ETHICS - Negatives

The debate over whether or not using CRISPR technology on human embryos is prominant and ongoing within the scientific community. Although there are undeniable benefits to contorlling the makeup of the human body, invasive technology such as CRISPR-Cas9 has raised some red flags in regards to the moral justification of its use.

Informed Consent

There is debate over whether or not the parents' consent to alter their child's embryo is considered informed consent or not. Some worry that it is impossible to obtain informed consent for germline gene therapy because the patients affected by the edits are the embryo and future generations: how could one ancestor make a decision for generations to come? The counterargument is that parents already make many decisions that affect their future children, including similarly complicated decisions such as PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) with IVF. Researchers and bioethicists also worry about the possibility of obtaining truly informed consent from prospective parents as long as the risks of germline therapy are unknown (What Are the).

Equality Between Genetically Modified Individuals and "Regular" Individuals

In the future, if CRISPR gene editing were to take off and become a relatively common practice, then would it be accessible to all? Probably not, considering the obvious costs associated with the procedure of gene editing. This cost would further divide the rich and poor in society, and there could be potential social stress that arises from this division.

Some people worry that taken to its extreme, gene editing could create classes of individuals defined by the quality of their engineered genome (What Are the), which would only contribute to the separation of individuals in society. "Natural" people may start to feel inferior to modified individuals, leaving long-term impacts on their mental health and self-esteem.

In addition, as more and more of the CRISPR technology starts becoming used, people will argue that it’s unethical to allow babies to be put at a disadvantage and let them die without using CRISPR. This could potentially create more disunity among individuals.

Furthermore, genetically modified humans are assets to the government, who will never have to pay large sums of money for the person's healthcare costs. This could lead to certain laws and regulations being instigated that may not be fair for all.

Eugenics

Eugenics is the process of selectively breeding humans to pick out the "best" qualities and spread those. By using CRISPR technology to alter human DNA to create "designer babies" or individuals that are the most intelligent or athletic, some worry that scientists will be able to, in a way, "selectively breed" humans to be superior at everything. According to Dr. Ruth Hubbard, "‘The idea of ‘race purity’ may have died...but the idea that it is more beneficial for certain people have children than others, and that a vast range of human problems can be cured once we learn how to manipulate our genes, remains very much with us’" (Tagliaferro 71-72). In addition, this type of technology could lead to less genetic diversity, which, as science has proven time and time again, is not ideal for a species trying to survive in future generations, as it increases the risk of severe infectious diseases spreading much quicker and becoming much deadlier.

CRISPR Technological Risks

There are also several risks associated with CRISPR, as with any new healthcare technology. Trying to integrate this technology into society right now, with all of its flaws, is considered unethical in the eyes of some. A few of the major risks of CRISPR include:

CRISPR mechanism may make changes in the wrong places, creating so-called ‘off target’ effects that can be dangerous.
It may make the wrong changes in the right places, both creating the risks of harm from the unexpected edits as well as losing the potential benefits from the right changes.
It may edit only some of the cells of the embryos, resulting in ‘mosaic’ organisms, with some edited and some unedited cells, which will not have reap all (or any) of the potential benefits of the edits.
It may make some other, unexpected changes—there is evidence that, at least in some cases, CRISPR can cause large deletions or duplications in DNA, with unpredictable (but almost certainly not good) effects.