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Human genetics: life science Human genetics: life science
(3 months later)
Setting the rules that govern the limits of science is one of the more difficult and absorbing problems of the modern age. This week, the government decided to accept the recommendation from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, decided after extensive consultation, to approve a radically new technique that enables women with dysfunctional mitochondria to have their own children free of the inherited abnormality that often leads to severely life-limiting disorders. The technique involves replacing damaged mitochondrial DNA – often described as the battery for human cells – in an embryo with healthy mitochondrial DNA from another embryo. Now parliament has to decide whether to change the rule that has so far banned making changes to DNA that can be passed from one generation to the next.Setting the rules that govern the limits of science is one of the more difficult and absorbing problems of the modern age. This week, the government decided to accept the recommendation from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, decided after extensive consultation, to approve a radically new technique that enables women with dysfunctional mitochondria to have their own children free of the inherited abnormality that often leads to severely life-limiting disorders. The technique involves replacing damaged mitochondrial DNA – often described as the battery for human cells – in an embryo with healthy mitochondrial DNA from another embryo. Now parliament has to decide whether to change the rule that has so far banned making changes to DNA that can be passed from one generation to the next.
The human dimension is easy enough to grasp. It means women who inherited a particular mitochondrial abnormality from their own mothers can be the first generation in history to pass healthy DNA to their children. As one sufferer put it at a public consultation organised by the HFEA in Manchester: "Of course my mother loves me as I am." But, she went on: "Would I love to have a child who didn't have this disease? More than anything."The human dimension is easy enough to grasp. It means women who inherited a particular mitochondrial abnormality from their own mothers can be the first generation in history to pass healthy DNA to their children. As one sufferer put it at a public consultation organised by the HFEA in Manchester: "Of course my mother loves me as I am." But, she went on: "Would I love to have a child who didn't have this disease? More than anything."
But move from the particular to the general, and it is perilously easy to see it as eugenics, a dangerous leap into the fantasy world of supermen. On the one hand, there's the powerful human instinct to alleviate individual suffering; on the other the ethical base of wider society. Would legitimising the procedure mean that helping people now was more important than exposing future generations to the unknown risks of genetic modification? Is it a dangerous advance from the decision allowing pre-implantation screening for a genetic match to help a sick sibling, to the much bigger development of creating an embryo solely in order to provide repair material for another, unrelated, embryo. It means accepting that identity is more than the sum of your genes, and that family – as many children, either with adoptive parents or growing up in merged families, already know – is more than your biological parents.But move from the particular to the general, and it is perilously easy to see it as eugenics, a dangerous leap into the fantasy world of supermen. On the one hand, there's the powerful human instinct to alleviate individual suffering; on the other the ethical base of wider society. Would legitimising the procedure mean that helping people now was more important than exposing future generations to the unknown risks of genetic modification? Is it a dangerous advance from the decision allowing pre-implantation screening for a genetic match to help a sick sibling, to the much bigger development of creating an embryo solely in order to provide repair material for another, unrelated, embryo. It means accepting that identity is more than the sum of your genes, and that family – as many children, either with adoptive parents or growing up in merged families, already know – is more than your biological parents.
It's at moments like this that processes become more important than outcomes. For most of us, there is no absolute certainty about the right answer. Some recoil at what feels like tinkering with the building blocks of humanity. Like all innovation, it could be abused. Regulation and monitoring are essential. But it can also be seen as an incremental development in a field British scientists have made their own, openly researched and for which public consent is being sought. It is the right thing to do.It's at moments like this that processes become more important than outcomes. For most of us, there is no absolute certainty about the right answer. Some recoil at what feels like tinkering with the building blocks of humanity. Like all innovation, it could be abused. Regulation and monitoring are essential. But it can also be seen as an incremental development in a field British scientists have made their own, openly researched and for which public consent is being sought. It is the right thing to do.
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