Two parent babies are a
thing of the past. That’s right folks, the world is heading towards a new age. With
the development of genetic engineering, three parent babies are now the future.
Scientists have discovered a way to replace the faulty mitochondrial DNA (mDNA)
in a woman with the healthier DNA from a second woman in order for the child to
inherit both of the women’s DNA. Then, the father would of course fertilize the
egg (Sample, 2). Imagine that ladies. You find out that your mDNA is faulty and
could lead to genetic diseases when your baby is born. So you decide to phone
up your best friend and ask her to get her mDNA checked out and discover that
hers is in perfect condition. She then donates a little amount of DNA from
herself which replaces your faulty one and BAM! There you have it. The father
would fertilize the egg and that baby would have three different parents. Now
this might sound crazy but, it is truly something that is being looked at in
Britain right now. Scientists have asked the government to change the law that
is banning genetically modified embryos from being implanted into females. It
has been approved by both the House of Commons and House of Lords which would
make Britain the first place to allow this procedure to take place. This will
allow for diseases to be stopped with the implementation of this new
development. Genetic engineering is developing at a breakneck pace, but there
are many people who oppose this development and many who seek it to continue on
the path that has been set.
Genetic engineering has become a highly controversial
topic as of late and one question must definitely be asked: Is genetically
modifying human embryos unethical or could it truly redefine and aid the human
race? Scientists all around the globe have begun asking for licenses to conduct
procedures on human embryos. China has developed a procedure called CRISPR
which has redefined how scientists go about genetically engineering embryos. However,
there are many scientists who believe that a line is being crossed when it
comes to genetically modifying these embryos. Ian Sample quoted a UK geneticist
who said “You can argue that it
could be hugely beneficial to correct genetic diseases, but on the other hand
we don’t know it’s safe and it’s a slippery slope. How long will it be before
people try to alter eye and hair colour, and height and intelligence?” (Sample,
17). As can be seen, people fear for the day where humans will be able to
choose specific characteristics for their children. Humans today live in a very
diverse world. Could this fear come from people fearing the fact that diversity
could be loss? This is definitely a possibility if the technology goes that far
which would form what people have called “designer babies.” Countries have
taken action against research having to do with editing the genetic code in
embryos. Along with these fears are the people and scientists who are strong
advocates for genetic engineering. The problem is finding out whether the
procedure is ethically sound or harmful to the human race.
Have you ever thought about being able to customize your own offspring? What about specifically deciding the color of their eyes or hair? Well that is a possibility that could happen at some point in the future and starts with the genetic modification of human embryos. Kathy Niakan is one such scientist who is asking the government of England’s fertility regulator for a license to conduct genome editing on embryos. By doing very basic research on the embryos, her team hopes to find why some women lose their baby early on in the cycle of pregnancy. She claims, “The knowledge we acquire will be very important for understanding how a healthy human embryo develops, and this will inform our understanding of the causes of miscarriage. It is not a slippery slope [towards designer babies] because the UK has very tight regulation in this area,” (Sample, Guardian 7). Well as of now, designer babies are not going to happen anytime soon. There are still far too many tests that need to be done in order to discover how to target specific places in the genetic code. As can be seen, genetic engineering is definitely advancing as the future progresses. Repairing the genetic code seems to be one of the major experiments that is being undertaken by Niakan who is one of the major scientists in this field of study. However, along with the advocates, are the naysayers who believe that this technology could go too far which leads to this question: Is genetically modifying human embryos unethical or could it truly redefine and aid the human race?
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