Remaking parents: Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) and the fiction of genetic parenthood

• In Event: Making Biofutures: Anticipating the futures of biomedicine, healthcare, and life itself

Abstract

For a long time, it has been understood that all human offspring have two genetic progenitors, who could be considered parents by virtue of that genetic relationship. Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) challenges that presumption, since it involves the use of genetic material from three people in the creation of embryos. In the UK, regulation of MRT has dealt with this by stipulating that egg donors in MRT arrangements are not genetic parents even though they contribute mitochondrial DNA to offspring. Other countries, including the USA and Australia, are still struggling with the issue of whether such donation undergirds parenthood, and the rights and obligations that go along with it. There has also been much scholarly discussion about whether the offspring of MRT arrangements are justly thought of as ‘3-parent’ babies. My aim in this paper is to consider the implications of this situation for thinking about parenthood more generally. In particular, I consider the effects of the legal stipulation of genetic parenthood made necessary by assisted reproductive technologies such as MRT, and suggest that this shows that rather the being simply a natural state of affairs, genetic parenthood is itself a kind of fiction.

Author

• Catherine Mills, Monash University