Politics
Monday February 25, 2002
See today's LifeSiteNews stories
UK FERTILITY AUTHORITY OKAYS DESIGNER BABY SELECTION
LONDON, February 25, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) decided Friday to allow in vitro fertilization to be used to have children born with close genetic matches to older siblings in order to be able to provide bone marrow transplants. HFEA approved the request of Raj and Shahana Hashmi who were looking to use IVF to select a child with a bone marrow match for their three-year-old Zain who suffers from the rare and potentially fatal blood disorder thalassaemia.
As with all IVF treatment, the procedure creates many embryos (live children) and implants only a few, the rest of which are either frozen and stored, discarded and thus destroyed/killed, donated to research resulting in their death or given to other couples for adoption. A child with the specific genetic match is selected from among the created embryos using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.
Although HFEA said this was a very rare case and that the decision would not be precedent setting, the BBC is reporting today that there are another six families looking to have 'designer babies' for similar reasons. While the Hashami's say that the extra embryos created will be frozen rather than destroyed, experts in the field have noted that only about half of all embryos survive the freezing and thawing process.
See the BBC coverage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1836000/18365...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1839000/18390...
Back to TopSHARE THIS STORY: E-mail Print Newsvine Digg Reddit Del.icio.us Facebook
Latest Headlines
- Polls Indicate Frightened Canadian Public Turning Against Coalition Takeover Bid
- Study Shows Fertility Patients Want Frozen Embryonic Children Buried
- Planned Parenthood Suspends Employee Caught Covering Up Rape of 13-Year-Old
- Donate any Amount to LSN on Behalf of a Loved One and We Will Send Them a Beautiful Christmas Card!
- Grand Duke of Luxembourg Loses Veto Power After Threatening Veto of Euthanasia Law
- Vatican Archbishop Defends Rights of Parents to Educational Choice
- San Francisco Bishop Affirms Church's Role in Prop. 8, Calls for End to Disrespect
- Dutch Murder Case Following Late-Term Abortion in Spain Dropped
- Movie Reviewer for Catholic Bishops' Conference Praises Homosexualist Film - Again
- Purchase of Christmas Music CD By Pro-Life Priest is Great Way to Support LifeSiteNews
Most Read this Week
- Ad Showing Woman Seducing Santa Promotes Free Morning-After Pills and Condoms for Christmas
- Movie Reviewer for Catholic Bishops' Conference Praises Homosexualist Film - Again
- A Painful, Disease-Ridden Death Isn’t So Bad if You’re Just a White, Heterosexual Male
- Abortion Now Number One Cause of Death in Spain
- Catholic Bishop: "Go Right Ahead and Arrest Me" Rather than Obey Freedom of Choice Act
- God is Pro-Choice Says Nun
- UK Catholic Adoption Agencies Voluntarily Refuse Religious Opt-Out Clause for Homosexual Adoption
- University of Calgary Pro-Life Students Victorious - Administration Backs Down from Arrest Threats
- IKEA’s Polish Catalogue Introduces “Ian and Steve” as a Model of the New Family
- Shock: Evangelical Leader Believes in Gay Civil Unions, Says OK to Vote for Obama
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.