Canada's Prohibition on Altering the Human Genome
By Françoise Baylis and Alana Cattapan,
Impact Ethics
| 10. 02. 0017
With the development of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome editing, scientists can more safely and more easily insert, delete, or replace DNA. Should this new genome editing tool be used to make changes that will be passed on to future generations?
In Canada, the law currently prohibits altering “the genome of a cell of a human being or in vitro embryo such that the alteration is capable of being transmitted to descendants.” Some people advocate removing this prohibition.
This past summer, Health Canada invited Canadians to comment on its plans to introduce regulations in support of the 2004 Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Act. A discussion paper titled Toward a Strengthened Assisted Human Reproduction Act: A Consultation with Canadians on Key Policy Proposals was published. In the discussion paper, Health Canada indicated that amending the prohibition on altering the human genome was beyond the scope of the regulations currently being developed, but that this issue might be addressed at some future time.
In light of this comment by Health Canada suggesting that the legal prohibition on altering the genome of human gametes...
Related Articles
By Anna Collinson and Jo Adnitt, BBC | 08.18.2026
At least 30 children, most of them British, are feared to have been conceived by IVF treatment in northern Cyprus using the wrong sperm or egg donors.
In each case, the parents suspect they did not get the donors they...
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Editors, Nature | 08.18.2026
Shinya Yamanaka doesn’t see himself as a celebrity. But people do recognize the stem-cell researcher when he’s out for a run, often while training for a marathon, on the streets of Kyoto, Japan.
Many of them call out words of...
