A free vote is due this afternoon in the House of Commons on whether to allow a process of transplanting a nucleus into an ovum or embryo with healthy mitochondria so that parents may have their own (99.9%) genetic child while preventing mitochondrial disease in that child. Details on the BBC.
Calling a child born following this process a ‘3 parent’ baby is a little hyperbolic, and helps to add oil to the flames of the “ethical” debate surrounding every kind of intervention in the embryo or germ line. I believe that mitochondrial disease is a bad thing and preventing it is a good thing and that ethics demands unequivocal support for this process, but I do recognise there is a debate to be had.
Certainly there is a wider question of where are we heading with interventions in the germ line. Designer babies? Should we be cautious, or even cruelly self-denying, about using science and technology to cure disease if the same science and technology may have the potential for us to enhance ourselves or our children? Why would enhancement be such a bad thing? It might go wrong, it may not be available fairly, but are there other reasons? Does society need lots of talentless people to do the rubbish jobs (no it doesn’t) or would more capable humans form a happier society?
Are we really so incapable of judging the next use of this technology on its merits that we have to forego this one? And if we really feel the need to get off the slippery slope towards enhancement, what existing technology can we safely keep?
Is this wider question purely an ethical one, or is it political?
Clearly there will be religious objections to the process (particularly, from a pro-life perspective, the embryo version) and although I see where this is coming from, I am genuinely puzzled on one point. What is the religious significance of DNA? Why is interfering with DNA seen to be trampling on God’s territory in a way that other clinical interventions are not? Why is the DNA not considered part of the body like any other?
I suspect – and please correct me in the comments – that because a genome is (usually) unique to the individual it has come to be seen as a kind of physical analogue of a person’s immortal soul. And because tinkering with souls is very much God’s domain, tinkering with DNA is too close to that to be acceptable. But if you believe in souls, do you not believe that they are more boffin-proof than this?
And remember that a sufficiently young embryo can be cut in half and will develop into two people with the same DNA and, if they have souls at all, a soul each. Sometimes this happens naturally and we get identical twins. This surely challenges the soul-genome correspondence.
So it seems to me that we have a dystopian political objection and a somewhat woolly theological objection to mitochondrial therapy. But to me, the ethics trumps these. Ethics is about how we treat other people and ethics demands we don’t force them to suffer.
* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.
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19 Comments
I agree with Joe.
The avoidance of predictable suffering resulting from purely random biological issues at the level of mitochondrial DNA seems a total no-brainer.
Far less sure about the thinking aloud(?) thoughts/questions about designer babies or that anyone is talentless though; I am yet to meet such a person.
Whilst I’ve not really explored this subject, I do think in the media debate many are missing the keys facts:
1. The resulting ovum will have 100% human DNA arising from it’s parents, as per a normal baby – unless other gene treatments have been applied to this DNA.
2. Normally the resulting ovum would exclusively inherent mitochondria from the natural mother. However, in this case the ovum would receive mitochondria from a third person; the mother who donated the egg sac.
So whilst it may be correct to talk about three people being involved, they play significantly different roles to more traditional forms of infertility treatment. However, given our knowledge of the development of human mitochondrian DNA with only a few dozen variants discovered, there is a relatively high chance of the donor’s mitochondria having the same DNA as the mother into who’s womb the egg is planted.
The significance of DNA is that to start tinkering with it takes one perilously close to an instrumental view of human life; one that sees embryos as ‘raw material’ that can be taken apart, adjusted, combined, used to ‘create’ people.
It’s to do with how we view human life. Specifically, whether we view people as something uniquely special in the cosmos, or whether we see them as collections of proteins and electrochemical reactions just like any other part of the world, and therefore available for use just as we would use other natural resources.
So inasmuch as it’s about souls, it’s not that DNA itself is seen as having religious significance, but rather that to treat human beings and embryos as if there were merely chemicals interacting, to say that one can manipulate them as one would a bacterium in order to get a ‘better’ result, is to deny that there is anything, any ‘soul’, which sets human beings apart from the rest of the world.
In this specific case, as I understand, an embryo is created for the entire point of having part of it removed and injected into another embryo, with the rest of it being destroyed; in other words, a potential human life is being created not as if it had any value in itself, but merely as a source of chemicals for another. This is a step beyond even IVF where several embryos are created and the ‘best’ one(s) selected for implantation, because at least there none of them are being specifically created in order to be taken apart for raw materials.
