Sunday’s bombshell reports by MIT Technology Review and the Associated Press — that renowned Chinese scientist He Jiankui said he had used the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing tool to create the world’s first two genetically modified human babies — led to headlines around the world.

Coverage of his claim was imbued with the sense that humankind had begun a scary new adventure that could transform life as we know it. As The New York Times reported ...

If human embryos can be routinely edited, many scientists, ethicists and policymakers fear a slippery slope to a future in which babies are genetically engineered for traits — like athletic or intellectual prowess — that have nothing to do with preventing devastating medical conditions. ...

The birth of the first genetically tailored humans would be a stunning medical achievement, for both He and China. But it will prove controversial, too. Where some see a new form of medicine that eliminates genetic disease, others see a slippery slope to enhancements, designer babies and a new form of eugenics.


He’s experiment was broadly condemned by ethicists and scientists, including San Diego visionary Eric Topol. The Chinese government questioned the legality of He’s actions, and it’s only a matter of time until religious leaders weigh in intensely, condemning the arrogance and hubris of scientists playing God. In 2017, Pope Francis urged scientists not to use gene-editing tools on human embryos.

Now that it’s happened, it’s time for us all to realize that Pandora’s box can’t be closed. The CRISPR tool is so inexpensive and so powerful that experimentation is going to be frequent and far-reaching. Consider the story of David Ishee, a Mississippi man with a GED degree who was so upset with dogs’ high susceptibility to genetic diseases that he did something about it. As the Singularity Hub website reported last year:

You’d think that to tweak the genome of an animal, some serious training and education would be necessary — maybe a post-graduate biology degree or several years working in the lab of a large genetics company.

But in a prime example of both the democratization and demonetization of technology, Ishee taught himself to do genetic engineering right in his own backyard shed, using a kit and some DNA he ordered online. ...


That experimentation could just as easily be done by our next-door neighbor as by a government agency. It’s an idea that will take some getting used to.

Pandora’s box won’t remain open just because of CRISPR’s widespread availability. Instead, human genetic engineering is likely to become common for several reasons.

The first: All the fathers in the couples whose embryos He modified have contracted HIV, which carries a huge stigma in China. They were trying to protect their children from ever suffering their fate. This line of thinking will be the norm for any parents anywhere who know or have reason to think their children could be susceptible to the long list of genetic diseases. (HIV is not one.) There is no impulse more powerful than helping your children, born or yet to be born.

The second: Imagine the immense resentment when it is reported — as it surely will be someday — that super-rich people are having genetically engineered children that are genetic all-stars. The 1 percenters already have a profound ability to make their children’s lives’ better; now they get to have a giant new advantage?


This angle makes it’s easy to imagine a Democratic presidential candidate running in 2028 or 2032 on a platform that made couples’ access to genetic modification for their unborn children a government-provided entitlement.

Is this a recipe for neonatal Nazism that will warp humanity in profoundly unpredictable ways? Maybe.

But there’s a straightforward way the worst fears could be finessed, if not fully addressed. The government-provided genetic modification would have as an ironclad rule that all modified embryos or artificially created fertilized ovum could only make the best boy or girl that two individuals can combine to create — minus the DNA associated with genetic illnesses. A “Best Possible Baby” program would keep intact familial hereditary lines while sharply improving quality of life and reducing the cost of health care. The promise of “Best Possible Baby” is so huge that it could overwhelm religious, philosophical and ethical objections — especially if the mega-rich are already taking advantage of the technology.

Yet these religious, philosophical and ethical objections are valid. If human genetic engineering were to become a government-provided entitlement, even if early results were hugely promising, it is close to certain that many couples simply wouldn’t trust the government to play a direct role in their reproduction. Given their historical treatment, Native Americans and African-Americans would seem certain to worry. Conservatives, libertarians and political outsiders who see government as klutzy or sinister or both would be disinclined to sign up.


The result would be a “genetics gap,” with “Best Possible Baby” offspring having vast health advantages over the conventionally conceived. Our society and our world is divided enough as it is without a giant new source of division. It doesn’t require much imagination to think genetically modified kids would taunt those who weren’t as “feebs” and in turn be taunted as “beasts.”

But as big a reason to worry about the onset of human genetic engineering is how it would intersect with the profit motive and what philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called “the will to power.”

At least some corporations and armies will be amoral enough to want to use the technology to create slave laborers and warriors. At least some tycoons and dictators will be depraved enough to want to have sex slaves created with the DNA of the planet’s most attractive humans. And it is the safest bet of all that the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — which is already one of the world’s largest funders of advanced genetic research — has also started thinking about the vast national-security advantages of having genetically crafted geniuses working with artificial intelligence programs to preserve or expand U.S. authority around the world.

And as the Atlantic Council international affairs think tank reported in 2017, China has its own versions of DARPA — and there are many reasons to think that the nation bent on surpassing the U.S. as the world’s dominant superpower is already trying to develop “sinister military applications” of the CRISPR gene editing tool:


There is so much gene-editing research being conducted in China it is difficult to pinpoint the primary sources. It is also not easy to discern whether the research in China has civilian, military or defense applications. The secretive Academy of Military Medical Sciences and the Third Military Medical University are the most likely defense labs. These DARPA-like institutions handle medical studies for the People’s Liberation Army and both are feverishly pumping out CRISPR research.

It’s no coincidence that a Chinese scientist broke the taboo on genetically modified babies — even if He seems to have done it on his own initiative and with nominal governmental disapproval. Beijing may say the right things about observing international norms, but its ruthlessness is unmistakable. President Xi Jinping has imposed systematic religious persecution — including sending 1 million Muslim Uyghurs to remote “re-education” camps, according to the United Nations — and ordered the torture of human-rights lawyers and dissidents. Anything goes.

But will these potential dystopias get in the way of “Best Possible Baby”-type programs in affluent nations? I don’t think so. The intensity of most parents’ desire to help their children is impossible to exaggerate. If parents can help their kids in a profound way, they will. Humanity is going to bite the second apple with about as much introspection as Adam and Eve bit the first.

Reed is deputy editor of the editorial and opinion section. Twitter: @chrisreed99. Email: chris.reed@sduniontribune.com. Column archive: sdut.us/chrisreed.


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