Designing our descendants
By Margaret Somerville, MercatorNet:
“Editing” the human germline – the genes passed on from generation to generation that have evolved naturally over millions of years to create each unique one of us – has gone from science fiction to science fact. We can now design our descendants.
The vast majority of bioethicists and many major institutions had agreed that would be wrong. Now, some are arguing it should be allowed because of its potential to do “good”.
How should we decide? Let’s examine the past of “assisted human reproduction technologies” for some lessons.
In 1978, the birth of Louise Brown, the first “test tube” baby conceived outside a woman’s body through IVF, shocked the world. But IVF quickly became a routine procedure.
Then freezing human embryos faced us with ethical issues regarding those “leftover” from IVF. May they be donated to an infertile couple, a single woman, a same-sex couple, used for research or as a source of stem cells to manufacture therapeutic products to benefit others? If the parents are killed, do the embryos deserve a chance at life? If they divorce, who “owns” the embryos?
Frozen sperm long preceded freezing ova. Was post-mortem use of sperm by a dead man’s parents to “replace” him with a grandchild ethically and legally acceptable? Should women freeze eggs when young to use in their 50s or even 60s to create a family?
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis meant certain groups of people, e.g. those with Down syndrome, could be eliminated. Sex selection became easy.
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