Britain becomes first country to legalize '3-parent' babies
February 25, 2015
After more than three hours of debate on Tuesday, Britain's upper house of parliament approved a law passed by the House of Commons earlier in the month to allow a controversial "three person IVF technique" that doctors say can prevent some incurable genetic diseases.
The move makes the United Kingdom the first nation in the world to allow the treatment, which critics fear will lead to "designer babies."
The technique is actually called mitochondrial transfer, but is known as "three-parent" in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the babies are born from genetically modified embryos with DNA from a mother, father, and female donor. The process removes faulty mitochondrial DNA, thus negating such inherited conditions as liver failure, blindness, and muscular dystrophy.
Despite still being at the research stage in the Britain as well as in the United States, where it is technically illegal, now that the legal hurdles are out of the way, experts say Britain's first three-parent baby could be born as early as 2016.
Mark Downs, chief director of the Society of Biology, praised the "great day for UK science" that would help mothers "have healthy children free from devastating conditions."
But critics called the move "crude" and pointed out inheriting traits from three different sources would have an impact on a large range of traits in unknowable ways, possibly introducing changes that will be inherited by future generations.
Marcy Darnovsky, head of the campaign group The Center for Genetics and Society, called the law a "historic mistake" that will ultimately result in couples picking and choosing exactly what traits they want for their children.
es/bw (Reuters, AP)