Cutas Daniela, Smajdor Anna
Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Health Care Anal. 2017 Dec;25(4):354-369. doi: 10.1007/s10728-016-0321-7.
In this paper, we will discuss the prospect of human reproduction achieved with gametes originating from only one person. According to statements by a minority of scientists working on the generation of gametes in vitro, it may become possible to create eggs from men's non-reproductive cells and sperm from women's. This would enable, at least in principle, the creation of an embryo from cells obtained from only one individual: 'solo reproduction'. We will consider what might motivate people to reproduce in this way, and the implications that solo reproduction might have for ethics and policy. We suggest that such an innovation is unlikely to revolutionise reproduction and parenting. Indeed, in some respects it is less revolutionary than in vitro fertilisation as a whole. Furthermore, we show that solo reproduction with in vitro created gametes is not necessarily any more ethically problematic than gamete donation-and probably less so. Where appropriate, we draw parallels with the debate surrounding reproductive cloning. We note that solo reproduction may serve to perpetuate reductive geneticised accounts of reproduction, and that this may indeed be ethically questionable. However, in this it is not unique among other technologies of assisted reproduction, many of which focus on genetic transmission. It is for this reason that a ban on solo reproduction might be inconsistent with continuing to permit other kinds of reproduction that also bear the potential to strengthen attachment to a geneticised account of reproduction. Our claim is that there are at least as good reasons to pursue research towards enabling solo reproduction, and eventually to introduce solo reproduction as an option for fertility treatment, as there are to do so for other infertility related purposes.
在本文中，我们将探讨利用仅来自一个人的配子实现人类生殖的前景。根据少数致力于体外配子生成研究的科学家的说法，有可能从男性的非生殖细胞中创造卵子，从女性的非生殖细胞中创造精子。这至少在原则上能够从仅一个个体获取的细胞中创造胚胎：“单性生殖”。我们将思考人们可能出于何种动机以这种方式生殖，以及单性生殖可能对伦理和政策产生的影响。我们认为，这样一项创新不太可能彻底改变生殖和养育方式。事实上，在某些方面，它的变革性不如整体的体外受精。此外，我们表明，利用体外创造的配子进行单性生殖在伦理问题上不一定比配子捐赠更严重——甚至可能更轻。在适当的时候，我们将其与围绕生殖性克隆的辩论进行类比。我们注意到，单性生殖可能会使对生殖的简化基因化解释长期存在，而这确实可能在伦理上受到质疑。然而，在这方面它在其他辅助生殖技术中并非独一无二，其中许多技术也侧重于基因传递。正因如此，禁止单性生殖可能与继续允许其他同样有可能强化对生殖的基因化解释的生殖方式不一致。我们的主张是，开展旨在实现单性生殖的研究，并最终将单性生殖作为一种生育治疗选项引入，至少有与出于其他不孕相关目的进行此类研究同样充分的理由。
