Yesterday, the UK House of Common approved a law allowing the in-vitro modification/repair of maternal mitochondrial defects by using a healthy donor mitochondria. Here’s why this is both a huge step and a setback:
1- We’re one step closer to creating a better human being less prone to genetic illness – mitochondria-related at least. Although a lot of people (the ignorant ones, and those who just love to argue for the sake of arguing) discourage and object to such measures calling it, the step closer to “designer babies.”
No, No, NO! you know the problem with people in general (one particular problem, let’s not list the others)? They think that if you pass a law that legalizes embryo manipulation in a way to cure diseases and improve human life, then you will definitely later on legalize manipulation for the sake of personal gain, personal preference, or just for the heck of it. THAT IS NOT HOW IT SHOULD GO! AT ALL! There’s a line that scientists try so hard to draw, but is constantly erased by manipulative profit-hungry companies, and backwards corporations. These companies and corporations literally do not care about human advancement, nor human values, nor life value, they care about PROFIT!
So you want to stop “designer babies”? Stop acting like an idiot uniformed sheep and object to the presence of the companies, not to the efforts and hard work of all those researchers and scientists.
2- “OMG this is like GMO! It’s not healthy!” (see what I did there; OMG, GMO!). It’s certainly not GMO. Basically what happens isn’t modifying the genome of the embryo. The procedure is replacing the defective mitochondria with a healthy one. For everyone’s info, mitochondrial DNA represents a mere 0.1% of total DNA in a human cell. you know what that means? IT’S NOTHING! The only thing this DNA is good for, is for the proper function of the “batteries” of the cell. It DOES NOT alter personality, behavior, cognition, or mental and psychological development. Oh and for the GMO part, for those who are not that familiar with it and how it works and why it’s not bad or dangerous, get educated and watch this.
3- “Three parent child.” Why? because the mitochondria isn’t from the parents, it’s from a donor? Should the child be later on allowed to call/interact with the third donor “parent”. Exactly who are you to judge what a child might want to do with such info? I mean honestly, why is a 0.1% contributor even a discussion? When a person dies and donates their organs, does that make him a parent? If you donate a kidney, does that make you obliged to care for the receiver, or to force him to stay in contact with you? Really, why is this a discussion? The whole thing is based on donating a healthy working organelle (that’s what you call the tiny working things in a cell, as opposed to organs for the whole body), it’s then up to the receiver to decide whether he wants to know who was generous enough to donate something like that or not (using generous very loosely here). AND of course that receiver has to be at a certain mature age where they can make such a decision. So basically, no it’s not a “three parent” child; he’s a normal human being who was fortunate enough to find a person who helped him get into this world unharmed by his otherwise defective mitochondria that would have come from the mother. That human being has 2 parents who gave him life (with their complete combined genome), took care of him, and brought him up in the world. Whether it’s 2 or a billion shouldn’t be a discussion, because you know what, some people aren’t fortunate enough to have 2 parents (parents of same or opposite sex), some people have one parent and they are fine, some people have never met their birth parents and consider whatever people who took care of them as their parents whether grandparents, relatives, distant friends, foster parents, or complete strangers.
What we get in the end of this is a huge never-ending pointless debate on parenthood and the rights of a child that isn’t even born or might never be born for that matter.
4- One last point I have is more of a personal reflection. Do we really need more people in this world? 7 billion+ parasites/humans on this dying world isn’t enough? And you want to bring more? Any other species on this world knows its limits and will stop reproducing so that it survives. And you want to bring more people? Really I ask you, how hard is it to care for those kids thrown on the street, those million orphans whose parents just leave them for no reason, for those other million children born into ignorant societies surrounded by a dozen or more siblings, starving, dying, suffering each day of their life, eventually repeating the cycle – IF they survive to adulthood? You want to create better humans when what we already have is overwhelming the environment and the world economy, affecting every single species (1.5 million species of plant, animals, microorganisms, and those are the ones we know about) on this tiny speck of land, endangering life as we know it, and ruining any chance for human survival in the near future? There’s a bigger picture, a bigger debate, and a more stressing matter to look into. The fate of our world rests on this generation, because very soon we will kill ourselves on this path.
I have digressed with the fourth point and went out of subject. I apologize. Back to our subject; Humanity is a slight step closer to less genetic diseases. That’s wonderful! It’s not new though, researchers and science is so advanced at this point, but ignorant and hypocritically reluctant people and states will not allow further advancement. But hopefully all in due time, and with the proper ethics that science intended. “Hopefully!” that’s what scientists base their work on.
E.
Spreading The Word 