Playing God with Genes: The Path to Genetic Perfection

Imagine a world: without impurities; without health complications; without the fear of disease or genetic imperfections. Why just imagine when we already have the technology to make this happen?

As alarming as it sounds, we may be on a path towards a dystopian future thanks to scientific and technological advances that now allow us to edit the very DNA that defines our humanity.

The emergence of CRISPR-Cas9 revolutionized genetic engineering, making this technology more efficient and precise than ever. It opened Pandora's box. With this tool, humanity gained the ability to manipulate the most intricate properties of cells, adding, deleting, or substituting genes to alter organisms at the genetic level (UN, 2019). Genetic errors could now be changed and corrected with “relative ease” (Bergman, 2019).

Zimmer, Carl. "CRISPR, 10 Years On: Learning to Rewrite the Code of Life." The New York Times, June 27, 2022.

The potential of CRISPR seems almost like a fantastical dream; it allows scientists to make significant changes to an organism’s DNA, which can extend the average human life by offering means to counter cancer, cure genetic diseases (e.g., cystic fibrosis), and create immunity to a specific disease (Cleveland Clinic, 2021).

To understand the ethical impacts, we must place ourselves in the shoes of those who have had their genes altered without consent. In 2018, a Chinese scientist, Jiankui He, declared the birth of the first-ever pair of gene-edited babies, whose genes were modified to be immune to HIV (Normile, 2019). This caused a great unrest among the public as they debated the ethics of artificial propagation, whilst raising the serious ethical concern of embryonic potential: what are the boundaries of informed consent (Manninen, 2007)? How can a fetus “have a voice on genetic changes that will affect them throughout their lives, and perhaps pass on to their offspring” (UN, 2019, p. 4)?

All forms of genetic technology seem morally and ethically questionable — it is as if we were going against the laws and boundaries of nature. By streamlining ‘desirable’ traits, the risk of turning humanity into a homogenized species would be even more prevalent. While some argue that genetically engineered mutations may have initial benefits, such as using gene drives to eradicate diseases like malaria, there are significant risks. Once a gene drive mutation is released into the population, it “may not be recalled or easily disabled” (UN, 2019, p. 5).

This irreversible change highlights the dangers of edited genomes. Children could become customized products, the concept of “designer babies,” rather than individuals shaped by their lives, not only diminishing their agency, but also their freedom and the lives of their future offspring, too (Ball, 2017).

In a rush to eradicate genetic imperfections, we may find ourselves erasing the very traits that make us human. Gene editing advancements like CRISPR are versatile innovations that could be the key to efficiently solving many pressing issues; however, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Measures should be placed to ensure this technology is used responsibly and morally so that it will stay as a tame and controlled solution to global issues and never as a threat to the essence of human nature. We must constantly remind ourselves to approach our revolutionary powers with caution, humility, and respect for the natural world.

For as much as we yearn for progress, we must always ask ourselves: at what cost?

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Citations

Ball, Philip. “Designer Babies: An Ethical Horror Waiting to Happen?” The Guardian, 8 Jan. 2017, www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/08/designer-babies-ethical-horror-waiting-to-happen

Bergman, Mary Todd. “Perspectives on Gene Editing.” The Harvard Gazette, Harvard University, 9 Jan. 2019, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/perspectives-on-gene-editing/.

Cleveland Clinic. “Genetic Disorders: What Are They, Types, Symptoms & Causes.” Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, 20 Aug. 2021, my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21751-genetic-disorders.

Manninen, Bertha. “Revisiting the Argument from Fetal Potential.” Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, vol. 2, no. 1, 17 May 2007, p. 7, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892780/, https://doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-2-7.

Normile, Dennis. “China Tightens Rules on Gene Editing.” Science, vol. 363, no. 6431, 8 Mar. 2019, pp. 1023–1023, science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6431/1023.2, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.363.6431.1023-b.

United Nations (UN) FRONTIER TECHNOLOGY QUARTERLY. Playing with Genes: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 2019. Economic Analysis and Policy Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, May 2019, pp. 1–6.