Abstract
BackgroundRich in different kind of potent cells, embryos are used in modern regenerative medicine and research. Neurobiologists today are pushing the boundaries for what can be done with embryos existing in the transitory margins of medicine. Therefore, there is a growing need to develop conceptual frameworks for interpreting the transformative cultural, biological and technical processes involving these aborted, donated and marginal embryos. This article is a contribution to this development of frameworks.MethodsThis article examines different emotional, cognitive and discursive strategies used by neurobiologists in a foetal cell transplantation trial in Parkinson’s disease research, using cells harvested from aborted embryos. Two interviews were analysed in the light of former observations in the processing laboratories, using the anthropologist Mary Douglas’s concept of pollution behaviour and the linguist, philosopher, psychoanalyst and feminist Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abjective to explain and make sense of the findings.ResultsThe findings indicate that the labour performed by the researchers in the trial work involves transforming the foetal material practically, as well as culturally, from trash to treasure. The transformation process contains different phases, and in the interview material we observed that the foetal material or cells were considered objects, subjects or rejected as abject by the researchers handling them, depending on what phase of process or practice they referred to or had experience of. As demonstrated in the analysis, it is the human origin of the cell that makes it abjective and activates pollution discourse, when the researchers talk of their practice.ConclusionsThe marginal and ambiguous status of the embryo that emerges in the accounts turns the scientists handling foetal cells into liminal characters in modern medicine. Focusing on how practical as well as emotional and cultural strategies and rationalizations of the researchers emerge in interview accounts, this study adds insights on the rationale of practically procuring, transforming and utilizing the foetal material to the already existing studies focused on the donations. We also discuss why the use and refinement of a tissue, around which there is practical consensus but cultural ambiguity, deserves further investigation.
Highlights
Rich in different kind of potent cells, embryos are used in modern regenerative medicine and research
It is crucial to understand the rituality and cultural concern surrounding the handling of foetal material in regenerative research
By applying Douglas’s concept of pollution behaviour [8] to the aborted embryo, and by understanding it as abject [9], we found that the tabooing of it activates an adapted and sensitized language
Summary
Rich in different kind of potent cells, embryos are used in modern regenerative medicine and research. [4–6])that is done in the clinic – to the wombs and minds of aborting women and their families – through the different facilities handling the foetal material in different stages and the hands of midwives and researchers mobilizing and refining it, as well as into the minds and brains of future rats and patients, and into the hopes and dreams of the media and the afflicted [7] There, it highlights the same issues as Douglas’s ‘concept of pollution behaviour, namely, that the foetal cells are something that can be both specific and formless; that they can create order or be a disorder; that they may give life, while a potential life is ended [8]. It poses conceptual problems for the researchers dealing with it practically on daily basis in the laboratories as well as in relation to the outside world
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