While CRISPR offers the hope of curing diseases, parents should not be allowed to change the physical characteristics of their unborn children. It could lead to economic inequality, homogenization, and identity issues.
One of the most talked-about scientific issues in the medical community in recent years has been CRISPR, a new form of genetic scissors at the heart of genetic recombination technology. After reports of its increased accuracy and efficiency compared to existing technologies, the technology has been heralded as offering hope for curing diseases such as AIDS and cancer, while many have expressed concern about the emergence of a society where genetic manipulation is freely practiced. Should it be acceptable for parents to alter the physical abilities and characteristics of their offspring through genetic manipulation?
It’s not hard to find movies that address this topic, and the ethical debate has continued as biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, has evolved. Michael Sendel’s book The Ethics of Bioethics, which inspired me to write this article, also touches on these topics. So, should parents be allowed to manipulate the genes of their biotech children?
Let’s start by clarifying where we stand on this issue: no, fetal genetic modification should not be done. Of course, there are some unavoidable special cases, such as cutting out the genes for a disease that is medically incurable or unlikely to be cured. However, this only corrects for the disease, and the child is still born with the appearance and characteristics that they were predestined to have. What we are saying here is that parents should not be allowed to alter the general characteristics of a child, such as their physical abilities (such as motor skills), appearance, height, cognitive abilities, etc.
The first reason is that it will make a huge difference in the lives of children depending on whether and to what extent they are genetically modified, depending on their parents’ economic circumstances. There is an “idealized” form of child design, and the extent to which the parents can afford to fulfill that ideal will make a difference. Those in favor of genetically engineering or, as Sendel puts it, “designing” children question the difference between using expensive tutoring in academics, sports, piano, etc. to help a child achieve better results, and giving a child better genes to increase their chances of success. It’s worth noting, however, that the idea of using expensive tutoring is off-putting to many people. The question is whether a race that doesn’t start at the same starting line is fair.
Today, it’s well documented that the average income in different neighborhoods varies greatly in terms of the amount and quality of private education that children receive, and that this is a large contributor to the wide regional gap in academic achievement. Some children grow up with easy access to expensive tutoring and other educational resources from an early age, while others grow up with no access to private education due to unforeseen circumstances, and over the course of decades, this leads to differences in academic ability, which is directly related to their economic ability as adults. Today’s reality is that parents’ economic status is passed on to their children, with a widespread consciousness that children should be privately educated if possible to avoid falling behind the competition.
However, if the disparity becomes more severe, and the difference is not in the education that a child receives after birth, but in the conditions that a child is born with, the disparity will become even more serious. A child who was originally born with ordinary physical abilities and appearance, but was genetically engineered to have exceptional physical abilities and appearance, and a child who was born with ordinary physical abilities and appearance, will have different chances of success regardless of their will. If private education is the source of differences that can be overcome to some extent through hard work, then genetic manipulation is the source of differences that cannot be overcome even through extreme hard work. And if genetically engineered child design becomes as commonplace as private education is today, with a wider range of possible outcomes, there will be vast differences in the physical and cognitive abilities of children, depending on whether their parents can afford genetic manipulation and the extent to which they can afford to insert superior genes. These differences will affect the child throughout his or her life, which will only exacerbate the current problem of children inheriting their parents’ economic conditions.
The second is the issue of homogenization. When you hear the phrase “we can modify your genes or your child’s genes,” most people’s idea of how to do it is predictable. It would be physical attractiveness, as emphasized by popular culture and the media; cognitive ability, which is a big factor in success in our academic-oriented society; good health or athleticism, which is a big factor in staying disease-free; and so on. As cosmetic surgery becomes more commonplace, opponents cite concerns about homogenizing standards of beauty as one of their rationales. Similarly, if genetic modification becomes commonplace, it could lead to a homogenization of not only physical appearance but also cognitive and physical abilities. If all children are born looking similar and having similar abilities, as if they are being churned out of a factory, then genetic modification is “possible” but not mandatory, and children who are born as they are, without genetic modification, and without superior intelligence or physical abilities, will be treated like children with disabilities. The movie “Gattaca” illustrates this future.
