Blog 5: Ethics Of Gene Editing
In
this week’s class we learned about the importance of personhood, human rights,
and the justice system. Today, I'm going to focus on what it means to be a
person and what we consider to be human. Our book describes a person is someone
who is capable of psychological and social interactions with others, capable of
deciding on a course of action and being held responsible for that action
(Rosenstand, 321). However, when you
dive a little deeper, being human can be described as so much more than
that. In the United States, it's illegal
to have an abortion once a mother passes her 24th week of pregnancy, because
that's when scientists decided a fetus becomes a person. This has been widely
debated especially among religious fanatics, because who's to say life doesn't
begin on a cellular level?
This
opens us up into the topic of in ethics in the human genome. Reports have swept
the world today announcing that a University in Guangzhou attempted to edit or
alter the human genome. This has taken the scientific community by storm and
has led to moratorium meetings by the world’s leading scientists. The Chinese
attempted to DNA edit using CRISPR/CAS9 to replace the genes that cause a blood
disorder. The experiment failed due to the embryo not accepting the
manifestation of the new genes, but ended up creating quite the buzz.
Nonetheless, had this experiment succeeded this would have created drastic
bounds and leaps in the future of genetic modification. The CRISPER/CAS9
technique has already proven useful in other organisms which thus led the
Chinese to this experiment.
I
believe at this state and time that the world isn't ready to edit the human
genome and is definitely considered unethical. Tinkering with our genes from a
utilitarian standpoint could show some great benefits for humanities fight
against disease and illness. Although, under Kant's ideology using our genome
as a means to an end would certainly make this unjust. The idea of genetic alteration has been
expressed in the past with movies and television, but I feel like the general public
was unaware with exactly how much of a reality it really is. I'm hoping that
this failed experiment gives the topic a breath of fresh air and makes people
aware that some serious decisions need to be made in the near future. With
technologies such as this available, the next era of mankind is on the horizon.
Works Cited
Rosenstand, N. (2013). Personhood,
Rights, and Justice. In The Moral Of The Story An Introduction To Ethics (7th
ed., p. 321). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.
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