From Roto-Reuters via Yahoo News:
Britain votes to allow world's first ' three-parent babies
Britain voted on Tuesday to become the first country to allow a
"three-parent" IVF technique which doctors say will prevent some
inherited incurable diseases but which critics see as a step towards
creating designer babies.
The treatment is known as "three-parent" in vitro fertilisation (IVF)
because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have
DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor.
It
is designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases, incurable
conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500
children worldwide.
After an emotionally
charged 90-minute debate that some lawmakers criticised as being too
short for such a serious matter, parliament voted 382 to 128 in favour
of the technique, called mitochondrial donation.
The
vote paves the way for a medical world first for Britain -- which along
with the United States has been at the forefront of scientific research
on the treatments -- but one that is fiercely disputed by some
religious groups and other critics.
The
process involves intervening in the fertilisation process to remove
mitochondria, which act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside
cells, and which, if faulty, can cause inherited conditions such as
fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and
muscular dystrophy.
Mitochondrial DNA is
separate from DNA found in the cell nucleus and does not affect human
characteristics such as hair or eye colour, appearance or personality
traits.
"I wouldn't stand here and defend the
concept of designer babies -- choosing the colour of the eyes and all
the rest of it. This is about purely dealing with those terrible,
terrible illnesses," opposition Labour lawmaker Andrew Miller, chair of
parliament's science and technology committee, told the debate.
Said the fool from the middle of the slippery slope.
International
charities, advocacy groups and scientists had urged Britain to pass
laws to allow the treatment, saying it brought a "first glimmer of hope"
for some families of having a baby who could live without suffering.
"We
have finally reached a milestone in giving women an invaluable choice,
the choice to become a mother without fear of passing on a lifetime
under the shadow of mitochondrial disease to their child," Robert
Meadowcroft, chief executive of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, said
following the vote.
In
an open letter to lawmakers, 11 international campaign groups,
including the U.S. United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, described
the condition as "unimaginably cruel".
"It
strips our children of the skills they have learned, inflicts pain that
cannot be managed and tires their organs one by one until their little
bodies cannot go on any more," they wrote.
Lawmakers
were given a free vote on the issue, and Prime Minister David Cameron's
spokesman said the British leader had voted to support it, adding it
was not "about playing God".
Said the dumbass politician with the god complex.
"He has a
particular sympathy with those parents whose children are born with very
serious illnesses, that in nearly all cases end their lives
prematurely," the spokesman said, referring to Cameron's son Ivan who
suffered from cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy and died aged six in
2009.
Proposed new laws allowing the
treatments to be carried out in Britain still have to be approved by the
upper house, which commentators expect to endorse parliament's support.
Gillian
Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility clinic and a
reproductive ethicist, urged the scientists developing the techniques to
continue "to educate and reassure those who continue to have
anxieties".
The Bishops Conference of England
and Wales said the Church opposed the destruction of human embryos as
part of the process and hoped treatments for mitochondrial disease could
be found.
"The human embryo is a new human
life with potential; it should be respected and protected from the
moment of conception and not used as disposable material," Bishop John
Sherrington said in a statement.
Other
critics say the technique will lead to the creation of genetically
modified "designer babies", with Conservative lawmaker Fiona Bruce
saying it would amount to letting "the genie out of the bottle".
"Where
will it lead? The answer has to be that we stop here. The answer has to
be that we say this is a red line in our country, as in every other
country in the world, that we will not cross," she said during the
debate.
