We explore the social implications of advances in genetic engineering, analyze the ethical issues and discrimination potential of preimplantation genetic diagnostic technologies, and discuss how social prejudice is more of a root cause of discrimination than technology.
No human being is perfect. All human beings inherit a variety of traits at birth through our genetic traits called DNA, which makes us all different. But how would our society be different if we could selectively inherit only the traits we want? There has been an ongoing debate about how advances in genetic engineering will affect future generations and whether we should continue to research and develop genetic engineering.
The movie Gattaca (1997), released at the end of the 20th century, is a great example of what could happen in the not-too-distant future with advances in genetic engineering. In the movie’s world, liberal eugenics is practiced to help humans regenerate. Here, the technology exists to select for only the desired genetic traits to be expressed when a child is born. Like tailoring a suit, you can create a “customized baby” that you want. However, Vincent, the protagonist, was conceived unplanned and was not able to undergo this process and was born as a normal human being. Ironically, in this society, normal humans are not able to live a normal life and are replaced by modified humans.
With the rapidly advancing technology of genetic engineering, it’s only a matter of time before this story becomes a reality. The technology used to create the “customized babies” in Gattaca is actually a technology currently under development called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). Thanks to this technology, which was created in the mid-1990s, we can identify potentially harmful traits in fertilized eggs through genetic diagnosis before implantation. It’s mainly used to diagnose three diseases: Huntington’s disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and Down syndrome. Scientists predict that in the coming years, preimplantation genetic diagnostics will be able to prevent disorders and diseases that are likely to occur after birth, such as cancer, asthma, heart disease, and stroke. They also claim that the technology will be able to predict traits that are determined by a combination of factors, such as height and intelligence.
However, opponents of the technology say that pre-implantation genetic diagnostics is discriminatory. In addition to diagnosing diseases, the technology can also predict gender, eye color, hair color, skin color, and more. In addition to the ethical issue that parents do not have the right to control their child’s gender, intelligence, height, etc.
Those who believe that pre-implantation genetic diagnostics discriminate take issue with the process of genetic diagnosis: rather than manipulating the genes in a single embryo to achieve a desired trait, the technology creates a large number of embryos in advance and then implants only those with the trait the couple wants, discarding the rest. In other words, the technology does not treat embryos with disabilities, but rather selects embryos that do not have disabilities in the first place. This means that the embryos that are discarded are discriminated against in that they are deprived of a chance at life simply because they will become disabled in the future.
Furthermore, it is argued that the very social acceptance of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is discriminatory against people with disabilities because it prevents them from existing in the first place, because after pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is introduced, people with disabilities in the world are accidentally born. Discrimination against people with disabilities is already problematic enough as it is, but cutting off disability support by claiming that the removal of disabled embryos will eliminate people with disabilities from society could lead to a mentality similar to the racism of the German Nazis in the modern world.
However, it’s worth noting that personal beliefs are at the root of the debate for and against the technology. Those in favor of the technology believe that embryos can grow and become human beings and should be treated as living beings and given the same rights to life as living people. Others, on the other hand, argue that embryos are not living beings because they do not have consciousness, and therefore are not entitled to the right to life. So, while the former is problematic, the latter is not.
At this point, we need to recognize that debating the technology itself is a waste of time. This is because pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is not itself a direct cause of discrimination. To look at the issue from another angle, it’s not the technology that discriminates against people with disabilities, it’s the people. In the example of Gattaca, the main character Vincent suffers from discrimination because of the prejudices of people, not the technology itself. In the movie, the number of “aligned” humans around him has increased due to the development of genetic engineering technology, and society has changed around them. However, the society that has changed is not the rosy future that advocates of genetic engineering envision. Instead, people who are not genetically engineered are treated as abnormal. It’s as if the mindset of people with disabilities has been transferred to people like Vincent who were once able-bodied. In other words, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis technology may provide a context in which discrimination against people with disabilities can be expressed, but it is society’s prejudices, not the technology, that directly cause discrimination.
To prevent the social problems in Gattaca, we need to analyze the current discrimination and find solutions. In Lawrence Nelson’s paper, disability activists argue that many of the doctors and clinicians who currently oversee and investigate the process of preimplantation genetic diagnosis technology overemphasize the fact that for many couples, raising a child with a disability is often a burden. In these cases, it is the clinicians and doctors, not the technology, who are discriminating. They also present a biased view of parents, in which case it is the parents, not the technology, who cause discrimination.
In “Just Diagnosis? Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and injustices to disabled people,” T. S. Peterson writes, “It seems more effective to address the obvious causes of this narrow and selfish discrimination to reduce discrimination than to abandon preimplantation genetic diagnosis technology. This can be addressed through education. I believe that if society is educated about the immorality of discrimination, especially against people with disabilities, then discrimination against them can be minimized, if not completely eliminated, even if they are in a very small minority.
As stated in the argument above, the root of discrimination is society, not technology. If society did not view disability negatively, there would probably be no need for preimplantation genetic diagnosis technology in the first place. And in fact, from a technical perspective, there is no reason to ban preimplantation genetic diagnostics. It is used to “prevent” negative outcomes such as disabling pain, physical or cognitive limitations, pharmaceuticals, medical complications, and shortened life spans, and it shows where it is effective in treating disease. Furthermore, the question of whether embryos should be considered life is not appropriate for discussion at this time, as it is a matter of personal belief.
Between all of these arguments, including those for and against the technology itself, and whether we can evaluate the rightness or wrongness of the technology itself, it is not easy to decide whether we should continue to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The technology has great scientific potential, and it’s clear that continued research can lead to great things, especially if we look at the recent breakthroughs in China with CRISPR scissor technology, where advances in genetic engineering are rapidly making “personalized babies” a reality. What we need to do at this point is to educate modern society about these issues and new technologies, not to be afraid and oppose them out of fear.
However, the reason why preimplantation genetic diagnostics are not yet being discussed is because the technology is not yet advanced enough to cause problems. Although the technology is not yet advanced enough to be applied to humans, the current rate of development of genetic engineering technology means that it is urgent to discuss it in earnest. Therefore, we will need to consider how the ethical issues of the technology will ultimately affect human society, and establish the boundaries between ethics and science and technology before the technology is fully adopted.
