Question: I would like to know what you think the boundaries should be ethically for gene alteration? Should we be able to modify the 'perfect' human? Or just leave the human race to live naturally?
This then suggests that perhaps in the human genome especially the interaction of genes in a gene expression network is potentailly very complex.
If that is true altering a gene that you assume is responsible for a specific trait would undoubtedly have other effects, this may not increase the “perfection” that you were aiming for.
Also evolution is a dynamic process and is driven by the environment, if we make a perfect human for the current environment it may be that we would become less adaptable to environmental change in the future.
“all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds”
I think that it’s really important not to get so caught up in the hype of worrying about the the ethics of designer babies that we fail to make technology available to those who really need it. There is a real danger that that could be the case. It is incredibly important to take input from the rare disease community on this issue (http://www.geneticalliance.org.uk/our-work/medical-research/genome-editing-what-does-it-mean-for-patients/). To paraphrase the bioethicist Sarah Chan: “trying to have a child without them having a devastating genetic disease is not making a designer baby. Parents already design their children by picking their schooling, their social group, their hobbies, their clothes” – that is the real realm of designer babies, not genetic engineering. The problem with leaving things to run naturally is that the burden of doing that is born by some people very drastically and not at all by others. I think we have a moral duty to use scientific discoveries to improve human health – that is what those who have paid for the work (taxpayers, charities) expect us to do).
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Gemma commented on :
I think that it’s really important not to get so caught up in the hype of worrying about the the ethics of designer babies that we fail to make technology available to those who really need it. There is a real danger that that could be the case. It is incredibly important to take input from the rare disease community on this issue (http://www.geneticalliance.org.uk/our-work/medical-research/genome-editing-what-does-it-mean-for-patients/). To paraphrase the bioethicist Sarah Chan: “trying to have a child without them having a devastating genetic disease is not making a designer baby. Parents already design their children by picking their schooling, their social group, their hobbies, their clothes” – that is the real realm of designer babies, not genetic engineering. The problem with leaving things to run naturally is that the burden of doing that is born by some people very drastically and not at all by others. I think we have a moral duty to use scientific discoveries to improve human health – that is what those who have paid for the work (taxpayers, charities) expect us to do).