For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. ..I am fearfully and wonderfully made… intricately woven. . .your eyes say my unformed substance. . .the days formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13-16)
This week an FDA committee is hearing from proponents and critics of an embryo fertilization technique that includes DNA from three persons. Scientists developing the fertilization process cite as their motivation the suffering of women with mitochondrial disease, a genetic abnormality passed on through women to their children. The fertilization process removes diseased mitochondrial DNA of the mother from the nucleus of the ovum (or embryo)[1] and replaces it with healthy mitochondrial DNA donated by a second woman. The ‘corrected’ ovum is then fertilized by male sperm giving the resulting embryo DNA from three persons. Scientists pushing for human trials of the fertilization technique cite success in trials with five monkeys.
Critics raise safety and ethical concerns.
The safety of this technology is suspect. “It breaks the chain of genetic inheritance,” says Dina Fine Maron, Associate Editor of Scientific American. The impact on future generations has not been tested. Laurie Zoloth, a Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University, and Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director of the Center for Genetics & Society, agree in their concern for the effects of ‘mitochondrial manipulation technologies’ on babies born through the process. The risks to the child by this procedure are significant but the risks do not stop with one child but change the genetic make-up of all future generations. “These genetic changes become a permanent part of that family line,” Maron states. Elizabeth Lopatto quotes another expert who voices caution:
“Once you make this change, if a female arises from the process and goes on to have children, that change is passed on, so it’s forever,” United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation chief science officer Phil Yeske said. “That’s uncharted territory; we just don’t know what it means.”
Genetic modification crosses an ethical line. In a recent On Point interview with Tom Ashbrook of Boston’s NPR, Darnovsky stated that a ‘bright line’ against genetic modification has been observed around the world for decades. Forty countries have laws against it. If the FDA approves the genetic mitochondrial manipulation being requested, Darnovsky said, “It sets in motion something with no stopping point” and opens the door to “a high tech consumer eugenics rat race.”