A call for a moratorium on creating gene-edited babies

National Public Radio and other news sources have reported on a call to put a "moratorium on heritable genome editing" in place.

The call for a moratorium was published on October 13, 2019, in Nature, the same journal that originally published the Watson-Crick paper, which explained how the structure of DNA was responsible for its use as a heredity-carrying molecule. Here is that call. It was made by 18 scientists and ethicists from 7 countries, namely Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States. Paul Berg, who was prominent in calling for a similar moratorium on developing recombinant DNA, in the 70s, was one of the authors. Jennifer Doudna, perhaps more responsible than anyone else for the development of current genetic engineering methods, using the CRISPR-cas9 system, was not among the authors. She believes that the CRISPR system should be used to change genes in early embryos.

The earlier moratorium was most likely the reason that scientists working on genetic engineering, in the 70s and after, became quite cautious about the possible dangers of such work. I am not aware that any disaster, caused by recombinant DNA, has ever occurred. Without the moratorium, and the publicity that resulted, some disaster might have occurred.

The current proposed moratorium, by Eric Lander and the others, will probably not be made into law, or perhaps even into research regulations, by the US and other countries. But, again, it most likely will cause scientists to be very careful in what research is carried out, and how it is carried out.

This is probably the most important statement in the call for a moratium: "clinical germline editing should not proceed for any application without broad societal consensus on the appropriateness of altering a fundamental aspect of humanity for a particular purpose. Unless a wide range of voices are equitably engaged from the outset, efforts will lack legitimacy and might backfire." 

Some Christians (and others) are concerned about any manipulation of human embryos. (See here for discussion of abortion.) Many people are wary of the possibility of somehow enhancing humans, for example by manipulating genes so that people with better vision, or stronger muscles, result. And, also, many are concerned that genetic manipulation techniques would be available only to the wealthy. There are also safety concerns. Have we demonstrated, in animals, that the use of the CRISPR system won't result in unintended changes in genes, whether the gene under consideration, or some other gene? There are possible negatives, perhaps so serious that the technique should not be used on human embryos, ever, buty, on the other hand, manipulating genes might make it possible for some embryos, which would otherwise never have had a chance to survive, to live normal lives.

Thanks for reading.