The next ethical quagmire/scientific miracle: In vitro gametogenesis

Scientists near a breakthrough that could revolutionize human reproduction : NPR

In abortion threads, I've sometimes alluded to how someday we will be able to produce babies from any of your nucleated cells. Well, this is that technology. In vitro gametogenesis has been done in mice. They take cells from the tail, induce pluripotency, and induce them to become eggs or sperm. Use IVF methods to produce offspring, and the resulting mice have been healthy. One group claims to be a year away from being able to do this in humans, but most groups say it's at least a few years away.

This raises lots of potential applications and ethical issues. It would be a way for two males, two females, one male, or one female of any age to be the genetic parent of offspring. No artificial wombs yet, but with this tech a cis woman could essentially give birth to a clone of herself using her own cells. Somebody could also unknowingly become a genetic father from the cells on a discarded cup. We could probably even get cells from long-dead persons to use. So yeah, many potential ethical issues. I'm less concerned about technical safety than the article is. I don't see any reason it would cause major genetic issues, and the mice were reported to be healthy.

What do you think?

 

I think I prefer the old fashioned way.

 

Some people always would. But this technology would expand who can have kids, and how. Thought cost may be an issue. It would also help with making designer babies or organ factories, but those things would fall afoul of current law.

Vs regular IVF, I think the biggest potential issue is how somebody could become a father without sex or even donating sperm. All that's needed is nucleated cells. So if somebody takes a famous person's cells without consent, and they become a biological father through no action of their own, what then? Do they have any moral responsibility to the offspring? It would help that this would require doctors with licenses to actually do, and those doctors probably wouldn't use the cells unless they think the father consented to his cells being used.