Parliament says yes to three-person babies

[CountDeMoney]

I'm just surprised that he's getting so shrill about it- usually, Sheilbh is one of the more even-keeled posters, if prone to some funny theories now and again.  Guess everybody's got a button to push.

Shiv isn't getting shrill about it at all.   What's been shrill has been the pile-up, but that's just Languish herd dynamics at play.

[grumbler]

I'm just surprised that he's getting so shrill about it- usually, Sheilbh is one of the more even-keeled posters, if prone to some funny theories now and again.  Guess everybody's got a button to push.

Shiv isn't getting shrill about it at all.  

I agree.  He hasn't been able to articulate the reasons for his position yet, but he hasn't been shrill.

[Malthus]

Until scientists figure out a way to get a three-person baby out of a threesome, I refuse to find this important.

Why can't science be useful for once? 

[garbon]

Until scientists figure out a way to get a three-person baby out of a threesome, I refuse to find this important.

Why can't science be useful for once? 

Why would you want to ruin a threesome with pregnancy?

[crazy canuck]

But I don't entirely understand how people can perceive an issue that alters a person's and their descendants' genetic make-up, without the possibility of consent as not prompting ethical concerns.

If that's the concern, then I would say this is certainly less of an ethical issue than say abortion where you are preventing a person and their descendants from even coming into existence.

Except you are preventing that person from coming into existence.  The person who is coming into existence is something different.

Yeah and the flipside in this instance is that a woman (with said condition) will give birth to an unhealthy child that will likely die. "Thanks, mom, for avoiding modern science?"

Agreed.  But lets not pretend that something fundamental isn't being changed here. 

[Malthus]

Until scientists figure out a way to get a three-person baby out of a threesome, I refuse to find this important.

Why can't science be useful for once? 

Why would you want to ruin a threesome with pregnancy?

Some folks actually want babies, you know. 

[garbon]

Until scientists figure out a way to get a three-person baby out of a threesome, I refuse to find this important.

Why can't science be useful for once? 

Why would you want to ruin a threesome with pregnancy?

Some folks actually want babies, you know. 

As a consequence of having a threesome? WTF? Maybe you do it wrong in Canada?

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah and the flipside in this instance is that a woman (with said condition) will give birth to an unhealthy child that will likely die. "Thanks, mom, for avoiding modern science?"

Agreed.  But lets not pretend that something fundamental isn't being changed here.

It's much more important to mock, ridicule and dismiss those that do.

[Tamas]

But I don't entirely understand how people can perceive an issue that alters a person's and their descendants' genetic make-up, without the possibility of consent as not prompting ethical concerns.

If that's the concern, then I would say this is certainly less of an ethical issue than say abortion where you are preventing a person and their descendants from even coming into existence.

Except you are preventing that person from coming into existence.  The person who is coming into existence is something different.

No. The mitochondrion has its own DNA independent of the cell's, and that DNA is inherited unchanged from your mother. There is zero change in the person's genetic makeup.

[crazy canuck]

But I don't entirely understand how people can perceive an issue that alters a person's and their descendants' genetic make-up, without the possibility of consent as not prompting ethical concerns.

If that's the concern, then I would say this is certainly less of an ethical issue than say abortion where you are preventing a person and their descendants from even coming into existence.

Except you are preventing that person from coming into existence.  The person who is coming into existence is something different.

No. The mitochondrion has its own DNA independent of the cell's, and that DNA is inherited unchanged from your mother. There is zero change in the person's genetic makeup.

What you are really saying is there is zero change to the DNA of the nucleus.  Which, at least as far as our limited knowledge of how the mitochondondria interacts with the nucleus takes us, is correct.  But you have to admit that at the very least new mitochondria DNA is being swapped in.   That is the whole point of doing the procedure.  No one can tell us with any certainty what long term affects that might have.  And certainly no one can deny that the child who is eventually born will be different than the child who would otherwise have been born.

[garbon]

And certainly no one can deny that the child who is eventually born will be different than the child who would otherwise have been born.

Well, of course. The whole point was that you wouldn't end up with a child who would die of an inherited disease.

[crazy canuck]

And certainly no one can deny that the child who is eventually born will be different than the child who would otherwise have been born.

Well, of course. The whole point was that you wouldn't end up with a child who would die of an inherited disease.

It would be helpful if you paid attention to whom I am responding and not just repeat the argument they have not actually conceded.  Tamas takes the view nothing changes at all.  You at least have the good sense to admit that something is changed but your argument is that the change is for the better.

But on that logic there are a lot of other genetic changes that one could argue should also be permitted.

[garbon]

But on that logic there are a lot of other genetic changes that one could argue should also be permitted.

Sorry, I can't hear you - I've already slid right down the slope.

[crazy canuck]

But on that logic there are a lot of other genetic changes that one could argue should also be permitted.

Sorry, I can't hear you - I've already slid right down the slope.

It would be a slippery slope argument if no changes were actually being made now.  You have already conceded that changes are being made.  My argument is that the Brits have already crossed a bright line.  Not that we are on the slope toward crossing it.

[garbon]

The slope is that terrible things will go down like we will only want affable, smart, tall, blond, thin blue eyed heterosexual cisgendered children.