'Virgin conception' first for UKEven if separating the religious 'flavor' from the social implications, this is still a deeply disturbing development. Male and female roles are the warp and woof of our social fabric. Even casual investigation of many social woes today shows that minor defects in this relationship have wide-ranging effects. Ask any child of divorce or of a one-parent household.
"Human embryos created using a so-called 'virgin conception' technique have been made in the UK for the first time.
The Roslin Institute, which also cloned Dolly the sheep, reported the so-called parthenotes at a Dublin conference.
They are made by stimulating a human egg to start dividing like an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell.
The Edinburgh team has so far created six parthenotes to the stage at which they would hope to mine stem cells."(BBC NEWS)
ABC News did a story related to this just the other night. They reported on a Columbia University survey that concluded "teenagers who eat with their families at least five times a week are more likely to get better grades in school and much less likely to have substance abuse problems."
Whether individuals reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis, sexually through egg or sperm donations, or even through the means by which people managed before all these developments, I would say that the odds of having a stable family environment that produces the results of the Columbia University study would be rather low. Our society needs to reevaluate the goals we which to achieve and the means by which we will attain them. Science such as this from the Roslin Institute is putting the cart before the horse.
