Germline Modification and the Burden of Human Existence

This article is based on three public interventions I made recently in an attempt to defend a new, valuable, and both life-saving and life-enhancing therapeutic technology. The technology in question is mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT). In descending chronological order, these interventions were (1) a workshop of the United States Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Board on Health Sciences Policy entitled "Ethical and Social Policy Considerations of Novel Techniques for Prevention of Maternal Transmission of Mitochondrial DNA Diseases" in Washington, DC (see http://www.iom.edu/Activities/Research/MitoEthics/2015-MAR-31.aspx ); (2) a presentation in the United Kingdom Parliament, under the auspices of the Progress Educational Trust, on Monday, February 2, 2015 (on the eve of the historic debate and vote in the U.K. Parliament that gave the go-ahead for mitochondrial transfer); and (3) an article published in the Guardian newspaper in 2012 shortly after the U.K. Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority announced a public consultation on mitochondrial DNA transfer.