Is it acceptable or not to edit the genome of human embryos to treat genetic diseases
Is it acceptable or not to edit the genome of human embryos to treat genetic diseases?
There is a group of genetic disorders that cause fatal childhood diseases. To avoid having children with these genetic disorders, some parents choose to use a procedure called in vitro fertilization (IVF) followed by genetic testing. Typically, in the first step of IVF, women receive hormone injections to produce multiple eggs, after which the eggs are harvested. The eggs are then fertilized by sperm in a petri dish to make embryos, which are then transferred to a woman’s uterus. If the goal is to identify embryos that do not have specific genetic conditions, doctors would screen the embryos before they are implanted into the woman – in other words, they would analyze the embryos’ DNA to look for variants of the gene(s) that cause the genetic disorder. While the genetic testing of IVF-produced embryos has been done for decades, the procedure is controversial.
The controversies include worries that parents are interfering with their potential child’s traits, concerns about what happens to embryos that are not implanted, and the fact that these technologies are not available to everyone because they are expensive. Now imagine that a group of parents is before you, and proposes to not only screen embryos, but also wants to go a step further. That is, they propose to use information obtained from screening the embryos to then identify and “repair” faulty genes in the embryos that are linked to a known genetic disorder. If the proposal is approved, it would be the first time anyone has tried to change genes in human embryos that are meant to be implanted into women and carried to term. The parents argue that this procedure will decrease the number of children suffering from deadly genetic diseases. At the same time, you are aware that there are many people who are strongly opposed to genetically modifying humans. These include many religious organizations, as well as different groups that advocate for patients or for people with disabilities. Should we be able to use genome editing to alter human embryos with the goal of treating genetic disorders?
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