The Ethics of Genetic Modification in Unborn Children
- Science Holic
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Writer: Kevin Lin
Editors: Suri Liu, Faye Lin
Artist: Alvina Zheng
Imagine walking into a new clinic to choose the traits of your children artificially. What would it look like, and what restrictions would be placed on the technology? In recent years, this reality has become even more plausible with the development of new gene editing technologies such as CRISPR, achieving successful clinical results. Genetic editing in unborn children presents an ethically and morally precarious yet potentially life-transforming science. As such, we should proceed with caution and impose legal restrictions on its widespread implementations.
When the human body wants to express a trait in its DNA, special messengers called mRNA go into the nucleus (where the DNA is stored), copy information, and present it to the ribosomes (the factory of the body), where it creates a long strand of amino acids, which are eventually folded into proteins that can be observed physically. CRISPR technology modifies this process by cutting out a strand of DNA and replacing it with an artificial strand. This causes the tRNA to carry a modified message to the ribosomes, which eventually results in modified proteins. In humans, this is optimally done in vitro in the embryonic stage, or when the egg is fertilized, as the unicellular stage before cell replication will allow for a full modification and for the new modified DNA to be carried into new cells. This is when the embryo is taken out of the mother’s womb, edited via CRISPR, and placed back to develop.
CRISPR editing in vitro has many widespread potential benefits. Because of this technology, daily struggles due to genetic predispositions may be reduced or removed completely in offspring, allowing childbirth and improving their quality of life. One such example of this is cystic fibrosis, where a mutation in the CFTR gene results in the production of mucus that can block airways, causing difficulties in breathing and daily life, requiring the patient to undergo constant injections of medication or even to be tethered to a machine constantly. Because of this genetically predisposed disease, people with cystic fibrosis usually refrain from having children due to the fear of passing their condition down, but with CRISPR technology, this risk can be mitigated, allowing the patient’s children to live without the day-to-day burden of this disease.
In addition to strict legal restrictions on how CRISPR is used, access to this technology should be treated as a public good rather than a luxury. If gene editing is only available to wealthy families, then the benefits of removing life-threatening or deeply burdensome genetic conditions will cluster in a small part of the population, while others continue to suffer or even die from preventable diseases. This would create a genetic lower class, where some gene lines are repeatedly affected by illness simply because their families could not afford treatment. To prevent this, governments should fund therapeutic gene editing procedures and make them free or very low-cost for all families who qualify based on clear medical criteria. Equal access would not only reduce unnecessary death and suffering but would also help ensure that gene editing is used to promote basic health and dignity rather than to deepen social and economic divides.
Overall, genetic editing in unborn children can be a powerful way to reduce suffering and improve quality of life, but it must be handled with great care. By placing firm legal limits on non-therapeutic and superficial uses and by guaranteeing fair access to life-saving treatments, society can use CRISPR to support children and families without turning human genetics into a new form of competition or control.
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