{"id":2020,"date":"2012-09-20T16:02:53","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T15:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=2020"},"modified":"2012-09-20T16:02:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T15:02:53","slug":"mitochondrial-disease-and-the-hfea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2012\/09\/20\/mitochondrial-disease-and-the-hfea\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitochondrial Disease and the HFEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readers are probably aware of the consultation that the HFEA launched this week<\/a> on the use of mitochondrial\u00a0replacement to prevent\u00a0certain illnesses.\u00a0 John Harris has a piece on it in The Guardian<\/em><\/a> – and by gosh golly, he’s right*; the article is well worth a quick look.<\/p>\n

My own ha’p’orth: some of the stuff in the consultation is a bit odd.\u00a0 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<\/a>.\u00a0 But why is this a concern?\u00a0 Suppose a child discovers that she’s been the recipient of a mitochondrial transplant: so what?\u00a0 Why would that make the blindest bit of difference to her sense of identity?\u00a0 Isn’t it wholly plausible that, if there is any impact, it’s not because of the source of the genes qua<\/em> genes, but because of all the people around her telling her that it’s tremendously important and she should give a stuff?\u00a0 But they might be wrong.\u00a0 I’d stick my neck out and say that they probably are.\u00a0 Genetic origins simply don’t matter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(Ah – but if she’s brought up to think<\/em> that they’re imporant, isn’t that enough to establish that they’re important to her<\/em> – and so are important in some sense after all?\u00a0 Well, no.\u00a0 Imagine someone is brought up to think that the fortunes of West Ham United are important; they’ll be important to him.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It could be that he ought not to think the football important.\u00a0 The same applies to genes: if a person’s genetic origins are important to her<\/em>, it doesn’t follow that they’re important, or that there’re no good reasons to think them less important.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

*I’ve found myself saying that increasingly often of late.\u00a0 Scary stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers are probably aware of the consultation that the HFEA launched this week on the use of mitochondrial\u00a0replacement to prevent\u00a0certain illnesses.\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1081,2147,511],"tags":[1856],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consultation","category-genetic-jiggerypokery","category-in-the-news","tag-enhancement"],"yoast_head":"\nMitochondrial Disease and the HFEA - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2012\/09\/20\/mitochondrial-disease-and-the-hfea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mitochondrial Disease and the HFEA - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Readers are probably aware of the consultation that the HFEA launched this week on the use of mitochondrial\u00a0replacement to prevent\u00a0certain illnesses.\u00a0 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. 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