United Kingdom Passes Three Parent DNA Law
Shelby Cusick
What is the definition of a perfect baby? To most religious figureheads, as well as most of the world, there is not one specific look or action of a baby that would indeed make them the ideal child. But what if you had the chance to create what your baby would ultimately look like and help prevent hereditary diseases? A new law being passed in the United Kingdom will allow parents to advert potential diseases within the newborn by using a healthy embryo given by a donor. However, question arises to the fact that this law will create a leeway to other laws that would accept the creation of designer babies. A designer baby is said to be a baby whose genetic makeup has been selected in order to ensure that a particular gene is present.
UK lawmakers voted upon three-parent babies earlier this month; passing 382 to 128 in favor of the new reform. However, before the measure can become law, a final vote must take place in UK’s upper house, the House of Lords.
The United Kingdom could become the first country in the world to allow a pioneering in vitro fertilization technique using DNA from three people. In simple terms, the donor’s nucleus is taken out of their embryo, which leaves mitochondria without disease. Then the mother’s nucleus is extracted from her embryo and added to the donor’s embryo. This final embryo is then implanted in the mother’s womb.
One out of every 6,500 babies in the United Kingdom are thought to have a serious mitochondrial disorder. A medical fault like this can lead to additional health issues such as blindness and muscular dystrophy, heart and liver disease, and respiratory problems. The technique could prevent mitochondrial diseases but it raises significant ethical issues.
First off, many church leaders completely oppose the law because this procedure involves the destruction of an embryo, a life. Secondly, scientists say the technique will not change a child's characteristics, just make it healthy. Yet a large amount of people are concerned with the fact that new laws will be passed, in extension to the three-parent baby law, allowing parents to create a designer baby.
The idea of a perfect baby comes to every parent's mind, however; ethically, generating a child would seem to go against fate or the natural process of life. It seems to completely demolish one of the most magical and empowering moments in life; when a mother and father look into the eyes of the little combination of themselves and think ‘we created this perfect baby by ourselves’.
