How Reproductive Technology Forces Almost Everyone to Reconsider Parenthood

Reproductive Technology Jessica Hamzelouarchive in vitro fertilization Heather Draper University of Warwick

By Camille Hutchison , Parent Herald Oct 23, 10:57 pm

Jessica Hamzelouarchive, a contributor to Technology Review, says that reproductive technology could lead to infants with four or more biological parents, prompting many to reconsider parenthood. She once attended a meeting in Amsterdam that scientists and ethicists hosted and learned a lot about being a parent.

Reproductive technologies are transforming and changing many different things and the perspective on how one makes a family. Some would think about the impact of technology on the baby and how it can affect their health or well-being. Parenthood is the main goal of individuals wanting to be parents.

Heather Draper, a bioethicist at the University of Warwick, says that the major intent of assisted conception is the creation of parents and not the creation of the child.

Hamzelouarchive emphasizes that advances in reproductive technologies force many to rethink parenthood, even at the genetic level. In vitro fertilization (IVF) allows one to use eggs and sperm donated by others who may not have the ability to conceive. However, it's not just IVF as technologies that also result in babies with three genetic parents are already being used, and others allow four or more genetic parents to be available shortly.

Technology that led to the birth of a three-parent baby

As technology advances, the contributor learned in the Amsterdam meeting that a new technology led to the birth of a three-parent baby. This means the baby's mother carried certain genes for a potentially fatal disease in her mitochondria, components of the cell that gives energy. To sustain this, the doctor, along with his colleagues, will use mitochondrial DNA from the woman's egg and her partner's sperm.

This will technically result in three genetic parents, although the donated mitochondrial DNA was only made up of a small fraction of the total DNA. It also implies the cutoff or the percentage of a baby's DNA one needs to contribute to be considered as a parent. This technique is commonly done to help parents prevent passing down any mitochondrial diseases to their children. In most cases, the person contributing mitochondrial DNA who is an unrelated donor will have no further contact with the baby.

However, in some cases, mitochondrial DNA represents a crucial genetic link to a child. Thus, if two women want to have a baby together, they might use one of their eggs and search for a sperm donor. In such cases, the baby is still genetically related but only to one of the women. The other woman's mitochondrial DNA can also contribute to her genetic link to the baby but a much smaller one.

Having four or more parents

Other technologies on the horizon might enable other individuals wanting to have a baby to share genetic parenthood of a baby. Many scientists are working hard to turn blood cells and human skin into sperm and egg cells in the laboratory. They aim to work hard and somehow make possibilities for biological parenthood expand even further.

A same-sex couple wanting to have genetically related kids can turn one man's skin into an egg cell and fertilize it with the sperm of his partner to make an embryo. Hence, the same technology that makes another sperm of an egg cell from an embryo can also be used. One can do this with sex cells from two couples which ultimately creates an embryo that will have four genetic contributors.