Necessary Roughness

ABC News reports that British geneticists have created human embryos where mitochondrial DNA from another mom has been substituted in an embryo.

It’s not a lot of genes, so we’re supposed to be comfortable:

“The proportion of genes in the mitochondria is infinitesimal,” said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Fertility and Reproduction. Shenfield is not connected to the Newcastle University Research.

Given that we do heart transplants now, the idea of someone having someone else’s parts isn’t all that new. The worst part of the story then is toward the end:

So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days.

If you believe in life beginning at conception, the termination of 10 embryos is a terrible thing.