Should gene-editing be performed on human embryos?
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2018-12-02 08:53
Jaaja (US)
In principle, I don't consider editing human DNA a nasty evil, if it could be done "right".
Humanity is past the point, where forces of nature and natural selection dictate which natural mutations survive and which not. Partially I feel that we could cover that area ourselves.
However, there is still so much that we don't know about human body, that it is foolhardy to think that we know the overall effects of changing even a little bit in the DNA.
For example, it was only recently discovered that in some cases mitochondrial DNA can also be inherited from father - previously this was thought to only come from mother.
The only moral consideration to me comes where to draw a line between medically justified editing (for example to get rid of diseases) or designer editing (for example to change hair color), and how to enforce that line - locally and globally.