Britain asks: Should 3-parent IVF be allowed to avoid disease?

(Reuters) - Britain launched a public consultation on Monday to ask whether controversial "three-parent" fertility treatments
should be available to families hoping to avoid passing on incurable diseases. The potential treatments, currently only at
research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, would involve implanting genetically modified embryos into
women for the first time. The techniques have become known as three-parent in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the offspring
would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor. They are designed to help families with mitochondrial
diseases - incurable inherited conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide.
"This is unchartered territory," said Lisa Jardine, chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)
which is running the consultation until December. "If this is allowed...it has consequences in perpetuity."
Source: Reuters - visit website
Fear of Treatment Puts Stress On Women Undergoing Fertility Therapy
ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2012) — Fertility treatment has a strong emotional impact on women who want to have children.
A study of European countries with the highest number of assisted reproduction cycles identifies which aspects of reproduction treatment contribute to psychological stress. Inability to conceive is extremely stressful for women who want to have a family. This notion is shown by a study published in the 'Human Reproduction' journal on patients in four countries with the highest number of cases of assisted reproduction cycles in Europe: France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
"Infertility causes a series of varied emotions that have a negative impact on important aspects of a woman's life," as explained by Juan García Velasco, one of the authors of the study, who is also director of the Infertility Institute of Valencia and lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid University. "It is linked to depression, anxiety, anger, cognitive imbalance and low self-esteem," he adds.
The study not only analyses the emotional impact of infertility on women but also identifies those aspects of ovary stimulation that contribute to the physical and psychological stress suffered by many patients. The 445 women between the ages of 18 and 44 years taking part in the study had experienced difficulties in conceiving.
While some had never undergone any fertility treatment, others were receiving it at the time or had already received it in the past two years. Almost a third of the participants said they began to worry from the moment in which they started trying to get pregnant and nearly half claimed to have felt ashamed or like a failure as a woman. It was found that anxiety toward injections and the deterioration of their relationship with their partner were the main causes of stress. In this respect, the women who actually received treatment said that they got closer to their partner (33% compared to 19%). The majority of participants felt that their partner supported them, especially those that received fertility therapy (63%).
Source: ScienceDaily- visit website