been found in many animals produced by other new reproductive technologies such as cloning. Such defects cannot be ruled out with the Australian technique.