That — the idea that it’s okay to simply create a potentially viable human life deliberately to destroy it in to provide raw materials for another — is a huge ethical step and one that should not be taken lightly.
Thanks for the comments.
Yes, Roland I was exploring the dystopian vision that seems to be behind some objections. If anybody has a better dystopian vision, do share it.
Dav, do you have an objection to “method 2” under the first BBC link which uses an egg (ovum) rather than an embryo? Or would the embryo method be any better if the donor nucleus and diseased ovum were combined into a second embryo that was then given an chance at an IVF implantation?
The “instrumental view of human life” argument merits some attention. Now I don’t accept that an embryo possess any of the qualities of moral significance that a grown human possesses, but I recognise that some people do (possibly due to this DNA/soul confusion). Even so this argument seems to get used to deny loving parents a second wanted child who could be a vital tissue donor to a sick first child. I struggle to see how this is valuing human life more rather than less.
Weren’t similar arguments made against organ transplants? And do they still apply?
I imagine the ethical issues that bother the churches are largely about the ethics of a God who would be as Stephen Fry points out a “capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain” that requires DNA to be modified.
To start to question anything God is meant to have done rather than accept it as the product of a wisdom beyond human understanding is the first step on the road to atheism.
Dav, one method proposed involves creating an embryo from donors, whose cell nucleus is removed and replaced with the nucleus from the parents’ embryo, at an early stage. The donor nucleus and the parents’ embryo is destroyed, the donor embryo with parental nucleus is kept. Problematic if you oppose early-term abortion, not so much if you’re ok with it, but, yes, ethically the implications are significant.
The second method proposes that you collect a donor egg and replace its nucleus with one from a parental egg cell, throw away the parental egg and the donor egg nucleus and then fertilise the parental nucleus and donor egg to get one embryo which you then keep. This is only problematic if you believe that an unfertilised egg constitutes a full-fledged human life, a position that I would consider absurd.
I am sure that so long as the father has a sister or another female in the same maternal line, it would be quite feasable for the zygote to have mitochondrial DNA that is identical to the father’s. Not that there would be much point in doing this.
Some may pose religious objections, but how can they justify imposing their personal beliefs on others who have a different outlook?
I’m very pro genetic engineering, but we need to be careful about safety. Also, religious disagreements can stop such things happening, so we need to engage with the religious community in a constructive manner.
Regards and thanks for the informative article.
@ Joe Otten
‘I suspect – and please correct me in the comments ‘
Yes, I always think it is a good idea not to guess what ‘the religious view’ is before commenting on it in an article. The only view I have heard which represents a considered view from a religious perspective, is the following: that once a third party is introduced to the germline, then where will it stop? As we know technology is available which can intervene in the genetic makeup of the human being. So it is a fair and logical question.
My view which is based on ethical and religious principles is that this change is not to the nucleus but the mitochondria, so as far as personhood and the integrity of the person is concerned, that remains in tact. I don’t think the level of interference is heading for designer babies.
However, we do need to be vigilant. There are parents out there who would and do sex-select for cultural reasons, so I have no reason to doubt they would go further towards perfection – if there was any future change in the law (which even the HFEA will not countenance).
I suspect this article is a thinly-veiled excuse to have a go at those with faith – not a good move if one is trying to get votes or encourage activists in an election year.
From what I read there are still concerns about both the short term safety and the long term health effects of this treatment.
The religious objection I have heard is not about fiddling with DNA but about the deliberate creation of human embryos to have them destroyed. It is right we consider the ethical implications of new treatments that effect human beings in a fundamental way in detail in a respectful manner.
Stephen W
‘ the deliberate creation of human embryos to have them destroyed.’
Yes, you are right. This is also an issue with current IVF treatments. There will be at least two embryos discarded in this procedure too. This is not something parliament or anyone else can be too cavalier about sanctioning. I’m surprised so little time was given to a debate and how so many people prefer to pour scorn on dissent, when there are ethical and social considerations to think deeply about.
Disappointing to see Mulholland, Teather and Hemming voting against.
This is an important debate. Thanks to Joe and also to Dav for setting out concerns very clearly.
In a sense, all issues that have to be debated are ethical and political. They all involve questions of right and wrong (whether in the methods or the aims, or both) and all involve trying to reach a decision by political processes rather than war, chance, dictatorship or the market.
One learns to be cautious about the thin end of the wedge argument, but it is relevant here. We should never become confident and casual about determining what are desirable attributes in people. Eliminate depression, for example? OK, then eliminate the ability to suffer more than mildly? What would we lose?
