Gene editing
CRISPR-Cas9 is a new
technology allowing faster, cheaper, and more accurate than previous gene
editing technologies. The main ethical issue present here, however, is the idea
of gene editing. Like most technologies, there it can be used for purposes
considered to be ethical by society or unethical purposes. Once this technology
is sufficiently advanced, perhaps inherited disorders or increased tendency to get
cancer (for example) could be avoided. However, others may argue that editing
our genetics is a bit like playing God and is unnatural. Another argument for
its unethical nature is that it could enable ‘designer babies’ which could
promote a sort of mono-race or ideal human and eventually cause other ethnic
groups to be replaced by these designer babies. However, this does not deal
with the question of knowledge openness to the public.
It can be inferred from
history and current events that some knowledge should not be made public, for
the sake of public safety and order. Most countries do not have the
capabilities of making a nuclear bomb, due to agreements made to limit the
spread of nuclear weapons, which would include the knowledge of how to make
them. With nuclear weapons, the world can be plunged into nuclear winter. The
more countries that have nuclear weapons, the higher the risk a nuclear weapon
would be used. So, it is only logical that people wanting to keep the human
world intact would want to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and knowledge to
make them. Gene editing, however, is a bit of a different story. Unlike nuclear
weapons, it is not a tool of destruction, but rather a tool of shaping a
creation. With gene editing, by making it available to the public, perhaps
research could be accelerated by increased usage of gene editing, and people
who would’ve normally received inherited genetic disorders would be able to
have a better quality of life (if gene editing is used to make sure they avoid
receiving the genetic disorder) or even save lives. It can be argued that there
is an ethical duty to make this technology and knowledge open to the public if
it will save lives. Applying this situation to an in general perspective of scientific
knowledge, it can be said that overall, scientific knowledge should be open to
the public, to further advance research, or, in applicable cases, to save
lives.
However, as stated
earlier, new technology can increase our capability to do things considered
unethical as well as ethical things. Sure, with CRISPR and gene editing in
general, there is a possibility of saving and improving many potential lives.
But, perhaps, if that knowledge was left open to the public, unethical
(according to scientific community consensus) acts could be done with it.
Instead of removing diseases and disorders, an unethical scientist could
increase the chance of the child receiving inherited disease and disorders, for
example. If we want to get outlandish, we could even theorise on the possibility
that the technology could be used to change humanity as a species and remove
its diversity, by enabling the creation of ‘ideal’ human beings, with certain
characteristics being preferred over others. Would these ‘ideal’ or ‘designer’
babies result in a sort of ‘cleansing’ of undesired traits? If we use
historical knowledge, we can see that numerous people were in favour of using eugenics
to remove undesirable traits from people’s genes. The Nazis, for example,
sterilised and murdered disabled people and others deemed ‘undesirable’ to
them. Would, and could, gene editing be used as well for similar purposes?
Making scientific
knowledge open to the public, must be assessed on an individual basis, as
certain ethical dilemmas arise from different technologies. Scientific
knowledge can be described as a ‘double-edged sword’ in these cases. Going back
to the earlier example of nuclear technology, while we got the technology that
could create electric power in a cleaner manner than other technologies, we
also got the ability to create destruction of immense scale. The implications
and possibilities of particular scientific knowledge should be carefully
considered before opening it to the public.
Source (Learn more about CRISPR here):
No comments:
Post a Comment