Law Lords rule 'designer babies' legal
31/12/1999
Thank you very much for all you did for us. Our lives are so much better through your help.
Barry, Doncaster
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.
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