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A dad and two moms or a child of three parents
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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US geneticists have announced that they are ready to begin experiments to create human embryos with DNA from three parents. The FDA has already given permission to conduct such experiments. According to doctors, three parents are needed to replace pathological mitochondria in a human embryo, which is why a woman gives birth to unhealthy offspring.
Scientists intend to use three donors in the experiments – two women and a man, who will become the parents of the future child. According to the researchers, this method will help humanity get rid of some genetic diseases.
The gene includes all hereditary information about a person and is located in chromosomes and mitochondria, while mitochondria are transmitted exclusively through the mother's line. It is for this reason that geneticists intend to replace them only in male embryos, which will allow the next generations to avoid the manifestation of the DNA of the third parent. The child will have 0.1% of genes belonging to the third parent, but despite this, he will be considered born from three people - two mothers and one father.
Last year, similar experiments were approved by the House of Commons in the UK. According to scientists, this method is necessary for women who have mitochondrial disease, as a result of which they cannot give birth to a healthy baby.
The media reports that lesbians, homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people have already shown interest in this work of the scientists.
But to start experiments, permission from the sanitary control commission is not enough. According to the US Federal Law, research of this nature is prohibited, and the Bioethics Commission, which includes representatives of various religious faiths, is also against such experiments. By the way, such work is also prohibited by Islamic norms, the only exception is artificial insemination, when a woman cannot get pregnant naturally due to health reasons, and the man and woman must be in a legal relationship for a long time.
Orthodox representatives are also against these experiments, in addition, surrogacy is also prohibited by the Orthodox, since the woman's body, preparing for motherhood, undergoes enormous changes. During pregnancy, a woman begins to become attached to the new life inside her, begins to love the child in her belly, all these changes cannot be measured even by the most modern medical instruments.
But in the US, in recent years, the sphere of motherhood and family planning has undergone strong changes and the attitude towards this has become more consumerist, i.e. the birth of a child is assessed from the point of view of usefulness.
By the way, in the USA there was an organization that was operating on a completely legal basis, which was engaged in selling organs of unborn babies, and everything was financed from the federal budget. The activist David Daleiden, who faces 20 years in prison for excessive curiosity, declassified the “black” work of the organization.
Some experts do not rule out that new genetic experiments with three parents are being conducted with a slightly different purpose and may result in the creation of a new enterprise that brings in high income.