Does this really solve the ethical wicket of human embryo testing? Is tricking stem cells into forming an embryo really that different from fertilizing an egg with a sperm cell to form an embryo? Like, would this still develop into a functional human being if implanted into a womb?

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Today's science has become so advanced because of unethical things that done in the past. I don't think this one is ethical either, also sounds like some form of cloning.

[–] exohuman@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought it sounded like cloning too. I wonder why they didn’t use that word?

[–] whileloop@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Probably the same reason they use the word "model" instead of just calling it an embryo. They don't want to make it sound like they're experimenting on an actual human embryo (even though that's basically what it is). That's the real ethical question here. At what point does this become experimentation on humans? This also steps into basically the same problem as the abortion debate, which is more heated than I'd like to get here.

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