Parents of sick children will be allowed to use IVF to create "spare part babies" under controversial laws published yesterday. The legislation will dramatically relax rules on IVF clinics creating "saviour siblings" - who can help cure their older brothers and sisters of medical conditions such as leukaemia.
Experts said that one day they could create a "designer baby" with kidneys which are perfectly compatible with a sibling suffering renal failure. More immediately, saviour siblings could give umbilical cord blood or bone marrow to family members in the hope of treating conditions such as sickle cell anaemia.
But campaigners have warned the legislation allows doctors to "play God" and risks turning children into commodities.
The Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will now be debated in Parliament and is expected to become law in 2009. It will also:
• Allow the creation of "hybrid" and "chimera" embryos - human embryos containing animal DNA - for research purposes;
• Scrap a requirement for IVF clinics to consider a baby's need for a father, allowing more lesbian couples and single women to get fertility treatment on the NHS;
• Allow gay couples who conceive through donated sperm, eggs or embryos to register as parents on the birth certificate;
• Ban selection of the sex of a child for non-medical reasons.
But it is the move to allow the creation of "spare part babies" which has caused the most controversy. The current law has allowed a handful of couples to use IVF procedures to select embryos which are a genetic match for an older sibling with a life-threatening disease.
Stem cells are taken from the infant's umbilical cord blood and infused into the older child.
Michelle and Jayson Whitaker travelled to American to select an embryo to match their young son Charlie who had a life-threatening blood disorder.
Mrs Whitaker successfully gave birth to a brother, Jamie, who was a perfect genetic match with Charlie.
But the change in the law opens the way for any kind of tissue - not just umbilical cord blood - to be used. It also means the technique can be employed if a sibling has a "serious" medical condition, not just a life-threatening one. (Daily Mail)
