Why Most People Can’t Explain the Reasons Meddling With Babies’ DNA Is Wrong
News emerged last week that Chinese scientist He Jiankui had broken new ground scientifically and ethically by using CRISPR technology to edit the genes of unborn babies. Groundbreaking scientific efforts are usually hailed as progress for humanity; innovation in ethics is more often considered a problem.
Both reactions are understandable. While new scientific developments have often improved the lives of people around the world, new developments in ethics typically involve getting around a moral barrier that mankind erected long ago—and for good reasons. The public’s reaction has been nearly universally to condemn He’s actions, but people have had a harder time putting the reason for their disgust into words.
The problem is that Western culture has retreated from its historical ideas of right and wrong. Without a grounding in religion or philosophy, people are left with feelings about proper behavior, but lack the grounding to explain those emotions. We feel, almost instinctively, that it is wrong to meddle with the DNA of an unborn human being, but we don’t know why we feel that way, nor can we articulate it. . .
The problem is that, disconnected from any greater ideas about what behavior is and is not acceptable, the question of consent lacks focus. If two people can consent to anything, does that mean nothing to which they consent, if it involves only the two of them, is immoral?
Not to mention that there are more than two people involved in each of He’s experiments: the doctor, the mother, the father, and the baby. One of these is incapable of consent and two more were allegedly duped, but even had it been possible to get everyone on board with the idea, would it ever be okay to meddle with unborn babies’ DNA? (Read more from “Why Most People Can’t Explain the Reasons Meddling With Babies’ DNA Is Wrong” HERE)
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