Gabriela Gutzmer - WRIT 150 Blog

So far, my research has shown that there are many physical and ethical risks that come with gene editing. There has also been a case of two babies that had their DNA edited as embryos, and it has shown that the modifications only appear in the DNA of some of their cells. The effects of these mutations are unknown as of now, but the practice overall has shown to be very risky and not established enough to be done on real people. Position: As of now, scientists know too little about human DNA to safely practice gene-editing, and the improvement of the human population on the genetic level must be done ethically, as opposed to the racist, discriminatory practice of eugenics. Therefore, the most ethical response to the development of the CRISPR gene-editing tool is to postpone all practice on humans until further discoveries about the human genome sequence are made and laws are established to prevent any gene-editing for the sake of eugenic beliefs. Pillars of medical ethics involved: auto...

My chosen topic is gene editing (CRISPR), which poses an ethical dilemma because the safety of editing genes poses many risks to the embryo/person later on as well as future generations that the modified DNA can be passed down to. It also opens the door to people going overboard and trying to design children to be genetically superior, which crosses the line over to eugenics, which is a discriminatory practice and commonly known as a form of scientific racism. Eugenics is the practice of trying to improve the human population by selecting the most “desirable” traits. There was a eugenics movement in the United States from the late 1800s to 1940s, which involved forced sterilization or prohibition of marriage for people with “undesirable” traits. It allowed for extreme discrimination for people of color, low economic status, and those with genetic conditions such as epilepsy. In modern times, if people are granted the ability to genetically edit embryos, it would allow for the eugenics ...