We Can Design Our Descendants. But Should We?
By Margaret Somerville,
The Globe and Mail [Canada]
| 12. 21. 2015
Untitled Document
“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.
Most bioethicists and many major institutions had agreed that would be wrong. Now, some are arguing that it should be allowed because of its potential to do “good.” How should we decide? We can look to the history of assisted human reproduction technologies for some lessons.
In 1978, the world was shocked by the birth of Louise Brown, the first baby conceived outside a woman’s body through in-vitro fertilization. But IVF quickly became a routine procedure.
Then ethical questions arose about the freezing of human embryos “left over” from IVF. Could 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 die, do the embryos deserve a chance at life? If the...
Related Articles
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 Neel Shah, The PrePrint | 04.11.2024
Years ago, I interviewed for a residency position at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Standing before the domed Victorian building at the campus entrance, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the history of the place, the great...
By Eleanor Hayward and Joanna Crawford, The Times | 03.29.2024
Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...
By Judith Levine, The Intercept | 04.04.2024
WHEN THE ALABAMA Supreme Court ruled that fertilized embryos were “extrauterine children,” it did more than imperil the future of in vitro fertilization in Alabama and, potentially, the U.S. The ruling, on the claimed “wrongful death” of frozen embryos...