NEWS
EVENTS
IVF Using DNA From Three People Might Soon Become Legal In The UK
Friday 28th June 2013 | Camille
In a couple of months Parliament are expected to debate legalising a controversial new method of IVF treatment that would use DNA from three people to make a baby.
Scientists are hailing this as a major breakthrough for parents that carry genes causing debilitating and sometimes fatal mitochondrial diseases. The nuclei of the two parents will be placed in an egg from a donor with healthy mitochondria. The baby would have over 20,000 genes from its parents and just 37 genes from the donor. Scientists who support this method say that it could help up to ten couples a year!
Mind you a lot of people are opposed to this, saying it will irreversibly alter human genetic inheritance, it has also been described as the beginning of a ‘slippery slope’ that will eventually lead to the ‘eugenic designer baby market’ which although it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, is terrifyingly possible.
While we’re not on board with ‘designer babies’, helping to eradicate disease and giving parents the opportunity to have children free from sometimes fatal disease can only be a good thing as far as we’re concerned.
Camille Merrells
