Parental drift

" Alarm over the rapid progress of embryo research was fuelled by another dramatic development last night. Scientists revealed that they have created 'virgin birth' embryos for the first time in Britain. " Both stories artfully blended competent accounts of actual and potential advances in reproductive technology with scary language and condemnation, magnified by repetition and typography, from opponents. " British scientists have been given the go-ahead to create a human embryo with two genetic mothers, " began medical correspondent Jenny Hope. " The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) reversed an earlier ban on the research project at Newcastle University. The programme will involve transferring some genetic material from the fertilised egg of one woman into an egg from another. The aim is to avoid mothers passing a range of incurable genetic diseases to their unborn babies. " However, this calm opening was immediately followed not by an explanation of those likely benefits but by strident voices of opposition. Critics had branded the decision " a biotechnological nightmare " and another step towards a " chilling world " of reproductive cloning. " This decision is utterly unethical, abhorrent and contrary to public opinion, " said Matthew O'Grady of the charity LIFE. " The HFEA is relentlessly imposing its libertarian agenda on the people of this country against their wishes. The Government must act to disband it immediately. " The following day saw similar treatment for a talk by Paul de Sousa of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, given at the British Association's Festival of Science in Dublin. He had reported success in efforts to trigger parthenogenesis in human eggs, six parthenotes having been grown for five days to reach the blastocyst stage. After two sentences outlining the procedure, Julie Wheldon and Fiona MacRae asserted that it raised the " spectre " of being used to clone a baby. " Campaigners said scientists had crossed a moral line and were experimenting with the future of mankind, " they wrote. " We have gone from an embryo with three parents to one with only one parent, " said Josephine Quintaville from something called Comment on Reproductive Ethics. " These scientists are playing with the future of human News focus Parental drift Mediawatch: Bernard Dixon reports on the local press reaction to two British developments in human reproductive technology and finds that journalists' needs for drama and colour are quite distinct from …