UK First with Three Parent Babies. Good or Evil?

Baby born with 3 parents. Godsend or Frankenstein?

On Monday, 16th of July 2025, James Gallagher wrote an article on the BBC Web Site covering the spectacular birth of eight babies who in theory each had three parents.

James is Health and Science Correspondent for BBC News and presenter of Inside Health on Radio 4.

The parents were a "normal" heterosexual couple and a donor woman who provided sticking plaster DNA to repair an error in the mother's mitochondrial DNA. These babies, if born, would have most likely have devastating incurable mitochondrial disease.

Please refer to the original article for details of how this manipulation functions. BBC Article I

rang a good friend who lives in a Commonwealth area and told him what I had just read. "Welcome Frankenstein" was his immediate reaction.

According to James Gallagher the UK not only developed the science of three-person babies, but it also became the first country in the world to introduce laws to allow their creation after a vote in Parliament in 2015.

His report states that a pair of reports, in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed 22 families have gone through the process at the Newcastle Fertility Centre. It led to four boys and four girls, including one pair of twins, and one ongoing pregnancy.

He further writes:

The breakthrough gives hope to the Kitto family. Kat's youngest daughter Poppy, 14, has the disease. Her eldest Lily, 16, may pass it onto her children. Poppy is in a wheelchair, is non-verbal and is fed through a tube. "It's impacted a huge part of her life," says Kat, "we have a lovely time as she is, but there are the moments where you realise how devastating mitochondrial disease is".

It is unclear from the way he reports as to whether the family are now hoping to have a healthy baby or whether he is merely reporting on the seriousness of the condition.

If it is the former, then one can definitely ask whether people who pass on such devastating symptoms should have children at all.

There can be no question that everybody has the right to have children no matter what the risk. We don't live in a Josef Göbels society. But is it right? Is it morally OK to bring children in to the world knowing that there is a huge chance that they will suffer for the rest of their lives?

We don't blame the parents who may for whatever reason have waited years for the chance to procreate (some would say clone) but I question the scientists behind these experiments.

What next? "Doctor, could you put an AI chip into my egg so he or she will be top of the class forever?" How about: "Please make sure it is a male but remove the male sexual organs so that 'she' can win at the Olympics".

When will we officially be creating super humanoids?

But make sure the heading reads "UK first in the World".