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British MPs Approve 3-Parent Babies
An anonymous reader writes: A vote of 382-128 in the UK's House of Commons gave approval for a procedure that allows the creation of babies using DNA from three parents. If the measure passes the House of Lords and gets licensed by the fertility regulator, the UK would be the first country to allow such genetic engineering. The medical procedure was designed to help conception when genetic diseases could be passed through mitochondrial DNA. A child inherits mitochondria only from its mother, and these mitochondria have their own DNA, which doesn't affect things like the child's appearance.
The purpose of the procedure is to replace the mother's mitochondria, and that can happen in two different ways. In one method, doctors take eggs from the mother and from a donor, removing the nucleus of both. The mother's nucleus is then implanted in the donor's egg, which can then be fertilized by the father's sperm. The other method is similar, but both eggs are fertilized before the nucleus swap takes place.
There has been lively debate about this issue, with critics raising ethical concerns and questioning the procedure's success rate. They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children. Proponents point out that less than 0.1% of the child's DNA will come from the donor, and it won't affect anything other than the child's health.
The purpose of the procedure is to replace the mother's mitochondria, and that can happen in two different ways. In one method, doctors take eggs from the mother and from a donor, removing the nucleus of both. The mother's nucleus is then implanted in the donor's egg, which can then be fertilized by the father's sperm. The other method is similar, but both eggs are fertilized before the nucleus swap takes place.
There has been lively debate about this issue, with critics raising ethical concerns and questioning the procedure's success rate. They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children. Proponents point out that less than 0.1% of the child's DNA will come from the donor, and it won't affect anything other than the child's health.
This is, I think, more about the social situation then it is about the % of DNA.
People can become a parent even if they have 0% similar DNA. It never has been an issue, so now would it suddenly become one.
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So glad some white upper class inbred nobles can spend money to make their precious baby.
These aren't upper class inbred nobles, and if they're spending their money on it, why shouldn't they? Or must we now have every purchase ratified to ensure it doesn't have any detriment to the world at large? Because then you could wave goodbye to a lot of luxuries.
Given the choice between them producing a string of unhealthy babies that live (in some cases) short painful lives and require round-the-clock care, and them being able to have one or two healthy kids, I'd take this any day.
child custody in a divorce? i don't know. might even be some BAD health things.
Do you think the donors of kidneys or stem cells should also have custody rights over their recipients? If not, why should the donors of mitochondria be treated any differently?
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Why would they need a new species classification, much less a genus? Your mitochondrial DNA differs from that of everyone else except your siblings by the same mother, and somehow you share a species label with the rest of us. The products of this technique will still have human nuclear DNA and human mDNA, just without Mom contributing half of the nuclear DNA and all of the mDNA, but instead only the nuclear DNA.
Future historians attempting to use mitochondria to trace female ancestry genetically will curse this development(just as the ones attempting to use Y chromosomes to genetically trace male ancestry would curse a hypothetical 'Y swap' corrective procedure for X-linked genetic disease); but it's hard to see an argument for why the product of this technique would be considered anything other than human.
I'm not sure how the issue got the very Daily Mail headline of "3 person babies". By that same logic anyone with a donor organ is a "monster franken-hybrid of two people!".
Essentially it's a transplant (astonishingly) early in that baby's life. Kind of impressive that we could pull it off, actually. Far better that we do something medically that will terminate that line of mitochondria from being passed on to make more people miserable.
That said, the 'poster mom' for this condition Sharon Bernardi has lost SEVEN children to this condition. (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19648992) "...Each of her first three children died within hours of birth and no-one knew why....At the same time, her mother revealed that she'd had three stillbirths before Sharon had been born. Further investigations by doctors revealed that members of Sharon's extended family had lost another eight children between them."
Her 4th child survived until he was 21, living a life of dysfunction and pain;
"..."In the last year of his life Edward was in chronic pain. He had dystonic spasms caused by things going wrong in his brain. His muscles would go into spasm for up to six hours at a time. Drugs could not help him."
"...Sharon and Neil kept on trying for a healthy baby but without luck. Although three more children were born, none lived beyond the age of two. Each time one of their children died, they told themselves that "the death was a one-off". After their last child had a heart attack and died in 2000 they stopped trying...."
I'm sorry, but what the hell? How colossally selfish does someone have to be to just keep pumping out babies that die? There are at least hundreds of thousands of adoptable children *desperate* for parents to love them, your womb is so fucking sacred that you're willing to (essentially) just keep killing babies until you get one that's "of you"?
That's not the most sympathetic figure they could have picked to represent why this was needed.
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One thing I don't get is if you know your genes carry a decease that can affect your child's health, then why even try to reproduce? Why not drop the notion of having to continue your rotten genetic line, and instead adopt a healthy child? Jeez.
"critics raising ethical concerns" no seriously, beside religious catholic concern about offing an embryo to save another, what real ethical concern is there *at all* ?
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And what really bugs the piss out of me about that argument is that if you're really going to go by The Bible on medical care, then you should go without ANY life-saving measures that weren't developed at that time anyway.
If it's not how they did it in The Bible, you should reject it, if you're really going to be that fucking picky.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
And the law is so written to stop guys having sex, creating babies then denying any responsibility. Hence the requirement that the donation be under the supervision of a doctor.
I'm not sure what the concern here is, unless the suggestion is that three people will come together in a back room without a doctor, privately switch out the mitochondrial DNA in the woman's egg and then fertilize the egg.
DNA is usually not a consideration in custody decisions.
I disagree. Possession of a second X chromosome tends to be a big advantage.