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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 11 June 5, 1968

Moral for test tube babies

Moral for test tube babies

Science Editor

The possibility of artificially creating life is a most recent development in the field of science. In December 1967 American scientists achieved the artificial production of "DNA" (de-oxyribose nucleic acid) and often referred to as "the molecule of life". This was an event which created not only a scientific upheaval but also a host of moral problems. Man is now closer than ever before to the possibility of creating life from laboratory chemicals.

Prior to 1967 scientists knew that every human being began as a fertilised egg cell, a fraction of an inch in diameter and weighing only 1½0 millionth of an ounce. Under the correct conditions this cell would grow and divide in a mathematical progression until at birth; a normal baby consists of about 5 billion cells. Scientsts realised that the initial cell must contain some "blueprint" which would direct it to divide and develop in an organised manner.

Botanists were already aware of this development pattern. Parallel work with plant tissue proved that starting with a special plant cell or group of cells, it was possible under certain culture techniques to enlarge and increase the numbers of these cells. Then if a suitable chemical stimulus was applied, the amorphous mass or tissue culture began to differentiate and produce another plant. The new plant would be identical in all respects with the parent, the plant from which the initial tissue was taken.

A corresponding process for human tissue culture does not appear impossible. But while this process has possibilities it also has fundamental difficulties. For example what chemical could be applied to the amorphous mass of human tissue in its culture medium, which would result in the formation of a "baby"? Also, would the "baby" be merely a mirror image of its "parent"?

However these scientific problems are dwarfed by the religious controversy which would probably result if such a process was possible. Would the initial tissue be endowed with a soul, which by definition can be in all parts of the body as an integral part of it and yet in no particular part at any particular time? Would a soul be created when the tissue started to grow or possibly at the moment when it started to differentiate into a "baby". provided that a chemical with this power of differentiation was found. The moral issue could only be fraught with disagreement.

Now. with the discovery of "DNA" and its artificial production research has taken a definite pattern. "DNA" is found in the nucleus of all cells and has been proved to form a biological code—"the code of life". This code carried by the "DNA" molecule provides the master plan by which cells divide and develop. Each of the four nucleic acids which go to make up "DNA" arc like letters in a biological alphabet and when strung together in chains these "letters" provide instructions for the cells which are growing and multiplying.

Research scientists are attempting to decipher the genetic code and explain how various arrangements of the "DNA" components are translated into specific results. If some particular physical feature e.g. hair colouring, can be related to a fixed arrangement of nucleic acids in "DNA" then there is an opportunity of changing hair colouring. Obviously this .would give rise to numerous other possibilities.

Already scientists have been able to make basic changes in the hereditary factors of tissue cultures. This so-called "genetic surgery" is at present largely a process of trial and error, but once the genetic code is understood it may be possible to accurately predict the results of any changes in hereditary factors.

It would obviously be unwise to proceed further with attempted production of higher life from chemicals without understanding genetic patterns.

The possibility of producing physical and genetical misfits must be avoided at all costs. Much of this development is still in the theoretical stage and test tube babies are undoubtedly a thing of the future.

The implications of today's discoveries are sufficiently profound as to prompt Dr. Stanley, the 1946 Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of "D.N.A.". to remark that resent-day biochemical research is "a type of chemistry which bids fair to revolutionise the world." He and other scientists believe the great biochemical discoveries in the making may be so fundamental that we should now plan to control their possible uses or misuses, so that if and when the knowledge sought becomes available, it will be used to man's best advantage.