Ethics and ‘designer’ babies
It may sound a little futuristic, but Britain is already thinking of legalising a new fertility technique using DNA from three parents to create one embryo, free of serious mitochondrial diseases usually inherited from the maternal side. Given the scientific advancements in the first decade of the new millennium, the medical technique to replace damaged DNA with healthy DNA from a third parent is already within reach, though some ethical questions do arise about such children and their “donor” parent.
It all sounds too good to be true: the possibility of major diseases wiped out even before babies are born so that we may bring into the world a far healthier human race. Life-shortening diseases like muscular weakness caused by mitochondrial DNA or weak hearts can be averted by such planned fertility techniques, where life-altering DNA from a “third parent” plays a key role.
Given that the human race has the technology to land a rover on Mars and control it from earth to send back data of uncharted territory in the solar system, it is not difficult to believe that scientific progress can lead us to a better future. The era of designer babies is thus not as outlandish as it might have seemed even a few years ago, although science fiction writers may have foreseen this even if they didn’t have any actual knowledge of the technology making it possible. The modern human race will of course have to grapple with the ethical issues as science opens up fascinating possibilities.
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