A Christian professor has warned that a fertilisation technique to bypass inherited disease is ethically “complex”.
Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a method by which babies can be born without inherited mitochondrial disease, which can affect the blood, heart, and even cause blindness.
It involves combining a fertilised egg and sperm with another egg, taken from a donor woman who does not have the condition.
Professor David Jones, Director of Anscombe Bioethics, told Premier Christian News: “There’s women that we don't hear about [donating the egg], as well as potentially hundreds of other embryos which are destroyed.”
He expressed concern that the procedure could lead the country down a slippery slope of “designer babies”: “These are, in a way, genetically modified children. That is also a limit which will lead to other things, I fear.”
The method has been legal in the UK for a decade – but this breakthrough is the first time it has been used to bypass mitochondrial disease.
Eight children have been born in successful attempts at the procedure. Some parents have anonymously shared their “deep gratitude” at their children being born healthily: “The emotional burden of mitochondrial disease has been lifted, and in its place is hope, and joy,” one mother told the BBC.
“Every child is a gift from God,” agreed Professor Jones, “but we need to ask ourselves: ‘What is really going on?’”