Lords back 'designer baby' choice
The creation of "designer babies" to treat sick siblings is lawful, the Law Lords have ruled, upholding an earlier court decision.
The case centred on six-year-old Zain Hashmi, whose parents wanted a baby with a specific tissue type to help treat his debilitating blood disorder.
His parents had begun treatment to create a baby, but have so far failed.
Campaigners had asked the Lords to overturn the appeal court's 2003 ruling that allowed the couple to proceed.
The group Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core) asked the House of Lords to examine the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and to decide whether tissue-typing of the sort used by the Hashmis was legal.
On Thursday, five Law Lords ruled unanimously that the practice of such tissue typing could be authorised by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
The High Court had imposed a ban on the treatment in December 2002 but this was overturned in the Court of Appeal.
That decision allowed parents Raj and Shahana to go ahead with treatment to produce a sibling with the same tissue type as their son.
In theory, this would have allowed them to take stem cells from the new baby's umbilical cord and transplant them into Zain.
Tragically, however, Mrs Hashmi has had a series of miscarriages.
The ruling "saddened" anti-abortion campaigners Life.
"Today's decision from the House of Lords takes us further down the slippery slope in creating human beings to provide spare parts for another.
"The best of ends, namely to cure a sick child, does not justify the means."
Story in full at http://news.bbc.co.u...lth/4492345.stm
