Six designer babies could be created in the Midlands by the end of the year - on the National Health Service. Desperate mums are looking to have the children so their bone marrow or cells can be used to help cure siblings of potentially fatal illnesses. Supporters of the controversial births claim that as well as saving lives the babies will actually save the NHS millions of pounds in the long term. But opponents say the procedures are morally dubious and that babies should not be made to order. The mums are looking to have the designer babies at the Centre for Assisted Reproduction at Park Hospital in Nottingham. Appropriate embryos are selected to create the babies after IVF treatment at the centre. The advanced techniques have been used at the health unit twice before, but parents had to pay for the treatment themselves.
Now the controversial procedures will be funded by the NHS with local Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) being granted the power to decide whether cases can go ahead. Park Hospital fertility expert Dr Simon Fishel revealed that six sets of parents have currently lodged applications with PCTs to try for a designer baby at the health unit. And he said that he expects at least three mums to undergo treatment by the end of the year. This is a positive step forward, he said. It is visionary. It will provide huge cost benefits for the NHS and prevent tragic deaths of children who have very serious genetic disorders. These children might require considerable medication for long periods of time. That could cost the NHS as much as £50,000 a year and nearly £2 million in a lifetime. It has been estimated that the cost of producing a designer baby through IVF treatment is £20,000. Dr Fishel explained how the procedure worked. Tests are conducted on the mothers embryos to find one that is clear of its siblings inherited disease and is a suitable genetic match, he said.
It is then implanted in the mothers womb to create a baby from which bone marrow or cells can be transplanted into the ill brother or sister. Only certain conditions can be treated. We are the only organisation in the UK to provide this service. It has been privately funded on two occasions previously. But we currently have half a dozen applications in the pipeline to undergo treatment on the NHS. I would think that around three of these might receive the go-ahead before the end of this year. Ethics watchdog Human Genetics Alert is among a number of organisations to raise concerns about the births. The whole thing is ethically wrong, said director David King. The NHS should not spend money on something so dubious. Children should be created because they are wanted for themselves, to be loved and brought up in their own right, not as a means to another end. One has sympathy for the heartbreaking situation that the parents of seriously ill children find themselves in. But this crosses the ethical line. Pro-life groups say that the designer baby procedures discard healthy embryos, belittling human life. Josephine Quintavalle, from Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: Healthy embryos are eliminated. This is eugenics taken to the extreme. | 
