Many people may be thinking over the consequences of the House of Commons\u2019 decision this week about IVF.\u00a0 Approval has been given to extend IVF procedures to the creation of embryos using not just a father\u2019s sperm and a mother\u2019s egg but DNA from the cells of a second female. \u00a0\u00a0The reason is to avoid genetic problems in children which are only passed on through the mother (in the mitochondria in her cells).\u00a0 The donor DNA would replace the faulty DNA in the egg used to create the embryo.<\/p>\n
From the legal perspective \u2013 would the second female be a second mother?\u00a0 The clear answer is \u2013 no. The regulations that will apply do not give any \u201cparental rights\u201d to the third person, who will contribute only a small proportion of her DNA, 37 genes out of the total 22,000.\u00a0 The donor will be anonymous, her identity not being revealed to the child, and the donor and child will not be regarded as related.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many people may be thinking over the consequences of the House of Commons\u2019 decision this week about IVF.\u00a0 Approval has been given to extend IVF procedures to the creation of embryos using not just a father\u2019s sperm and a mother\u2019s egg but DNA from the cells of a second female. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[331,341,355],"tags":[521,671,746,866,901,77],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children-2","category-familylaw","category-tayloremmet","tag-children","tag-dna","tag-family-planning","tag-house-of-commons","tag-ivf","tag-parental-rights"],"yoast_head":"\n