Same-Sex Couples Could Soon Have Biological Children
Stem cell breakthrough could mean biological children for same-sex couples
(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A breakthrough in stem cell research has revealed that the reality of same-sex couples having the ability to have their own biological children is just two short years away.
Researchers from Cambridge University along with Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have discovered that it is possible to make a baby using skin cells from parents of the same sex.
“We have succeeded in the first and most important step of this process, which is to show we can make these very early human stem cells in a dish,” says Wellcome Trust project leader and professor of physiology and reproduction at Cambridge, Azim Surani.
The researchers have shown, for the very first time that stem cells from the skin of two adults can make human egg and sperm cells, prompting interest from people with infertility disease and same-sex couples. The scientists used stem cell lines from embryos as well as cells from the skin of five different adults. Ten different donor sources have been used so far and new germ-cell lines have been created from all of them.
“It has already caused interest from gay groups because of the possibility of making egg and sperm cells from parents of the same sex,” says Jacob Hanna, the specialist leading the project’s Israeli arm.
The development raises some serious ethical issues; however, many can potentially benefit from the technique they’ve been testing on humans since creating artificial human eggs and sperm for the first time last year.
-by Sarah Furlong
