The Bioethics of Genetic Diversity
By Xavier Symons,
BioEdge
| 06. 06. 2015
Untitled Document
The latest issue of the American Journal of Bioethics examines the topic of new reproductive technologies and genetic diversity. A series of articles discuss the ethical issues surrounding the protection of genetic variation in a population.
Monash bioethicist Robert Sparrow’s ‘Imposing Genetic Diversity’ – the target article for the discussion – considers the radical implications of arguments against the new eugenics that focus on the importance of diversity.
Sparrow, though himself no friend of eugenic logic, questions whether arguments about the value of diversity could potentially have authoritarian implications. If we desire to conserve genetic variation and naturally occurring instances of disability in our world, then why shouldn’t we protect disability and – in extreme cases where disability begins to disappear – impose disability on populations.
“Diversity clearly makes the world a more interesting place and the idea that we should conserve genetic diversity is therefore tempting. Yet when we imagine imposing genetic diversity to secure this same good, its value is revealed as elusive, especially if we concede that it must be achieved at the cost...
Related Articles
By Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres, First Monday | 04.14.2024
The stated goal of many organizations in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), an imagined system with more intelligence than anything we have ever seen. Without seriously questioning whether such a system can...
By Harold Brubaker, The Philadelphia Inquirer | 04.04.2024
Acompany started by University of Pennsylvania scientist Jim Wilson has received FDA approval to test a form of gene editing in infants for the first time in the United States, the company said Thursday.
The Plymouth Meeting company, iECURE, is...
By Jason Kehe, Wired | 04.11.2024
God help the babies! Or, absent God, a fertility startup called Orchid. It offers prospective parents a fantastical choice: Have a regular baby or have an Orchid baby. A regular baby might grow up and get cancer. Or be born...
By Nick Paul Taylor, BioSpace | 03.14.2024
A U.K. watchdog balked at the cost-effectiveness of Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ CRISPR-based sickle cell disease therapy Thursday, recommending against funding the treatment unless uncertainties can be cleared up satisfactorily.
The U.K. became the first country to authorize Vertex’s Casgevy (exagamglogene...