> one's ability to reproduce should not be guaranteed by the state, and therefore the state should not create laws that overtly or inadvertently sanction ...

Ok, but even taking the first part of that as given I don't understand why the second part follows.

I don't think one's ability to go on holiday should be guaranteed by the state, either, but that doesn't mean plane travel should be illegal.

From the article:

"The method, which was developed in Newcastle, should help women like Sharon Bernardi, from Sunderland, who lost all seven of her children to mitochondrial disease."

Reasoning:

Sharon Bernardi hasn't been able to reproduce naturally without this "method".

But the UK is going to make this method legal - and because its healthcare system is publicly funded the UK government (and thus the public) will also pay for the implementation of the method.

This represents an example where the state is making a guarantee - a formal promise or assurance - that it will pay for citizens that normally couldn't have children to be able to have them.

From the article:

Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We're not playing god here, we're just making sure that two parents who want a healthy baby can have one."

What's not logical about that?

Ok, I think the issue must be a misunderstanding of how the UK health system works, then. The NHS definitely won't fund all medical procedures just because they're legal, and whether or not it is publicly funded / guaranteed is still moot at this stage – that decision will happen entirely separately.

What you're saying is equivalent to "botox shouldn't be publicly funded, therefore it shouldn't be made legal". Botox is legal in the UK, of course, but you definitely won't be able to get it on the NHS, so your "therefore" doesn't follow.

This is the UK, once legal it will become available if the appropriate committees think the funding is well spent.

Namely the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).

So condemning some children to horrible genetic diseases somehow makes the world more fair?

That's both flimsy and a perversion of my logic, which is a direct rebuttal of the logic of the article itself.

The article gives an example of a woman who tried 7 times to have children and failed because she is genetically defective in terms of her ability to have children.

The government, however, has made special allowances to a 1990 law prohibiting egg and embryonic re-engineering so that this woman can.

The Prime Minister's stated rationale: "We're not playing god here, we're just making sure that two parents who want a healthy baby can have one."

So clearly - the state is paying for people who can't have children to be able to have them - under the pretense that doing so is beneficial to society.

To be able to select this procedure, the prospective mother must already know about her condition. If she knows about her condition, she should be educated to abstain from having children instead of receiving public funds to have her defective DNA altered to facilitate the process of reproduction.

But the alternative isn't necessarily no children, but unhealthy children who also carry the genetic condition.

In any case reproduction being covered by the government is a separate issue, but I don't see why it shouldn't be.