A scientist in Australia has produced research that suggests babies could be conceived without men. Dr Orly Lacham-Kaplan said yesterday at Melbourne's Monash University that, after two years' work, she has shown that female mice can conceive through the use of cells other than sperm. She said that it was theoretically possible a human cell from any part of the body could be used to fertilise a woman's eggs.
While anticipating more failure and difficulties than success in her research, Dr Lacham-Kaplan said that she was pleased with her progress so far. She said that it would be another year before it is known whether or not the technique was safe and posed no risk of physical disorders or jeopardised the child's ability to reproduce.
Dr Lacham-Kaplan said that she would prefer the technology to eventually be used to help infertile heterosexual couples, but acknowledged that the technique could also allow lesbian couples to have their own biological children. She said that she would leave discussion about whether it should be used in a lesbian relationship to others.
The discovery has prompted a negative reaction from the medical sector in Australia. Australian Family Association national secretary Dr Bill Muehlenberg said the new research was "very scary", adding that the technique could lead to genetic abnormalities. "We have been able to separate sexuality from reproduction, now we are managing to separate reproduction from human relationships as well," Dr Muehlenberg added. "I would feel sorry for the kid in any such experiment."
However, researchers on the other side of the world have welcomed the breakthrough. Fertility expert, Professor Robert Winston, told the BBC that the technique would make any possible need for human cloning redundant. "The beauty of this technique is that it makes cloning completely unnecessary and therefore anybody who's saying they want to clone a human baby next year for reproductive purposes now looks rather silly," he said. "This actually is a much better technique and ethically much more acceptable, because you have chromosomes essentially from two partners."
In a separate development, a US fertility clinic has said that it has been using human embryos solely in order to acquire cells that are valuable for research. The announcement from the private clinic that stem cells had been made to order has sparked a furious ethical debate among scientists, politicians and religious leaders. It comes as the Bush administration considers whether or not to approve federal funds for stem cell research. A leading Catholic critic of embryonic stem cell research called it a "grotesque practice".
