10/20 Ethics Topic: CRISPR Gene Editing

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 movement to return as people could choose the traits they consider to be the most desirable for their children. Not to mention, scientists have no idea how safe the practice of editing DNA with the CRISPR tool is, and it could create even more genetic mutations that are passed down to more generations and introduce new diseases to the human population. 

Gene-editing compromises the ethical pillars of non-maleficence because it is unsafe (unknown effects and risks), autonomy because the embryo cannot consent and is forced to live with the effects of the mutations, and justice because of its relation to eugenics and scientific racism. The parties involved include the parents of the embryo, the patient (embryo), future generations after the embryo, and the doctor and hospital involved because the scientific community has agreed not to use CRISPR to edit human DNA yet, so they would be responsible for violating that agreement and any issues caused by the practice.



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