A 2015 Congressional amendment precludes Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy (MRT), a life-saving IVF-based procedure that could prevent a plethora of mitochondrial DNA diseases in the U.S. Individuals do not, at present, have access to this technology to prevent the devastating consequences of mitochondrial DNA disease. At the same time, MRT continues to move forward in other countries, such as the UK. Has the time come to revisit the federal prohibition of this preventive therapy and research? Expert panelists discussed the future of MRT policy in the U.S., reviewing the latest technological developments, the regulatory barriers, and the ethical challenges affecting the clinical application of MRT. This event was free and open to the public.

1. MITOCHONDRIAL REPLACEMENT
THERAPY:
CONSIDERING THE FUTURE OF U.S.
POLICY ON “THREE-PARENT IVF”
Sheila Jasanoff
Harvard Kennedy School
Petrie Flom Center
Harvard Law School, April 17, 2019

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3. Narratives
• Thin Description
• Only cells
• Mere matter
• Pre-conscious
• Limited future (only
therapeutic)
• Subject to scientific
governance
• Thick Description
• Cells encoding life
• Precursor of life
• Tied to consciousness
• Unlimited future (pre-
human being)
• Subject to political
governance
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4. Matters of Fact
• “Out of 10 eggs produced during IVF
treatments on average seven are used. The
other three are spare and would otherwise
have been disregarded. We are not trying
to clone a baby ... These embryos have no
more moral status than blood taken from a
patient.”
• Professor Alison Murdoch, Newcastle Centre for Life,
June 13, 2004
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5. (Mere) Information
• The three-parent embryo: Nature, April 2010
• Professor [Doug] Turnbull said:
• “What we’ve done is like changing the battery
on a laptop. None of the information on the hard
drive has been changed. A child would have
correctly functioning mitochondria but in every
other respect would get all their genetic
information from their father and mother.”
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6. Public Moral Reason: 2 Translators
Mary Warnock (Sunday Observer
1994) Lisa Jardine (Guardian 2008)
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7. Seeing for the People (Warnock)
…there is a very noble prayer
frequently uttered in my college
chapel that we may be given the
grace to distinguish things that
differ. I, as a member of my
college chapel, pray this most
fervently because I believe that
it is our moral duty to make a
distinction in this case between
the pre-embryo and the embryo
which is to become the
individual and to act on this
distinction.
• Warnock, House of Lords, 1988
Grant me, O Lord, to know what is
worth knowing,
to love what is worth loving,
to praise what delights you most,
to value what is precious in your
sight,
to hate what is offensive to you.
Do not let me judge by what I see,
nor pass sentence according to
what I hear,
but to judge rightly between things
that differ
and above all to search out and to
do what pleases you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Thomas a Kempis
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8. Common Sense Reverence (Jardine)
• St Augustine, who I greatly revere as a great
father of the church, believed that the child
became human when it kicked in the womb, so
that would be 19 weeks. The other religions of the
book have post-14-day beginnings of
consciousness, so only 21st-century Catholicism
has this problem, and there are thinking Catholics
who I greatly respect who genuinely believe the
Catholic church should roll that back. In which
case, we'd all be able to talk to one another.
• Lisa Jardine, Guardian, May 27, 2008
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9. Narrative Elements (US)
• Brandon Keim, “3-Parent Embryos Could Prevent
Disease, But Raise Ethical Issues” Wired (April 14,
2010)
• zygote stripped of its original chromosomes, but left with its
original mitochondria
• embryos left over from in vitro fertilization
• again taken from IVF leftovers
• could also allow parents whose progeny would otherwise
suffer from deadly mitochondrial diseases to have healthy
children
• Turnbull: “Previous work showed that these manipulations
were possible.”
• E. Schon: “This is great. We’ve been thinking about this for
years”
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10. Presidential Bioethics
• Bush, October 2005: There should be no state support
for science “which destroys life in order to save life”
• Obama, March 2009: “We will support it only when it is
both scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted.
We will develop strict guidelines, which we will
rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate
misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our
government never opens the door to the use of cloning
for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly
wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”
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