Where does correcting a gene end and writing a human begin?

Monday, August 7th, 2017

A recent article in Nature magazine outlines a dramatic intervention that could wipe out a congenital heart defect.

Working on a days old embryo produced by IVF it used a type of molecular scissors to cut out the defective gene.

It described the process as the correction of a mutant gene; more broadly the question is whether this might be rather the opening of the door to usher in ‘made by design’ humans.

Healing or correcting?

The word ‘correcting’ carries worrying connotations.

Found in a car manual it might indicate we could isolate the problem, replace the faulty part without modifying the rest of the car, nor would there be wider effects such as greater expense or environmental repercussions.

Each of these dimensions is questionable here.

There is a limited number of single gene mutations. Detecting this heart defect is particularly tricky as there are no early symptoms.

What beckons is perhaps huge increases in the screening of potential mothers – even mandatory?

Wider implications

Such interventions can have unintended effects given the elaborate links and balances in our bodies.

Because this trial could last just a few days there was no way to check this.

What of wider effects?

Given the huge profits made by biotech companies, it is realistic to expect that such techniques would end up being used to search for more complex traits such as intelligence or strength.

Assuredly it would be the rich and privileged that would be driving such a charge.

The deepest concern

This particular trial was hemmed in by careful safeguards.

What it may enshrine, however, and foster even further, is the reductionist trend to see humans as merely very sophisticated machines.

The sense of uniqueness, of wonder, of the specialness of the human individual, would be even more at risk.

A Christian vision has humans made in the image of God; in whose image would such humans be?

Dr Neil Vaney is a Marist priest and former lecturer in Christian ethics, at Good Shepherd College in Auckland. He is presently pastoral director of the Catholic Enquiry Centre in Wellington.