If genetic modification leads to a homogenization of the children born, it will have a huge impact on their future. Those in favor of genetic modification may argue that having more people born with exceptional abilities will make industries more efficient. However, we are all born with different abilities, and we have to find a job that suits our aptitudes. For example, if you are intellectually gifted, you can become a researcher to benefit society and humanity, or if you are physically gifted, you can work in a job that requires those skills. However, if everyone is born with the same abilities and the same conditions, these aptitudes may not be found. If everyone is born with the same abilities and the same conditions, they may not be able to find those aptitudes. And they may feel that there are plenty of people who can take their place, even if it’s not necessarily them. When people recognize that they are “needed” in a group, they feel a sense of belonging to that group, and it makes life worth living. However, if everyone has the same abilities, even if the person’s personality is better suited to the task than anyone else’s, there are many people with the same abilities who don’t have to be you, and someone else can take your place, and you won’t feel that sense of belonging or fulfillment.
Of course, you may argue that if there is a difference in genetic manipulation due to economic power, which I mentioned as the first reason, then uniformization will not occur. However, it’s a matter of degree, and the genetic factors that parents want to give their children to succeed in life are predictable. The overheated admissions process and the growing market for private education have led to criticism of academies as factories that churn out children who solve the same problems and think the same way, and the growing market for plastic surgery has led to a term for people who have had multiple plastic surgeries to achieve similar faces, but like private education and plastic surgery, there are differences in the degree to which they can be realized based on economic ability. Similarly, if it becomes possible to design children through genetic manipulation, parents will seek to create similar designs, with only minor differences, in order to achieve the “ideal” that is implied by the media and society. This is a counter-argument to the idea that these two rationales are conflicting.
The final reason why you shouldn’t design your child is because of their roots. The reason why we have terms like “musical family” and “sports family” is because some traits, like musical talent or athleticism, are passed down through genes from parent to child. Of course, it could also be due to the optimal environment, education, or parental connections for success in that field, but if both parents are accomplished athletes, we usually expect their children to have better-than-average athleticism. In addition to natural talent, children are born with physical characteristics that resemble their parents’ appearance. These genetically transmitted traits help children feel a sense of belonging in the family. Many children who are adopted as infants and toddlers, no matter how lovingly raised by their adoptive parents, seek to find their biological parents because they want to find the parents who shaped them and who look like them. However, if they had the ability to design their own children, many parents would not want to pass on as many of their own defects to their children as possible. They might also genetically engineer their children to have abilities that they never had, in the hopes that their children would fulfill dreams that they were unable to fulfill due to lack of physical ability. The resulting child will either be born with extraordinary strengths that the parents did not possess, or will be born without the deficiencies that the parents were so prominent in possessing. The characteristic of “resemblance” that we currently use to describe the relationship between parents and children would be completely meaningless.
As the child grows up, he or she will begin to think about his or her roots, and those exceptional qualities that are a big part of the identity that society gives to a child will not be found in either parent. In the old days, discovering that you resemble your parents would have been a great way to increase your sense of identity and closeness, but if it’s a trait that’s been gained through genetic manipulation, should you thank the researchers who did the manipulation or should you thank your parents for “buying” you the superior genes before you were born? It is a question of whether a child born through genetic engineering will feel the same connection to his or her roots as a child born without genetic engineering would feel to his or her parents. It is often said that the family is the smallest society, and if the bonds within the family are diminished, the impact of this phenomenon on society as a whole will not be small.
As the technologies required to manipulate genes, such as reading, cutting, and reattaching genes, become increasingly advanced, and as experiments on animals become more successful, the question of whether or not we should be able to manipulate genes before a human being is born continues to be debated. While those in favor of it may have their own reasons, such as defect-free bodies and increased efficiency in industry, it is more like the concept of a factory that produces the children that society wants rather than giving birth to children, and it only creates uniformity. In addition, the economic conditions of the family can greatly affect the chances of future success even before birth, and it can cause social instability by shaking the system of the family, which is the most fundamental foundation of society, as children have difficulty establishing their identity within the family and their roots. This is why parents should not be allowed to arbitrarily modify the physical and cognitive characteristics that a child is born with, beyond compensating for serious physical defects.
