CNN
Opponents of controversial plans to use hybrid human-animal embryos for research spoke out Tuesday, calling the practice unnecessary, unnatural, and reprehensible a day after British lawmakers voted to allow it.
The British parliament debated the issue Monday as part of its discussion of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, which will update legislation on reproduction and embryos.
“Crossing the species barrier in this way is deeply, deeply reprehensible, undesirable,” said Josephine Quintavalle, a bioethicist who founded Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE).
The research involves emptying an animal egg and filling it with human cells. The resulting embryo is allowed to develop for 14 days — during which time scientists harvest the stem cells — before being destroyed. Read more
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