Three parent babies banned from knowing ‘second mothers’

Campaign groups said the practice was unethical and warned that it could make it difficult for children to develop a healthy sense of identity and throw up contentious legal dilemmas, should DNA donors want to contact youngsters in the future.

The procedure has not been sufficiently thought through from an ethical perspective, said Dr Calum MacKellar, Director of Research of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics.

The egg donor mother or the embryo donor parents, who participated in bringing this child into existence, may eventually also want to have parent-child relationships.

In this case there are actually three or four biological parents who would all have special bonds with the prospective child.

Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert added: "The decision not to let children find out about their mitochondrial donor mother is part of the strategy of the techniques' proponents to minimise the significance of the mitochondrial DNA.

"Like much of the rest of the scientific claims about these techniques, statements that mitochondrial DNA does not affect the child's characteristics or identity, that mitochondria are 'just batteries' etc, are nonsense.

"Considering that these genes would be the ones that allow the child to have a healthy life, I imagine children born through these techniques would want to be able to thank their donor."

Human rights groups also said allowing the technique would breach European law which states that the human genome cannot be altered if the changes would be passed on to future generations.

Others warned that a crucial ethical line had been crossed and claimed that it could lead to a eugenic designer baby marketplace within 15 years.

If passed, Britain will become the first European country to legalise the process and more than 100 "three-parent" babies could be born in the UK each year.

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Three parent babies banned from knowing 'second mothers'