Alexander Harris Solicitors
Jump to navigation.

No Header

The Law Lords have upheld an earlier court decision to rule that the creation of "designer babies" using IVF to treat sick siblings is lawful.

The ruling centred on the case of a young boy whose parents wanted a baby with a specific tissue type to help treat a debilitating disorder.

Technology now allows doctors to select embryos with perfect tissue for a transplant operation.

Campaigners had asked the Lords to overturn the appeal court's 2003 ruling that allowed the couple to proceed.
The group Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core) asked the House of Lords to examine the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and to decide whether tissue-typing of the sort used by the couple was legal.

On Thursday, five Law Lords ruled unanimously that the practice of such tissue typing could be authorised by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
The ruling, saying that HFEA was acting lawfully and appropriately in considering and granting a licence for pre-implantation tissue-typing, was welcomed by the authority.

 

The High Court had imposed a ban on the treatment in December 2002 but this was overturned in the Court of Appeal.

Back

Related news stories

If you believe that you might have a legal claim relating to this story, please complete the online enquiry form or call 0870 024 0558. Your enquiry will be forwarded to a solicitor who specialises in this area.

If you have any comments in relation to this story, please use the online discussion forum.

This news section contains stories of interest to our clients from publicly available news sources. Where we are representing the clients referred to in the news material we will say so. Where we do not represent individuals or bodies mentioned or quoted, the inclusion of the news story in our news section is not intended nor should it be taken to imply that we act for the individual or body concerned.