Three-Parent Babies

TWO-PARENT BABIES WILL NOT BE ENOUGH IN THE NEAR FUTURE
Yes, you read that right five years from now, the little kid that you’ve been babysitting will draw four people in the wall saying that those are his/her parents, pointing at the three people behind him/her. You might probably think that his dad/mom had an affair and the kid is too young to know about this stuff or you might ask yourself “why?” and “how did that happen?” but nothing’s impossible now – especially when you deal with science!
Scientists have found a new way to include that side chick that your father has been hiding from your mom for years to be your parent. What I meant was it’s now possible to have more than one parent, biologically. It all started with mitochondria – the
Scientists in UK have developed two procedures to prevent from passing this hereditary disease to newborns. In the first procedure, nucleus will be removed from the mother’s embryo that is containing mutated mitochondria and get transferred to a donor’s embryo that contains healthy mitochondria. The new embryo will be implanted on the mother’s uterus that contains nuclear DNA from the father and mother and as well as the healthy mitochondria. This procedure creates the “three-parent baby”. The other procedure also involves the transferring of nucleus from the mother’s egg with unhealthy mitochondria to the donor’s egg containing healthy mitochondria. The eggs involved are still unfertilized and the donor’s egg will be implanted on the mother’s uterus which will get fertilized later on. British officials have approved this procedure however Canadians decline on altering the human genome. In 2004, there was a law stating that no person can knowingly “alter human genome because alterations are capable of being passed on to the descendants”. Dr. Neal Mahutte, president of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, wanted to just observe the approach with the British ruling. He believes that many researches fields are catching up and that the government should review the law about this
But if it saves the life of that child, maybe there’s something to argue on. The mitochondrial disease is lethal to humans. Babies with this disease can survive up to their mid-teens. This procedure doesn’t involve any genetic manipulation; it just saves people from inheriting the unhealthy mitochondria from their mother. I strongly support this research because you’re going to save a child; you’re not letting that child suffer from mitochondrial disease. Plus, there’s no modification of gene involved so in my opinion, it’s safe and ethical. Would you let your baby to have three