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UK to allow babies from three people

bbc.com

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Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#71

Post by bayesianhorse »

kareemm wrote: post #60

I can just hear the guy who wrote the software for creating UK birth certificates: "I know for sure that I need to display two parents max on these." And I feel for the poor programmer whose job it is to deal with the brand-new edge case of putting three parents' names on one.

For most purposes I think two parents would be enough, even if the child was born using more than two parents. Generally the decision to have a child, and the decision to be a family is complicated enough with two people.

A third person to have "rights" over the child can only mess up stuff.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#72

Post by bayesianhorse »

3d8995163 wrote: post #54
brianpgordon wrote: post #48

> Other groups, including Human Genetics Alert, say the move would open the door to further genetic modification of children in the future - so-called designer babies, genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease. There are people who don't think this is a good thing?! If we could eliminate congenital disease, and make everyone smarter, it would be like fast-forwarding human evolution.

And the kids whose parents couldn't afford to have them genetically improved? They just exist as some sort of permanent underclass? If you think the inequality and the way poor people get treated is a problem now, wait until rich people are actually genetically superior to the poor.

If genetic engineering really became this important to human "performance" or health, I would think that most countries who can afford it, will actually have a way for society to pay for such services. It's the right thing to do, and the most profitable for the society as a whole. Just as in health care the smart policy is to spread the cost and risks around and keep the providers in check so that they can't hold individual's health as a hostage.

Exception being the U.S., of course ...

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#73

Post by avar »

maratd wrote: post #64
rpedroso wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the GATTACA argument that unequal access to genetic modification will foster even greater socioeconomic inequality than we already face today. The film imagined a future in which genetic superiority could be measured by percentile and that job eligibility was based almost exclusively on your genetic score. The implication is that the widespread but costly availability of genetic modification in tandem with f…

> There is the GATTACA argument that unequal access to genetic modification will foster even greater socioeconomic inequality than we already face today. Absolutely nothing we can do artificially will have as great of an impact than genetically gifted individuals having children together ... which is already happening and has been happening for eons ... I mean, that's what evolution is. The smart get smarter, the fas…

    > Absolutely nothing we can do artificially
    > will have as great of an impact than
    > genetically gifted individuals having
    > children together.
When those two individuals have children their genes are fused together by random chance. Do you really think gene technology won't get better than random chance?

We already have technology that's good enough to improve on that, e.g. splicing out a gene known to cause a disease from one of those parents.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#74

Post by [deleted] »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #70

The reason why some people believe this to be an ethical problem, and others don't, is that the questions "What constitutes a human being?" and "When does a part of another Human body become a human being?" are hotly disputed. It's hard to say for certain what aspects of "humanity" is carried by mitochondria. So some will say that there are two mothers, others will say there is only one. Some will say this is unnatur…

[deleted]

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#75

Post by Cthulhu_ »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #71
kareemm wrote: post #60

I can just hear the guy who wrote the software for creating UK birth certificates: "I know for sure that I need to display two parents max on these." And I feel for the poor programmer whose job it is to deal with the brand-new edge case of putting three parents' names on one.

For most purposes I think two parents would be enough, even if the child was born using more than two parents. Generally the decision to have a child, and the decision to be a family is complicated enough with two people. A third person to have "rights" over the child can only mess up stuff.

> For most purposes

If only we as software developers could create software for most purposes :(

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#76

Post by firethief »

thisone wrote: post #68
kareemm wrote: post #60

I can just hear the guy who wrote the software for creating UK birth certificates: "I know for sure that I need to display two parents max on these." And I feel for the poor programmer whose job it is to deal with the brand-new edge case of putting three parents' names on one.

IVF can currently involve 5 people as it is. Sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate, couple whose child this will be. This method ups it to 6.

It takes a village...

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#77

Post by foobar2020 »

_almosnow wrote: post #53
stenl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men would get on average 1/3 daughters (XX) and 2/3 sons (XY and YX). The YY offspring would not be viable. Women would only get daughters.

We don't know what happens with YY, but yeah, at least a terrible syndrome.

The X chromosome codes quite a few crucial proteins [0], such as certain clotting factors (that's why women rarely get haemophilia), or retinal proteins (that's why women see more colors, and rarely get daltonism). It is pretty impossible for a fetus to develop with a YY genotype.

[0] http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/chromosome/X/show/Genes

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#79

Post by gpvos »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #72
3d8995163 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the kids whose parents couldn't afford to have them genetically improved? They just exist as some sort of permanent underclass? If you think the inequality and the way poor people get treated is a problem now, wait until rich people are actually genetically superior to the poor.

If genetic engineering really became this important to human "performance" or health, I would think that most countries who can afford it, will actually have a way for society to pay for such services. It's the right thing to do, and the most profitable for the society as a whole. Just as in health care the smart policy is to spread the cost and risks around and keep the providers in check so that they can't hold ind…

Then it would increase the difference between rich and poor countries. I'm not sure that that would be any better.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#80

Post by tomp »

jessaustin wrote: post #38
michaelsbradley wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply offered the anecdote for consideration. I had three couples in mind. One went through IVF three times, the others two times each. In none of the cases were there successful results, though in all three cases there were significant financial costs. All three couples had a child (two of them more than one, so far) after they began using a modern NFP method to track the female partner's fertility; and the finan…

...many couples are oblivious to the existence of modern NFP... Gosh, why wouldn't their fertility doctors have told them about it? b^)

Because they can't charge as much.
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