One parent or three?

Embryo research aims to eliminate inherited diseases, but the latest developments to be approved in Britain are taking us further down a dangerous road

IT WAS a busy week for scientists involved in human embryo experiments. Last Friday, British researchers announced the advent of what the media has dubbed the ?three-parent baby? (formed by DNA from one father and two mothers). A research group, based at Newcastle University, plans to fuse the genetic material of two human eggs which will then be fertilised with the sperm of a father. The aim is to eradicate by genetic modification a class of inherited illnesses carried by one in 4,000 women. The next day saw approval for the production of a ?one-parent? or ?virgin birth? embryo ? a human egg fertilised not by sperm but by an electrical shock and a cocktail of chemicals. The aim of this process (known technically as parthenogenesis), being researched in Edinburgh, is to harvest the embryo for its ?master? stem cells for therapeutic purposes.

The approvals by the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) seem to have taken the media and the general public by surprise. For ethicists who urge that the embryo, howsoever produced, is a human life that merits protection from destructive experimentation, both schemes have been bitterly opposed for several years along with similar human embryonic research programmes. In 2001 a protocol ? including theological and scriptural background sources calling for a ban on such research ? was signed and published by an ad hoc group of distinguished Christian theologians and church leaders from Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed traditions, led by Cardinal Cahal Daly.

The procedure that would create a baby from the DNA of three adults involves the production of embryos for destruction as well as raising concerns relating to parenthood. It also raises, once again, urgent questions about how human embryo research is debated and approved in this country. Over the past four years, and in the teeth of considerable opposition from ethicists, Britain has led the Western world in legalising controversial experiments on human embryos.

In 2002, the HFEA approved the creation of ?saviour siblings?, selected as embryos to provide a matching donor for a sick sibling. Last year, the authority approved an application to clone human embryos for research and the establishment of a bank for human stem cell lines. Britain stands alone among developed countries for its lack of scruples on such research, but its bioethically ?liberal? climate is attracting world-class researchers, funding and investment in embryo experimentation from around the globe.

The president of the Holy See?s Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, last week denounced the ?three-parent baby? approval as part of a ?succession of violations which from the moral point of view ? not just Catholic ? is to be condemned?. Critics of Britain?s ?liberal? climate have accused the Government of pursuing such policies principally in the interests of the financial rewards.

The ?three-parent baby? initiative is, at first sight, linked to a wholly laudable clinical aim. The purpose is to combat an inherited disease caused by faults in mitochondrial DNA, the genes that regulate energy sources of cells. The defect can cause a range of more than 50 serious diseases affecting metabolism, including muscular dystrophy, infertility and miscarriages. The condition, carried by the woman, and affecting many hundreds of families in Britain, can be passed on to children with increasing severity of dysfunction in subsequent generations.

Researchers plan to create a donated human egg with healthy mitochondria, then combine it with the nucleus of an egg from a woman with the mitochondrial disease. The technique does not involve cloning as sperm will be used in in-vitro fertilisation. But the procedure affects the germ-line (inheritable) cells of individual women, rather than just the somatic (non-inheritable) cells. It was this germ-line consequence that held up approval twice in the past year, prompting the HFEA to place the final decision with its appeals committee. Many scientists, and the HFEA, oppose genetic modifications in humans that can be passed on in eggs and sperm. They argue that germ-line adjustments could have unknown consequences, resulting in ?pollution of the gene pool?. Although these concerns were aired within the appeals committee, they were finally discounted by the counter-claim that the procedure carries only a remote risk of consequent genetic problems, compared with the huge benefits in reduction of suffering. The committee further pointed out that only 37 genes are altered by the process, as opposed to the 25,000 genes ?that make us who we are?.

Important as the germ-line objection is (albeit set aside), it remains a utilitarian and consequentialist perspective. There is no indication that the approval process took into account a broad constituency of opinion. The bioethics group Comment on Reproductive Ethics last week declared: ?This shows once again that the HFEA does not have any regard for public consultation and the view of the public.?

Various specialists have sought to allay alarm on the score of babies eventually being born with ?three parents?, a phrase that angers the Newcastle researchers as inaccurate and sensationalist. Nevertheless the three-parent prospect seems to have its advocates. Andy Miah, in the department of medical ethics at Paisley University, has commented: ?For those who would see this as a threat to the family unit, we should endeavour to persuade them that reproductive technologies could encourage a greater acceptance of diversity in our society.? Dr Miah?s point is that the biological factor of multiple biological parenthood ranks less than the circumstances of a child?s welfare and family circumstances.

The sociologist Hilary Rose, however, has strongly condemned the decision on social and familial grounds. ?We?re living at a time of unparalleled difficulties between parents and children: do we want to add this to it as well?? Professor Rose argues moreover that it is an ?instrumentalist? initiative which involves unnecessary and potentially dangerous experiments on women and further encourages the notion that women must have babies whatever their medical setbacks. Her view echoes the opinion of feminist theologians like Dr Janet Soskice of Cambridge, who has warned that such instrumentalism involves a woman likening her body ?to a 10-speed bicycle?.

Other critics such as Professor Michael Banner of King?s College, London, have warned of the scientific hubris which looks only at ends, rather than means: ?It is the ethic of the terrorist. Let me do this bad thing so that I can achieve a good thing.? The Pontifical Academy, in its recent guidelines (2003) on human embryonic experimentation, has emphasised that scientists should understand that it is not legitimate to pursue scientific aims ?simply because it is possible to do so?.

The most compelling objections, however, remain the lack of an appropriate framework for consultation that would include perspectives in anthropology, moral philosophy, and religious beliefs and values. In these pages last week Alasdair MacIntyre argued for the importance, in the shaping of public morality, of voices that ?point us towards a theological ethics, in which the narrative of our lives is understood in relation to the narrative of God?s self-giving?. Professor MacIntyre was reviewing Herbert McCabe?s posthumous collection of essays, The Good Life: ethics and the pursuit of happiness, a book which emphasises the articulation of ethics that appeal to the long-term traditions of particular societies, and the way in which our choices should express our relationship with the entire community and to its flourishing.

Biotechnology, with its almost weekly new ethical challenges, clearly requires a broader forum of discussion and debate than one restricted to the utilitarian views of scientists and clinicians. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O?Connor has repeatedly called for a national bioethics committee that would take into account the Christian traditions of Britain. The HFEA?s approvals last week lend special urgency to his appeal.

John Cornwell is director of the Jesus College Cambridge Science and Human Dimension Project.