Vocation and Reproductive Technology: What about the Three-Parent Embryo?
Kevin Voss, DVM., PhD., Director, Concordia Center for Bioethics and Associate Professor of Philosophy, Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin
In September 2016, an announcement was made that the first baby was born in Mexico via a technique called spindle nuclear transfer. This procedure, which is utilized with in vitro fertilization (IVF), is not approved in the United States but is legal in the United Kingdom. This method is thought to allow couples who carry a rare genetic mutation to have children free of mitochondrial diseases that can include diabetes, deafness, heart disease, and liver conditions. Mitochondria, which contain a small amount of DNA, are found in cytoplasm and produce energy for a cell. In order to prevent mitochondrial disease in a child, an embryo would be produced from the sperm of a father, the nucleus of an ovum from the mother carrying the disease, and the mitochondria from a normal female donor; therefore, the child resulting from this germline therapy would carry DNA from three parents. This presentation will briefly describe various techniques for cytoplasmic transfer currently being studied. Then reasons will be offered why this is a controversial area of assisted reproductive technology. Finally, ethical theories, principles of biomedical ethics, and theological concepts will be used to argue that IVF with nuclear transfer, while seemingly a boon to parents with this genetic anomaly, manipulates and controls human nature by confusing a child’s notion of identity and threatening traditional Christian and societal concepts of parenting and family.
In September 2016, an announcement was made that the first baby was born in Mexico via a technique called spindle nuclear transfer. This procedure, which is utilized with in vitro fertilization (IVF), is not approved in the United States but is legal in the United Kingdom. This method is thought to allow couples who carry a rare genetic mutation to have children free of mitochondrial diseases that can include diabetes, deafness, heart disease, and liver conditions. Mitochondria, which contain a small amount of DNA, are found in cytoplasm and produce energy for a cell. In order to prevent mitochondrial disease in a child, an embryo would be produced from the sperm of a father, the nucleus of an ovum from the mother carrying the disease, and the mitochondria from a normal female donor; therefore, the child resulting from this germline therapy would carry DNA from three parents. This presentation will briefly describe various techniques for cytoplasmic transfer currently being studied. Then reasons will be offered why this is a controversial area of assisted reproductive technology. Finally, ethical theories, principles of biomedical ethics, and theological concepts will be used to argue that IVF with nuclear transfer, while seemingly a boon to parents with this genetic anomaly, manipulates and controls human nature by confusing a child’s notion of identity and threatening traditional Christian and societal concepts of parenting and family.