In a decision that will change the lives of millions of parents-to-be, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom voted on Tuesday to approve a new fertility treatment called mitochondrial DNA replacement therapy. The therapy could prevent certain kinds of genetic diseases from being passed down from mother to child, allowing mothers to give birth to their own biological children without any risk of their same genetic mutation.
“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, head of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign in London, said in a Tuesday statement.
Defective mitochondrion are extremely hard to detect due to the variety of symptoms that result from mitochondrial disease. Some children born with these mutations die within months. Others develop diseases that do not show symptoms until later in life. The treatment would only affect diseases passed down from the mother.
The way the treatment works is fairly straightforward. Doctors can transfer genetic material from an egg cell with defective mitochondria into an egg from a donor that has healthy cells. The embryo that results is therefore equipped with DNA from the biological mother and father, and mitochondrial DNA from the healthy donor.
But this is where the controversy comes in — some scientists have argued in the past that there is the potential for mismatches in donor DNA and the DNA of the host, which could cause problems that science is not yet equipped to handle. Scientists and nongovernmental organizations invested in scientific ethics have said that not enough is known about the treatment to feel comfortable approving the treatment in humans. And in addition, reports about the technique say that it produces babies with “three parents,” which many argue is unethical.
However, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has said that mitochondrial DNA replacement therapy is, in fact, ethical. In a report released by the Council on June 11, 2012, the Council said that donation of mitochondria does not create a “second mother” for the baby, but rather the second woman is simply a donor who does not have to be identified.
Before the therapy can actually be used, it must be approved by the House of Lords, which is the upper house of Parliament. Fertility clinics also must apply for a license before they can use the therapy, and one must apply to be able to use it. Each application will be judged on a separate basis.
The United States is considering allowing DNA therapy here. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration previously held a hearing on mtDNA replacement in 2014 and have asked the Institute of Medicine to conduct a study on the potential ethical and social issues of the treatment. The committee held its first meeting on Jan. 27 and is expected to convene again later this year.
This is a huge deal for people who can’t have children because chances are, they would suffer and possibly die. This means that babies won’t have to be born with genetic diseases that in most cases decreases their lifespans and quality of life, and it also means that mothers and families won’t have to make the decision to not have kids or give up a baby solely based on if they have a predisposition to a genetic disease. It’s hard not to be on board with something 100 percent when it concerns healthy babies being born to parents who want kids. The diseases that are caused from defective mitochondria are horrible, and eliminating these from society would of course be ideal.
This is the sort of treatment that should not be prevented, but should be researched and controlled carefully. There is a certain expectation when humans are allowed to have this level of interference in the reproductive process. There are always worries about parents trying to create “designer babies,” and this is seen as the first step toward that. How far can and should medicine and technology go in that aspect? When it’s preventing diseases from being passed down, it’s a great thing. But there’s a thin line that must be drawn here.
It’s a difficult debate, however, because there’s the question of where that line should be drawn: what should or should we not “fix” if we have the power to do so? If we could prevent autism, should we? On the one hand, it prevents a lot of struggles and difficulties a person wouldn’t have to otherwise go through, but it also dehumanizes people who struggle from potentially preventable genetic problems. The horrible symptoms that mitochondrial diseases produce should certainly be prevented — it’s hard to say that if science has the ability to prevent suffering, it should just ignore that ability. But there is definitely rationality in the worries that this will be taken too far.
Obviously, the fewer people who have to go through their lives with horrible, debilitating diseases, the better. Mitochondrial DNA replacement therapy should be done, but we must be careful proceeding down this path in the future.
