ELSIcon2022 Paper: Whose future should we worry about?

ELSIcon2022 • Paper • May 27, 2022

Elisa Calleja

When talking about genetic research, one of the goals is to successfully intervene in germinal cells and eliminate genetic diseases, so that intended parents with identified disorders can have healthy offspring. However, in these cases, the procedure is done so that a person or a couple can have healthy children, not to cure an existing one, but to create one without a genetic disease identified in her parents. And what is wrong with that? one might ask, shouldn’t the intended parents do everything in their power to provide the best conditions to their future daughter as Savulescu points out? Maybe not, we do not know what the consequences might be to any given future generation if we genetically intervene their germ cells. We might be able to talk about just and equitable access to the technology, but we can not talk about just and equitable conditions for the ones born with an altered heritable genome, since they are born into unknown conditions. This does not mean that the investigation and hopefully future use of the technology to eliminate genetic diseases from the heritable human genome should cease, it means that we must create the conditions necessary for these individuals to be born and develop safely.