By Sam Blake, JD Candidate, 2016
Three-Parent Babies’ Bill Passes in House of Commons
On Tuesday, 2/3/15, British lawmakers in the United Kingdom’s Lower House passed a bill which will allow babies to be born using DNA of three parents. If the support demonstrated by the Lower House’s 382-128 vote of affirmation is mirrored by the Parliament’s Upper House, ‘three-parent babies’ could be born as soon as 2016.
The method at issue involves in-vitro fertilization wherein the nucleus from an embryo, which contains the DNA of two parents, is introduced into a donor embryo with no nucleus. Significantly, the donor embryo contains only the mitochondria of the donor when the parents’ nucleus is introduced. The procedure aims to reduce the number of mitochondrial diseases transferred from a mother’s dysfunctional mitochondria to her newborn. More information on the procedure and the science behind its effects can be found here.
As Parliament’s Upper House decides whether to pass the bill into law later this month, they will face a burgeoning debate over the bill’s potential ramifications. At the forefront of the moral and ethical discussions will likely be issues of personhood, non-consenting procedures, and ‘designer babies.’ Arguments for and against using this IVF method, found here, will be relevant to Parliament’s decision as well as the decisions in other jurisdictions which will inevitably follow.
| Samuel Blake graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. He has conducted research in the fields of computational fluid dynamics, active flow control methods, and hybrid control systems. He also worked as a Control Systems Engineer at Honeywell Aerospace prior to entering law school. During his employment Blake received an Award for Outstanding Results for his work on a strategic project concerning the global expansion of Honeywell’s Aerospace division. Performing this work with Honeywell’s Mergers and Acquisition Group has steered Blake’s interest towards high technology business development in both domestic and international capacities. Blake is interested in IP and plans to pursue a career in patent prosecution and litigation. |  |