On the issues actually before Parliament, though, I agree with Joe.
@ Terry
Not at all. This party stands for conscience and MPs have the right to exercise their conscience. I am glad they did in fact.
Why should important ethical issues simply be nodded through because of the prevailing will or feeling or because a scientific body deems the technique of three-parenthood ‘might work,’ although there are unknown consequences?
These issues need discussion, robust debate and yes, some will dissent. That is democracy.
The second method proposes that you collect a donor egg and replace its nucleus with one from a parental egg cell, throw away the parental egg and the donor egg nucleus and then fertilise the parental nucleus and donor egg to get one embryo which you then keep. This is only problematic if you believe that an unfertilised egg constitutes a full-fledged human life, a position that I would consider absurd.
Not necessarily: one need not believe that ‘an unfertilised egg constitutes a full-fledged human life’ to believe that there is something concerning about using a human egg for ‘raw material’. It may not be a full-fledged human life, but it is something which could potentially develop into a human life; and that, surely, makes it special and deserving of respectful treatment (where ‘respectful’ includes ‘not using it simply as a means to an end’) in a way that, say, a bacterium, or an animal egg, isn’t (no one would have much ethical concern about harvesting raw materials from an animal egg, for example, and using them as treatment for human disease [which we already kind of do by genetically manipulating microbes so that they produce human insulin], as we accept that animals are not human and can be used instrumentally in ways that it would not be right to do with humans).
That doesn’t necessarily mean that such use is ethically unjustifiable; but it does mean that we need to ask ourselves searching questions about what such instrumental use of human gametes says about our attitude to the specialness of human life, and not just dismiss objections as ‘considered absurd’ without understanding them.
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. From what I have read, this is a permanent genetic modification of the embryo and will be carried on in future generations in perpetuity if it is successful. I only heard about this 4 days before the vote, (Saturday’s Guardian and Radio 4) no public debate, no in depth interviews with experts, odd when one considers how long we have been agonising over GM crops. Was it such an emergency to rush the vote through parliament? or was this about our national scientific ego, wanting to be first, I’m all for us being first in science but we might regret such haste. I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t feel I know anything like enough about where this could go, I think we should have taken longer to consider the potential implications, which are huge.
Helen, I am a little offended that you consider this an attack on religion. Surely there are believers on both sides of this question. It is, I suppose an attack on a particular theological position, which perhaps nobody holds anyway. I hope it is OK for us atheists to muse on theology from time to time. (However if I am wrong, it would be nice to hear a direct rebuttal along the lines of “these are the ways that we treat genomes and souls differently…”)
I must say your slippery slope argument doesn’t seem particularly theological to me. It works just as well for atheists and is similar to what I called the dystopian political objection.
And if you object to the destruction of embryos, let’s restrict discussion to the ovum version of the procedure.
Dav,
You say:
Not necessarily: one need not believe that ‘an unfertilised egg constitutes a full-fledged human life’ to believe that there is something concerning about using a human egg for ‘raw material’. It may not be a full-fledged human life, but it is something which could potentially develop into a human life; and that, surely, makes it special and deserving of respectful treatment…
This is genuinely intriguing. I can understand respect for embryos but I did not expect this. Aren’t gametes best considered legally and morally part of the parent? Suppose sperm could cure cancer, would it be wrong “instrumental” to use it that way. (The difference between sperm and eggs being one of quantity not morality.)
By “design”, yes, many embryos are lost naturally, but almost all gametes are lost – they don’t lead to new lives. How could this be the case if gametes were special, morally significant things? And is it reasonable to ask at what point in the development of the gamete it becomes special? Or is all human tissue special and organ transplantation “instrumental” and wrong?
Joe Otten
‘ I hope it is OK for us atheists to muse on theology from time to time. ‘ Of course it is. I welcome it. However, maybe I misconstrued but it seemed to be more musing than actual theology.
Having looked at the objections to the new technique, it seems that the churches are concerned about the safety aspects ie: that it has not been proven that mitochondria is simply a battery and therefore there are hereditary concerns and concerns about the generation of embryos for subsequent destruction. The slippery slope argument is another one but again most of these objections could actually be held by non-Christians and people of no religion.
Interestingly, there are geneticists who are also objecting to this technique on the grounds of a lack of peer review of the technique in humans. It has only been tried on animals so far and we do not know if what happened to Dolly the Sheep (ie: short-life span) will happen to babies created with third party mitochondria. Let’s hope it works out.