Senate passes Maeve’s law which allows DNA from three people to make a baby

A new law which allows an IVF baby to be made using the DNA from three people, may have come just in time for Shelley Beverley.

Shelley Beverley’s dream of having her own child is now one step closer after a controversial bill was passed that allows the DNA from three people to make a healthy IVF baby.

Maeve’s Law – named after a six-year-old girl who has Mitochondrial disease – was passed by 37 votes to 17 in a conscience vote in the Senate on Wednesday night.

It means couples will be able to use the DNA from an egg donor to create a healthy baby free of the disease.

Shelley Beverley and her husband now have new hope. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The law is controversial because while the nuclear DNA, which determines what the baby looks like in terms of eye and hair colour, will come from the parents, a small amount of DNA from the donor will also be present in the baby’s mitochondria.

The procedure has been criticised by some religious groups who fear it is a “Trojan Horse for more widespread human genome editing experiments”.

But for Mrs Beverley, 37, and her husband James, 42, from Tasmania, they now have hope.

Mrs Beverley, who has the genetic condition which robs the body’s cells of energy and can cause multiple organ dysfunction and often death, only found out she had it when her mother died in 2016, aged 63.

Shelley Beverley's brother and mother Neil and Mary Powell both died from Mitochondrial disease.

Then, shockingly, her brother also died from the disease just 16 months later, aged 34.

In the last three years her own health has worsened.

She has a heart condition, muscle weakness and diabetes, all linked to the disease.

“After they were gone there was this sudden realisation that I have got this, when will that happen to me?” Mrs Beverley, a psychologist, said.

“I also realised I was never going to have a family of my own and that was another loss.”

In their pursuit of a child they have spent $70,000 on IVF.

Embryos from the first five cycles were tested for the disease and all found to have too high a mutation load to proceed.

Professor Carolyn Sue, executive director of Kolling Institute, director of Neurogenetics and senior staff specialist in the Department of Neurology at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney.

The couple had five more cycles of IVF in case the law passed in Australia. The specialised technique is already allowed in the UK.

They’re now hoping those eggs can be used with DNA from a donor as soon as possible.

Professor Carolyn Sue from Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, runs the largest Mitochondrial clinic in Australia, which will most likely co-ordinate the IVF.

“It’s a dream come true to see this technology become a reality for patients,” she said.

“To have your own child, healthy and free of illness is a basic human right.”

More than 50 babies each year develop a serious form of the disease in Australia, while about 120,000 people carry a mutation in their mitochondrial DNA that could potentially cause disease.

Mum Sarah Hood with daughter Maeve, 6, and the inspiration behind a new law to help carriers of Mitochondrial disease.