Lords allow production of 'designer babies' to cure sick siblings

Pro-life campaigners have expressed their concern at the decision by the House of Lords last Thursday to allow the production 'designer babies' to cure sick siblings. A spokesperson for LIFE said: "We have every sympathy for parents of children with serious conditions and understand their desperation to find a cure but the creation of a human being to 'fix' another is unjustifiable. "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. In this case a very sick child is going to be treated. But why stop there? The best of ends, namely to cure a sick child, does not justify the means. Children are ends in themselves and should be accepted unconditionally. "LIFE believes that unless Parliament gets to grips with these vital issues and provides a robust ethical framework it will only be a matter of time before children are created for other reasons - to 'balance' a family or for a particular physical characteristic. The HFEA cannot be trusted to regulate these matters. It is an unprincipled body without any ethical underpinning."