Britain’s Parliament voted yesterday to allow scientists to create genetically engineered three-parent embryos, making it the first country in the world to permit the procedure.

LifeNews.com is reporting that the British parliament voted 382 to 128 in favor of the new technique in which the nucleus of a donor’s egg is removed and replaced with the nucleus of a woman with mitochondrial disease. The egg is then fertilized with sperm which results in an embryo created from the genetic material of three persons.

Mitochondrial disease is caused by mutations in mitochondrial DNA which are either acquired from drugs or environmental issues or inherited. Symptoms include poor growth, loss of muscle coordination, muscle weakness, visual problems, hearing problems, learning disabilities, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory disorders, neurological problems, autonomic dysfunction and dementia. Treatment is limited for the various disorders that can result from these mutations and can range anywhere from vitamin supplements to membrane penetrating antioxidants.

Permitting the new procedure would allow women who carry the disease in their genes to give birth to children who were genetically related to them but are free from mitochondrial disease.

However, there are several problems with the practice.

First, it opens the door to “designer babies.” If we can tamper with an egg to eliminate one trait, what’s to stop us from tampering with an egg to change a baby’s eye color or stature?

“Where will it lead?” as conservative lawmaker Fiona Bruce during the debate in Parliament. “The answer has to be that we stop here. The answer has to be that we say this is a red line in our country, as in every other country in the world, that we will not cross.”

Another problem is that the technique is experimental and no one knows what the long-term effect will be on babies born from this process.

“These new regulations are dangerous,” said Dr. Peter Saunders, a pro-life physician from Britain. “No other country has officially legalized the techniques and no one can predict what the consequences for future children will be. These techniques are highly experimental, unproven, known to be very unsafe (bear in mind that children’s lives will be the experiment), ineffective, costly, a waste of public money, insufficiently understood, unnecessary (only potentially helping 10-20 families a year) and will require large numbers of eggs to proceed, even for just a few families.”

Even though the UK Department of Health is claiming otherwise, a large majority (62%) of the British population are against the idea with only 18 percent saying they support it.

The measure is now headed to the House of Lords for approval. However, even if approved, it doesn't necessarily mean that the practice will go into immediate use. Fertility clinics will be required to apply for a license to use the technique and each application will be judged on its own merits.

England may be the first to allow the procedure, but it will probably not be the last.

According to Science Insider, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration held a two-day hearing on the new procedure last year and have instructed the Institute of Medicine to issue a consensus study on the ethical and social policy issues surrounding its use. More meetings are planned for March and May of this year.

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