Advocates for Children and Childhood Mobilizing on Concerns about GM Babies
Last week's Global Summit on Childhood in Vancouver, a gathering of some 500 advocates for children and childhood, included a session titled "Genetically Modified Babies? An Immediate Threat to Children and What Advocates Can Do Right Now"
Mothers for a Human Future's Enola Aird and I spoke about the proposal pending in the UK for clinical trials of the "three-person embryo" technique that would constitute inheritable genetic modification. Draft regulations are being finalized now, and will be delivered to Parliament as soon as next month.
Information for delegates to the Summit - and anyone else - who would like to communicate about this proposal to MPs and other authorities in the UK can be found here. Also online are the flyer for our session and our PowerPoint presentation.
Concern about the safety, efficacy, familial and societal implications of such socially and biologically radical procedures has been growing among advocates for children and childhood. Recent commentaries include several by Enola Aird at MomsRising.org:
- The Three-Parent Dilemma
- Let’s Keep the Door to Biotechnological Eugenics Closed
- Slowing the Rush to Genetically Modified Babies
Peggy O'Mara, former editor and publisher of Mothering, has also written on the issue:
For more information on "three-person embryos" - the technology, policies, social and ethical implications - please see CGS's resource page.
Previously on Biopolitical Times:
- Letter to HFEA: Consider the Risks of “Mitochondrial Manipulation” Discussed by the FDA
- UK Opens Public Consultation on Draft Regulations to Permit “Three-Person Embryos”
- Litany of Unknowns Surface at FDA Meeting on Germline Mitochondrial Techniques
- Scientists Warn Against “Three-Parent IVF” Experiment