June 2013 – Jacqueline Laing

The British fertility industry and theDepartment of Health have announced their intention to press ahead with attempts to introduce internationally novel legislation to permit human germ-line gene modification involving genetic material from three human parents. As well as scrambling a child’s identity in new ways this would allow, for the first time, designer human beings.

The new techniques – Pronuclear Transfer (PNT), Maternal Spindle Transfer (MST) and Nuclear Genome Transfer (NGT) are presented as a minor extension of IVF. The introduction of genetically modified humans born of biological material from three people, however, heralds a novel assault on human identity and the start of a designer eugenics race.

Proposed amendments to the Public Order Act aim to protect from prosecution, although perhaps not job loss, those who believe same-sex marriage to be contrary to public interest. These amendments highlight an important conceptual problem. In Eweida and Others v. UK four Christian applicants challenged employment tribunal decisions against them largely on Article 9 (freedom of belief) grounds. Although Nadia Eweida’s case in favour of wearing a small cross to work at British Airways was successful in the ECHR, three other applicants failed. In particular, Lillian Ladele lost her job as a registrar for failing to perform civil partnerships once the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 was enacted.

Month: June 2013

Genetically Modified Humans and Three Parent Children

Public Order Act Amendments Confer Few Article 9 Protections