Baby made from three parents' DNA

[xerx]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23079276

So which ladies here want to enter into a ternary nuptial agreement with me ...

[Creepy-bg]

i want a baby combining myself with a dragon and a pony.

[Pa3s]

Too expensive, impractical, and not useful for the average fornicator, but if it could help 10 couples per year, and 10 children have more energy, then it can benefit society.

It's not simply about "having more energy". Dysfunctional mitochondria cause a lot of problems, the ones mentioned in the article (muscle weakness, blindness, heart failure and death) are just a part of that. I know someone who suffers from such a disease and his life quality is severely reduced. Women who have this genetic defect wouldn't be able to reproduce risk-free without measures like this.

Every time Sharon Bernardi became pregnant, she hoped for a healthy child. But all seven of her children died from a rare genetic disease that affects the central nervous system - three of them just hours after birth.

I'm sure it's horrible to find out that your children will most likely have genetic defects, but did she really need to try it seven times? And even if the child survived, it had to deal with the disease. How ethical is that?

[Aiss]

That's seriously cool. Thanks @xerx

[xerx]

You're welcome.

[xerx]

i want a baby combining myself with a dragon and a pony.

lawl

[DirectorAbbie]

Method one is unethical. Method two is positive.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

2 females/one male. still HETEROSEXIST. i will only be satisfied in life until i can get pregnant from sean buttfucking me.

[jughead]

Ethical? People continually birth defect babies... So terrible. Our modern economy is not ethical either. Ethics are quite devalued and dumbed down to robotic customs and "what you can get away with".

[squark]

It is also likely that children would have no right to know who the egg donor was

Brings up questions about ancestral DNA tests. Mitochrondrial DNA comes only from your mother, passed intact (not counting any mutations that might occur) from mother to child, and so it becomes a useful tool in tracking ancestry. If they take a test that tracks mDNA, their results will show the ancestry of the donor, rather than their own mother. Also, some of those tests allow people to find other people who have taken the test who have similar results so people can find relatives. As the testing becomes more common, and the database of results larger, it will become easier to find those donors, or at least people closely related to the donors. Because it will lead them to their donors family rather than their own, would they be restricted from taking those tests, or having access to the full results available?

It's interesting to think about because we each have a direct ancestral tie to our maternal great-great-great-great grandmothers, and now you can have people who will seem to be of one lineage (via genetic testing) while having someone else's DNA. Mitochrondria are really cool and interesting in how they work and are passed on through generations. This new IVF method is in essence piggybacking a person's DNA on another's line. Ha, it seems kind of parasitic if you think about it that way.