Putting the Story in Science
One of the biggest challenges I face as a science fiction writer - and one of the biggest reasons I tend to write Space Opera rather than Hard SF - is staying ahead of the science. As a scientist, most of my work is very industrial. I'm not in research, nothing bleeding-edge is going on in my lab, and while there are plenty of puzzles and studies to be done in solving those, it's much more technical than it is theoretical. So in aid of keeping my mental edge sharpened, I read journals whenever I can, and subscribe to a few science news aggregators (always looking for more, if you have recommendations). It's in one of those that I first learned of a rather interesting article in the MIT Technology Review about encouraging stem cells to develop into embryos.
It's both fascinating, and horrifying, to contemplate. The article calls for the regulators in the US to get involved in preventing this science fictional postulate of petri dish embryonic development to become a very real future. I really have to wonder if they think it will help, and indeed, within the next few sentences they admit that given the focus of China and other countries on the same research avenues, with very different ethical frameworks, it's inevitable that it will be done. Thus far? It's not possible. It has been attempted in mice, but no viable pregnancies have resulted from the implantation of embryos developed from stem cells.
I'm going to pause here and elaborate on something. I know, from my interactions with friends, family, and random folks I've encountered, that there is a lot of confusion on what stem cells are, and the ethics behind using them for research. Most people still seem to think that a stem cell originates from an unborn baby, and while this can be true, it is not always true, and in fact, current research using fetal stem cells is permitted in the US, but not everywhere, and not often with public funds, so it's rare, and fraught with ethical questions. With the obvious caveat that this isn't the case in other parts of the world. Stem cells are also seen and feted as miracle cures, which may be partially true, but probably isn't. I'm going to burst some bubbles and say that if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true. Cure-alls simply don't exist, but quack doctors do, and prey on the most vulnerable population of patients and those who love them and want to see them get better.
Moving past that myth and tangling with others, making embryos in petri dishes may seem like a horrific idea right out of a biothriller, but the usefulness of it actually does make sense to science. It's the extrapolation of 'what can we do with this ability?' that fascinates me as both a scientist and a writer. If we can indeed move from the petri dish to implantation of viable embryos, through to the live birth of infants, what then? I hasten to say that we're not there yet. However, it seems that we are trembling on the brink of that reality. It opens a realm of questions, many of which have been explored in science fiction over the last several decades by minds brilliant enough to foresee the future. Cloning, the question of the soul, what makes a human human... we've read about those in stories about both biological organisms and robotic ones.
Whose child is the product of a stem cell? What happens when we can 'write' the genetic code of that cell from scratch? What if that child, as Sarah Hoyt speculates in her Darkship series, is carried to term in an animal (which also poses special scientific challenges, I'll note. It's not currently likely or viable because the following is already an option...) and what if that child is brought to term in an artificial womb, as Lois McMaster Bujold explored at length in her most excellent Vorkosigan series? What does a future in which genetic engineering is not only accessible but simple and inexpensive hold for us? How do you tell a child their origin was not like other children? How do you face the inevitable discrimination and fear of such a child? What does it all mean?
In fiction, we can explore - and should! - these questions and many more I am sure are popping into your mind. We can also contemplate the mess of trying to regulate the research paving a path into that future, and what happens when it inevitably fails. The article ended on an interesting note. Public funding for this research is hesitant, as it should be on such a controversial subject. Private funding, on the other hand... Which spins off into it's own stories for me. A crime to be born? Are those children even alive? Do they have their own rights? I know what I think. But then again, I'm a mother and a woman of faith. And I am a scientist. I have very clearly defined senses of what is meant by life, death, and cellular development. I'm also a student of human nature, and criminology. This is a horror, and a blessing, and any point on the spectrum in between those points. We must face the reality of what science makes possible, and science fiction helps us explore that coming reality before it is upon us. That is, it can if our imagination doesn't fail us, and we can stay a step or two ahead of technology and research! That's the hardest part of all.