THERE are some extraordinary heroes in East Lancashire, from many walks of life.

But in my top division I’d place those parents whose children have been born with disabling, life-shortening disorders.

Without exception there’s no complaint, no self-pity from these parents; rather a determination to do their very best for their children, whatever it takes.

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Where the condition is one which is inherited, the parents inevitably face an agony of whether to try for another child, knowing that the chances may be very high that the next one will be born with the same serious condition as their older sibling; or sometimes not risking parenthood at all.

One of these disorders is ‘mitochondrial disease’. Mitochondria are present in almost every cell in the body. They produce the energy we need to function – the ‘battery pack’ of the cell.

It’s unhealthy mitochondria which can cause severe medical disorders. The range of possible symptoms includes poor growth, loss of muscle coordination, muscle weakness, deafness, eye defects, learning disabilities, heart, liver or kidney diseases, gastrointestinal, or respiratory disorders, neurological problems and dementia.

The condition may be ‘rare’, but that is no comfort whatever if it’s your child who has this disease. There is no cure.

But now, thanks to a cross-party majority in the Commons on Tuesday, it will be possible for women who carry the disease to have healthy children who will not suffer from the devastating and often fatal consequences of this condition.

This outcome will be achieved by replacing the battery pack which contains a small number of unhealthy genes with a healthy battery pack from a third-party donor.

It’s this that has led to the headlines about ‘three-parent children’, and generated much opposition, including from both the Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches, from those worried about the morality of the techniques involved. They quote experience in China a decade ago, where tragic outcomes from the technique led to a ban.

They ask, to quote one MP, whether we are ‘happy to sacrifice two human lives to make a third life’.

These are serious concerns. For me, however, they were answered satisfactorily in Tuesday’s debate, which is why I was one of the 382 MPs who voted in favour of new regulations to permit the use of these techniques. These regulations are part of one of the toughest legal frameworks in the world.

Work in this area requires a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, with strict criteria on safety and ethics. Whilst the best estimate is that the first pregnancy using this technique is not less than a year away, at least we are now on course to replace fear with joy.