A new type of in-vitro fertilization procedure allows doctors to transfer the mitochondrial DNA from one woman into the egg of another, effectively creating a baby with three parents: The father, the egg mom, and the mitochondrial mom.
The method is intended for a tiny fraction of women who have what’s known as a “mitochondrial disease,” which increases the likelihood of bearing children with severe birth defects.
Many find the mitochondrial procedure morally questionable because of how close it seems to playing God, or Nature, or Whoever you think is in charge of making kids. Penetrating the inside of a cell and tampering with its contents is, at best, controversial, and at worst, “walking in Hitler’s footsteps,” as one angry letter to the FDA put it. Some worry it’s in the same sci-fi realm as “designer babies.”
We don’t know yet what the risks and benefits of mitochondrial replacement will be. But in a way, we’re already designing babies, and medical technology will only allow us to do it to an increasing degree of accuracy. As the lawyer Nita Farahany put it, there are now countless ways that parents are crafting their ideal children, either through natural selection or biotech.
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“Who we choose as a potential mate—that’s selection bias,” Farahany said. “People who have abortions based on particular types of birth defects or birth anomalies. You can do full genomic sequencing. You can also select sperm donors based on traits that you find attractive.”
Read the full, original story: We’re already designing babies
