Ethical Guidelines in Research on Embryonic Stem Cells

In the case of embryonic stem cell research, some people believe that the embryo has identical moral and rebellious status as an adult/live-born baby and hence one should respect the rights and interests of the embryo. The research on embryonic stem cells has a high chance of destroying embryos.

While doing research on frozen stem cells there can be issues for informed consent as the consent of women/couples donating the frozen embryo is needed. Gamete donor’s consent is also needed who are sometimes unwilling to disclose his/her identity due to moral/religious beliefs. Confidentiality of the donor information/details must be kept upright. Compared to other tissues (e.g nasal swap, hair sample, fingerprint, etc.) people also put forward special emotional and moral significance on their reproductive material which makes it harder to get the informed consent of an individual.

One of the possibilities is to use deidentified biological reproductive material for the purpose of stem cell research but the problem is that the donor may feel wrong if they do not consent for it. Hence deidentification can not solve the issues related to informed consent. Confidentiality of the donor is one of the major concerns as any breach of information may lead to unwanted publicity and harassment by the opponents of stem cell research. There should only need to know basis access to these data that too for only a few individuals.

Ethical issues related to fresh oocyte donation for research can be easily understood by the Hwang scandal in South Korea in which oocyte donors were inappropriately paid, serious faults in the process of informed consent procedure, and undue pressure in junior/staff scientists to donate oocytes of research. This all caused unacceptable medical complications for the donors. There are many medical risks related to fresh oocyte retrieval that includes but are not limited to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, bleeding, infection, and complications of anesthesia

The risk due to oocyte retrieval should be minimized and if a such complication occurs then the woman should be given appropriate compensation for the discomfort caused to her. To prevent such complications there should be strict ethical guidelines for stem cell research.

In some cases, women who are undergoing reproductive infertility treatment give oocytes for stem cell research. This can compromise their reproductive success and hence it comes to the responsibility of the physician to leave the most reproductive oocyte for the purpose of reproduction. It is necessary for the physician to have enough skills to do the above and this should be kept in strict control.

Donations of oocytes that is not fertile enough for gamete fusion can be very sensitive information and may cause judgemental reaction toward women. Hence the confidentiality of the donor should be one of the strict guidelines for stem cell research. The same goes for embryo donors also as the failure of embryo implantation can render women social misconceptions.

Appropriate payment to the oocyte donor is very important as anything less than required is not ethical. If the payment is too much then this may mislead women to undergo excessive risk, particularly illiterate/uneducated/unemployed. This was observed in the Hwang scandal in South Korea. Some argue that this payment should not be banned as this may result in low chances of finding oocyte donors for stem cell research.