Three Parent Baby Vote
MPs are voting on an IVF treatment that could prevent diseases being passed onto children.
The research has been done at Newcastle University and would see the DNA from three parents used.
It could stop mitochondrial diseases being passed on, and experts say it affects around 100 people in the North East.
But campaigners say it could lead to ‘designer babies’.
Nikki Parker, from Gateshead, is hoping MPs agree to legalise the treatment.
Her 20-year-old daughter Carly has mitochondrial disease and uses a wheelchair.
Nikki said she would have had the IVF if it was available to her: “You are told that there was absolutely no cure.
“The chances are you would get worse, you would never get any better. No parent wants to watch their child’s health deteriorate.”
She added: “You don’t want to think that you’ve passed something on to your child.
“It’s your worst nightmare.”
Dr Andrew Schaeffer is from Newcastle University: “I think it’s important that people have the right to object, but it’s also very important that they actually look at the science behind it and recognise that this isn’t about designer babies.
“The babies are completely unchanged in that sense, they are the babies they would have always been but without the disease.”