As genome editing moves from the lab into the clinic, the ethical debate can no longer be hypothetic
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By Karen Yeung, Chair, Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party and Peter Mills, Assistant Director, Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Designer babies have featured in media headlines following the publication in July of a landmark report, Genome editing and human reproduction: social and ethical issues, by the UK’s highly respected Nuffield Council on Bioethics. These headlines may catch the eye, but they do not do justice to the much more nuanced discussion that the Nuffield Council’s report promotes.
The report considers the ethics of intentionally altering the DNA of a human embryo (or the sperm and eggs that precede it) to change the characteristics of a future person, in ways that could be inherited by future generations. It concluded that these interventions could be morally acceptable in some circumstances, but these circumstances do not yet (and may never) exist.
At present, British law prohibits such interventions, and the Council concludes that much needs to happen before ...
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