LAUSR

INTRODUCTION In Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques and Mexico’s Rule of Law: On the Legality of the First Maternal Spindle Transfer Case (henceforthMRTs and Mexico’s Rule of Law), Palacios-González and Mediana-Arellano insightfully examine the legality of two distinct MRTs, pronuclear transfer (PNT) and maternal spindle transfer (MST), paying particular attention to this last one, since recently it was successfully carried out at the New Hope Fertility Clinic, which has offices both in Mexico and New York.1 They conclude that, within the current Mexican legal context, performing this sort of procedures can have legal consequences both at a federal and state level. At a federal level, they claim that these procedures can imply the violation of article 56 of the Regulations for the General Health Law onHealth Research, which allows for the use of such techniques, only ‘to solve sterility problems that cannot be solved otherwise’ (PalaciosGonzález andMediana-Arellano 2017: p.15). Likewise, the use ofMRTs could breach ‘regulations related to research on human beings’ (p.23). Within the legal context of the state of Jalisco, where parts the MST procedure were believed to have been conducted, ‘the intentional destruction of human embryos in vitro could be prosecuted under criminal charges as homicide, and in the State ofMexico City PNT is prohibited when a would-be-enuclated embryo is created for a non-reproductive end’ (p.23). Their paper explores the legal status ofMRTs in theUSAand theUK, thebiomedical aspects of bothmitochondrialDNAdiseases and theMRTs, andMexico’s legal system. They offer an overview of the law and regulations’ hierarchy, from local and federal laws to international treaties, highlighting those aspects that are related toMRTs.The paper offers a clearmap to help us find our way through theMexican legal framework in order to identify the different laws and articles where there are elements that make reference,