When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the genetic material of each combine to form an embryo, which becomes a new, genetically complete organism.
The egg also contains mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on intact to the embryo. Mitochondrial DNA is responsible for facilitating cellular "housekeeping" activities that keep the individual cells functioning and healthy. If the mitochondrial DNA sequence becomes broken, the cells may not be able to function satisfactorily and females passing on defective mitochondrial DNA will not be able to conceive viable children. Scientists have now been able to replace damaged mitochondrial DNA with healthy DNA from another woman's egg, so that women who previously were unable to conceive a healthy child are now able to do so.
This is a good thing, right?
Wrong. The Catholic Church believes that this procedure constitutes an abomination against God and has proscribed it.
The Church used to be a repository for human knowledge and the cradle of science. Man, what happened with that?
I think maybe the Catholic Church could use a little new mitochondrial DNA of its own, don't you?
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