Designer babies: our hope to survive long-term human extinction
The year is 2050. You are the unfortunate carrier of a fatal neurodegenerative genetic disorder: Huntington’s disease. A person affected by this disease will see his or her physical and mental abilities deteriorate from the age of 30 onwards. The symptoms can be described as having ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s simultaneously.[1] Over time, a person with HD will be unable to reason, walk, nor speak. Despite the year 2050, there is still no cure for it. A child of a parent with HD has a 50% chance of inheriting the faulty gene. Your partner is also a carrier of the expanded HD gene.
There is a silver lining, however. You have the choice to engage in genome-engineering to mutate the HD gene of your unborn child and guarantee that he or she is immune to the incurable disease. What do you do?
CRISPR-Cas9 is a genome-engineering technology that enables scientists to easily and precisely edit the DNA of any genome. The tool can identify, cut and mutate genes to become disabled, but also to become a healthy version of the gene.[2] If we are able to identify the genes responsible for certain diseases, physical or personal attributes, this offers a realm of possibility for the future of “designer babies”. Many people today feel profoundly opposed to the adoption of this innovation for various reasons, as for any life-changing discovery. I believe that designer babies are here to stay. And here’s why they should.
In order to legitimately justify my position, I am going to challenge the three most popular arguments against the support of gene-editing.
Why are people against it?
1. “There are countless safety risks involved that remain unknown.”
As with any revolutionary scientific innovation, the most challenging task is identifying the full extent of the risks involved in order to confidently adopt it on a national level. CRISPR-Cas9 is no exception to this rule. Indeed, the relationship between genes and traits is not as straightforward as one might believe. There are rare genetic diseases that are indeed associated to a specific gene, however more common diseases such as diabetes or heart disease are linked to a complex combination of genes and today cannot be predicted with certainty.[3] Furthermore, gene drives have the power of changing a whole species, if say an accidental mutation occurred.[4] The ease in use of the technology poses an equally relevant threat. Today, the risk of endangering a life even further through gene-modification is very real.[5] The only argument to this is that, as with any discovery, with time (ie.3–4 decades), experimentation, research and regulation, these risks will be close to none. If the benefits of investing in this technology are such that we could save millions of lives, does the safest option still remain preserving the status quo? It can be frightening to act, but sometimes not acting is worse.
2. “It is unethical!”
When it comes to toying with a human life, things are bound to get philosophical. Are we God? Can we truly take on the responsibility of crafting human life? If not you and I, then who is capable of such a task? The government? The medical researchers? Is it considered unethical to intervene in human biology? The answer to this is simple. Let us revert back to the initial scenario of this essay. When faced with a potential lifetime of pain and mental deterioration, do these questions of right or wrong not disappear?
You must be thinking: granted, that reasoning may be valid in those circumstances, but what guarantees the non-malevolent use of this life-threatening technology? As much as our intentions may seem sincere, we do live in a world where society’s standards and our environment play a large role in determining our decisions and preferences. As a matter of fact, a study at the University of Wisconsin proved that when it comes to reproduction, the use of technological intervention rarely concerns personality or physical improvements.[2] Sperm banks offering “superior” sperm are underused, suggesting that most of us are willing to accept our imperfections as long as they do not threaten our lives. So perhaps, we must restore faith in humanity and believe that good can come from this.
3. “Engaging in genome-engineering will only increase ongoing inequalities.”
The biggest fear of engaging in gene-editing is the risk of entering the realm of eugenics. Eugenics refers to a person’s will to improve the genetic quality of a human population by excluding a certain group of people and is often related to scientific racism or white supremacism. The question we should ask ourselves is: how much are we, social beings, responsible for social inequality? Behavioural geneticist and professor at King’s College London, Robert Plomin, explains that heritability is an index of an equal society.[6] To make a society more equal one would need to remove privilege, wealth heritage and education amongst other social constructs. The act of removing these environmental differences would, by nature, leave more room for heritable differences to appear. Removing social differences would thus not only make people more equal, it could also make them more tolerant. If disorders leading to a slow metabolism or dyslexia can be predicted by genetics, the blame can be shifted from the individual to the genetic heritage. Redirecting significance to genetics could therefore be the solution to, and not the cause of, unequal societies.
Why should we support gene-editing?
Let’s set our creative spirits free for a minute and imagine the realm of possibility offered by genome editing centuries from now. The likelihood of human species going extinct one day is prominent, it has already happened 5 times. But what if we could change that. What if we could modify our human biological attributes and enable humans to live on Mars for example. The possibility of creating an intra-solar civilisation is no longer science fiction.[7] In fact, if we are able to detect the Deinococcus radiodurans gene present in extremophiles making them immune to radiation, and mutate a fraction of this within our bodies, we could adopt its properties to endure heavy doses of radiation, and open the possibility of survival on different planets to ours. Indeed, we are in the midst of transitioning from the age of “gene circumvention”, mitigating our genetic defects with temporary external remedies, to an age of “volitional evolution”, where we will have the capacity to decide for ourselves our own genetic destiny.[8] This is just an example of how genome engineering will allow humanity to survive long-term extinction. Genetically augmenting the human body is not a question of how, but of when.
Endnotes:
[1] HDSA. URL: https://hdsa.org/what-is-hd/overview-of-huntingtons-disease/
[2] Nature video, (2017), CRISPR : Gene editing and beyond. URL: https://youtu.be/4YKFw2KZA5o
[3] Philip Ball, (2017), Designer babies: an ethical horror waiting to happen?, The Guardian. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/08/designer-babies-ethical-horror-waiting-to-happen
[4] Jennifer Kahn, (2016), Gene editing can now change an entire species — forever, TED2016. URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_kahn_gene_editing_can_now_change_an_entire_species_forever
[5] Robert Klitzman, (2019), Designer babies are on the way. We’re not ready, CNN. URL: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/16/opinions/gene-edit-dangers-opinion-klitzman/index.html
[6] Robert Plomin, (2016), DNA and Behavioral Genetics, Serious Science. URL: https://youtu.be/BYGUjIlq5yA
[7] Juan Enriquez, (2016), What will humans look like in 100 years?, TEDSummit. URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_what_will_humans_look_like_in_100_years?referrer=playlist-get_into_your_genes&language=en
[8] Lisa Nip, (2015), How humans could evolve to survive in space, TEXxBeaconStreat. URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_nip_how_humans_could_evolve_to_survive_in_space#t-309437
