OPINION:
The future arrives with such speed as purveyors of science fiction envy. Hence the baby with three parents. Heather can, in fact, have two mommies. Medical science is poised to take a bold step toward a human free of genetic disease, and with it a host of ethical questions about the collateral consequences of the brave new world aborning.
The British House of Commons voted this week to take a chance, to allow the creation of a child with genetic material from three persons instead of the customary two. This unprecedented human would result from a process combining genetic material from the eggs of two mothers, fertilized in vitro with the sperm of one man. The scientist replaces portions of an abnormal embryo with those of a healthy one, creating a disease-free embryo. The legislation awaits consent of the House of Lords, but that is expected in short order, allowing for the first three-parent baby to be born sometime next year.
The procedure could be a godsend, so to speak, for parents risking the conception of a child with life-threatening genetic abnormalities, such as muscular dystrophy, or life-limiting conditions, such as blindness. A British women who lost seven children to disease of the mitochondria — the energy-producing structure within the cell — tells BBC News that she feels “overwhelmed” by news of this biological breakthrough. So do we all. Everyone understands the anguish of a prospective mother at risk of passing on defective genes.
Nevertheless, there are legitimate concerns about unforeseen consequences. Delving deeply into the microbiological composition of the human species is, after all, playing God. “Once the gene is out of the bottle, once these procedures that we’re asked to authorize today, go ahead, there will be no going back for society,” Fiona Bruce, a member of Parliament, argued during the debate before the vote was taken.
Excising genetic material from a fertilized egg necessarily leads to its destruction, a source of ethics debate since experimentation on human embryos began. Many religious folk oppose the killing of embryonic stem cells and would abhor the cannibalization of a donor embryo to repair a defective one. The three-parent baby process does not fit precisely within stem cell research, but it’s close. The procedure could be seen as taking of innocent life.
The U.S. government has wavered in its resistance to ethical absolutes on such cutting-edge research. President George W. Bush prohibited the use of federal funds for experimentation on new lines of embryonic stem cells in 2001, and President Obama loosened that restriction, enabling private-sector researchers to obtain federal funding.
There are other troubling issues. If a human embryo can be re-engineered to avoid disease, the embryo could be further manipulated to create so-called designer babies that only the rich could afford. Biotech firms that perfect methods of expressing enhanced attributes of beauty, strength, size, eye color, athleticism or musicality could build a master race the Nazis only dreamed of. “Better ingredients, better pizza” is a chef’s legitimate goal; “better ingredients, better people” may not be a legitimate goal of medical research.
Shakespeare, as usual, posed an insight: “How many godly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t.” However, the three-parent child could open the door to a brave, new world that another Englishman, Aldous Huxley, warned of. In his 1932 novel, he describes a future in which humanity is broken into a caste system created by embryonic genetic manipulation. The consequences of scientific advancement might best remain in the realm of fiction. But is that possible when the gene, like the genie, escapes the bottle?
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