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UK Government Proposes Rules To Allow 'Three-Parent Embryos'

Posted by Unknown on from the meet-my-nine-parents dept.

sciencehabit writes "The U.K. government today issued proposed regulations that would allow researchers to try a new and controversial in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure in patients. The technique could allow women who are carriers of mitochondrial disease to have healthy, genetically related children. But it also transfers DNA from one egg or embryo into another, a form of genetic alteration that could be passed on to future generations. Altering the genes of human egg cells or embryos in IVF procedures is now forbidden in the United Kingdom."

4 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How DARE you propose NOT to allow this? by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You'd have a point if mitochondrial DNA did all that shit. Thing is, mitochondrial DNA doesn't so any of that shit.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Re:How DARE you propose NOT to allow this? by Microlith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or, you know, NOT having children also eliminates the perpetuation of a disease.

    Or we could solve the problem instead of simply going "oh you should just not have children."

    Why some people think this planet is in such dire need of more inhabitants that they'd go to lengths such as these just blows my mind.

    Because it's an inherent drive in most living creatures. Feel free to start with yourself, however.

    Before we bring more life into this world, we need to address the suffering of those who are already here.

    Addressing the suffering of those who are here has no bearing on bringing in more life, nor are they mutually exclusive.

  3. Re:Stranger than fiction by JazzHarper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Under the proposal, the donor of the egg would have no parental rights. That is logical, since mtDNA carries very little information, compared to nuclear DNA.

    There is no genetic modification involved so there is no "intellectual property" vested in the DNA of the offspring. From that standpoint, this is no different from conventional in-vitro fertilization.

  4. Re:Stranger than fiction by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a kid with three parents may well have a hard time fitting into a legal system that assumes only two

    A kid with three legal parents, perhaps, but that's not what's being discussed.

    For instance, how would the divorce issues work out (custody, support, etc)?

    Surely it would be dealt with in exactly the same way as egg donation, sperm donation, adoption, surrogacy etc. The two legal parents will be the legal parents, and no-one else gets a say.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.