In a recent New York Times article, the UK is moving toward making babies from the DNA of three different people. Their main reason behind wanting to do this is to try and destroy genetic diseases from future generations. This idea was voted in favor 382-178 in the UK's house of Commons. The fear of critics is what else this will lead to and the idea of designer babies.
The technique they plan on using is a modified version of vitro fertilization. Due to some mothers having a defective mitochondria they want to combine the DNA of the two parents with another women who does not have a defective mitochondria, in the hopes to eliminate and replace the defective mitochondria gene.
I think this is an interesting article because with further research it could help get rid of some of these complications that are fatal, but on the other hand it is kinda of scaring to think it may lead to a future where you can design your baby.
Although the idea behind this is proactive, I could definitely see a negative impact resulting from this. Judging by how superficial society has proven it can be, parents could easily take advantage of this system and engineer their children solely based on appearance.
ReplyDelete