An article on Scotsman (13th of January) says that Edinburgh University's prof. Ian Wilmut - who already created Dolly the sheep - is planning to use rabbit oocytes to produce embryos implanting nuclei from human cells, in order to circumvent the lack of human cells for research purposes.
A document of the Church of Scotland already branded the process as unethical asserting that:
In historic Christian tradition, humans are made uniquely in God's image. The mixture of human and animal tissue would breach the distinction which Christian tradition holds between humans and animals.
Personally, I have a couple of questions:
- Would such organism reach a full development if implanted in a womb?
- Would the non-human biologic material used cause a genetic mutation of the cells produced?
I mean, it seems difficult to call this organism 'hybrid', because the nucleus will start commanding the production of human cells, unless there is a genetic modification. But if there is such modification, how helpful can the process be?
Furthermore, it seems to me that the argument used by the Church of Scotland could be used to rule out transplants from animal to human, and I am not sure they would be unethical.
Am I right in thinking that 'conception' is then to be intended as the starting of the development of an organism with human dna, whatever means are used to achieve it?
Is there a good book that explains the problem and the definitions in detail?
