Three parent baby born in UK: Northern Ireland expert says development is ‘unnecessary, (potentially) unsafe and unethical’

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) confirmed that a baby has been born in the UK this way, but no further details have been released, to protect their identity.

The scientific technique is designed to prevent children being born with devastating genetic mitochondrial diseases, when cells fail to carry out their function of producing energy for cells in the body.

For some families the new treatment is seen as their only chance of having a healthy child.

It is reported that the DNA from the second woman only affects the mitochondria (energy systems) and does not affect other key traits in the child such as appearance.

Sarah Norcross, director of the Progress Education Trust, said UK laws relating to the treatment were “passed only after many years of careful research, assessment and deliberation”.

Even then, she said, the regulator decided it would only be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

However, a NI medical doctor and theologian challenged the ethics – and facts – of the process.

Dr Paul Coulter is executive director of the Centre for Christianity in Society, a medic, pastor and theologian with degrees in medical genetics, medicine and theology.

There are other, less problematic ways to counter such diseases, he says, such as editing the DNA of the mother with the flawed mitochondria.

He says that actually 50% of the nuclear DNA of such babies – which determines appearance – comes from the father and 50% from the mother. However, 100% of the mitochondrial DNA – which determines internal energy production – comes from the second woman.

And he says that all females descended from such children will forever inherit 100% of their mitochondrial DNA from the second woman.

While it is generally claimed that the mitochondrial DNA will not influence the nuclear DNA in such babies, he says, he is not necessarily convinced that this is true.

The development raises questions, he believes, such as whether:

:: Such children have a right to know their second mother?

:: Three-parent babies will become acceptable?

:: Will people who live as threesomes have the right to children related to three parents?

:: Will it lead to ‘designer babies’, where parents can choose strength, longevity or eye, hair or skin colour?

“The children born through these techniques are precious individuals,” Dr Coulter said. “But I hope the government and the scientific community might reconsider the ethics of this technology.”

He affirmed the Christian Medical Fellowship conclusion that these technologies are “unnecessary, (potentially) unsafe and unethical”.

David Smyth, NI director of the Evangelical Alliance, said: “We believe that children are a gift from God and require care before and after birth.

“Every child is precious, regardless of how it is conceived. However procedures like these, raise medically and ethically complex questions and blur the lines between assisting a couple and engineering a child’s DNA.”