MPs highlighted the growing public safety concerns surrounding the Government’s 3-parent baby plan during a House of Commons debate on Monday (1st September), secured by Conservative MP Fiona Bruce.
Draft regulations
Earlier this year, the UK Government published draft regulations to allow the techqniue - known as ‘mitochondrial donation’ - despite widespread concerns that the procedure could result in children being born with serious, disabling abnormalities.
Opening the debate, Fiona Bruce emphasised that scientists had not yet established that the procedure was sufficiently safe for clinical trials, and that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) itself had recommended that a series of further “critical” tests be undertaken before proceeding with the proposals.
Unintended consequences
Fiona Bruce, who is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, noted that the unintended consequences of the technique, including a mismatch between nuclear and the mitochondrial DNA, could result in severe health problems in children conceived through the procedure, such as infertility, reduced growth, impaired learning, faster ageing and early death.
She highlighted that many scientists, both national and international, had “gone further in publicly stating that these procedures should not be authorised at all.”
“Two peer-reviewed articles in Nature have suggested that mitochondrial transfer is inherently risky, one of them citing a figure of 52% of embryos created through MST having chromosomal abnormalities,” she said.
“More research ought to be undertaken and a full assessment conducted of the potential risk to children born as a result.”
She concluded that it would be “wrong” for Parliament to pre-emptively approve the legislation until the HFEA confirmed that it was satisfied with the outcome of the pre-clinical report.
“That would be to outsource the final decision to technocrats, possibly behind closed doors, rather than in the transparent environment of this Chamber, in full public view,” she said.
"Damaged children"
Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, Robert Flello MP said there was “every possibility” that the UK could be legislating for procedures that could “cause damaged embryos, resulting in further damaged children.” He drew attention to a paper by Newcastle University which concluded that, compared with control experiments, pronuclear transfer, a form of mitochondrial replacement therapy, was “twice as likely to cause embryos to fail.”
He added: “Based on the available data, therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that these techniques could cause the people born as a result to have illnesses or disabilities. The Government have a responsibility, as we all do, to avoid such eventualities, and we cannot take that lightly.”
Mr Flello also highlighted that although the Government’s response to the HFEA’s consultation stated that 700 respondents supported the plans whilst 1,152 were opposed, the Government maintained that the consultation responses were “broadly supportive.”
"Misleading statement"
He asked the Minister what action she would to take to correct this “highly misleading statement” and questioned whether there was any point in holding a consultation exercise “if no notice is going to be taken of it.”
Former NHS scientist and fellow Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, Jim Dobbin MP, echoed the importance of waiting for the results of the HFEA’s report, particularly given that the proposals were about allowing a technique that could be “disabling to the children who are created through them.”
He added: “As Members of Parliament elected by the people, we should be made fully aware of the risks and safety concerns surrounding these new techniques before voting on whether they should be allowed.”
Ministers say the proposed procedure will prevent mothers from passing serious mitochondrial diseases to their children. The technique involves transferring the nucleus of an egg from one woman who carries the disease to the egg of another woman with healthy mitochondria.
"Genetic modification"
MP David Burrowes re-iterated the recent comments of Lord Winston, who called for the Government to be honest about the true implications of mitochondrial donation by expressly acknowledging that the technique was a form of “genetic modification.”
He noted further that other countries, having considered the ethics, complications and risks of the technique, had decided not to “go down that route,” and whilst proponents would argue that Britain was at the “forefront” in this area of scientific advancement, “others might say that we are out there on a limb.”
Sir Edward Leigh MP, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group member, emphasised the opinion of bioethicists who he said have expressed “almost universal consensus” that germ-line genetic modification in humans was “grievously immoral and completely unethical.”
Whilst proponents often claim that the technique is the equivalent of changing the batteries in a toy, Sir Leigh pointed out that mitochondria contain DNA, are present in every cell in the body and are an "integral part of a human being." He noted that since mitochondrial DNA interacts with the nucleus “many scientists therefore believe that they contribute material to the identity of an individual.”
"Rogue state"
Sir Leigh highlighted that proponents were effectively calling on the Government to dissent from opinion of every other country in the world. He questioned whether Britain really wanted to become a “rogue state” in terms of bioethics.
He added: “What is worse, when we talk about pronuclear transfer, is that that effectively requires the creation of human beings for the sole purpose of harvesting their useful parts. Is that really the sort of society in which we wish to live, in which persons—individuals—are created, their parts harvested and then destroyed, merely to provide for other human beings? There is no way that that can be considered ethical, whether in terms of purely rational deductive natural law, or by the system of Christian ethics on which we in this country have traditionally relied."