Mitochondrial Disease and the HFEA

Readers are probably aware of the consultation that the HFEA launched this week on the use of mitochondrial replacement to prevent certain illnesses.  John Harris has a piece on it in The Guardian – and by gosh golly, he’s right*; the article is well worth a quick look.

My own ha’p’orth: some of the stuff in the consultation is a bit odd.  One of the sets of questions it asks has to do with what such a procedure would do to a child’s concept of identity.  But why is this a concern?  Suppose a child discovers that she’s been the recipient of a mitochondrial transplant: so what?  Why would that make the blindest bit of difference to her sense of identity?  Isn’t it wholly plausible that, if there is any impact, it’s not because of the source of the genes qua genes, but because of all the people around her telling her that it’s tremendously important and she should give a stuff?  But they might be wrong.  I’d stick my neck out and say that they probably are.  Genetic origins simply don’t matter.

(Ah – but if she’s brought up to think that they’re imporant, isn’t that enough to establish that they’re important to her – and so are important in some sense after all?  Well, no.  Imagine someone is brought up to think that the fortunes of West Ham United are important; they’ll be important to him.  But it doesn’t follow that they’re important; and it might be that, in treating them as important, our hapless Hammers fan ends up making himself much more miserable than he need be by worrying about things that don’t merit worry.  It could be that he ought not to think the football important.  The same applies to genes: if a person’s genetic origins are important to her, it doesn’t follow that they’re important, or that there’re no good reasons to think them less important.)

But lots of people seem to think that genes do matter, and so we get questions like this; and asking questions like this perpetuates the idea that it’s a question worth asking… and so it goes on.

*I’ve found myself saying that increasingly often of late.  Scary stuff.

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