Researchers Continue to Kill Human Embryos in the Name of Science

Bioethics, , , ,

We have written before about how scientists have tried to use the controversial gene-editing technology CRISPR to alter the human genome.

In some cases, researchers have attempted to create human-animal hybrids using this type of technology.

This week our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview have highlighted yet another example of scientists using CRISPR to meddle with — and then kill — human embryos in the name of science.

John Stonestreet writes,

[A] team of researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London used CRISPR to edit 18 donated human embryos. The purpose, they claimed, was to study “the role of a particular gene in the earliest stages of human development.” Unfortunately, around half of the embryos “contained major unintended edits.”

“Major unintended edits” is a euphemism for “mutation” and “genetic damage” which, as Medium told its readers, “could lead to birth defects or medical problems like cancer later in life.” As one genetics researcher put it, “…you’re affecting so much of the DNA around the gene you’re trying to edit that you could be inadvertently affecting other genes and causing problems.” Even worse, the Crick Institute team didn’t inadvertently mess with a gene near the one they were targeting. In other words, they “hit their targets.” The results were, however, unexpected.

Fyodor Urnov, a professor of molecular and cell biology at Berkeley, was more blunt: “There’s no sugarcoating this . . . This is a restraining order for all genome editors to stay the living daylights away from embryo editing.”

Once a “gene-editing expert” gets frightened, you’d think we might want to cool our jets in this whole “playing god” thing. I doubt it. . . . By the way, all the embryos affected by the Francis Crick Institute team were destroyed.

This kind of “create-and-kill” research is simply unconscionable.

It treats unborn children like lab material.

The unborn children created and killed as part of these gene-editing experiments had zero say in what happened to them. They were simply at the mercy of researchers in a lab.

As we have said many times, human beings are not research material. Unfortunately, gene-editing technologies like CRISPR treat them that way.

We must insist that scientific research respect the sanctity of human life at every stage of development.

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California Passes Bill Against DIY Gene Hacking

Bioethics,

Recently the California General Assembly passed a law against so-called “do-it-yourself” gene hacking.

Modern technology makes it possible to edit the human genome. While it sounds like the stuff of science fiction, we’ve seen headlines recently about scientists in China who have edited human genes and tried to create human/animal hybrids.

Gene-editing technologies like CRISPR have hit the open market, but California, of all states, seems to want to do something about it.

John Stonestreet at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview writes,

The [California] Assembly passed, and Governor Newsom signed, a bill that prohibits the sale of do-it-yourself genetic engineering kits—unless the kit has a label warning that it is “not for self-administration.”

Hey, it’s a start. As noted at Vox, Silicon Valley is home to the biohacking movement, which, in essence, attempts to extend life through technology. But tinkering with the human genome poses enormous risks not only to those who self-edit their genes, but to the public at large.

One Oakland biohacker has been selling such kits, so it’s entirely appropriate that California has now passed the “first-ever legislation addressing emerging CRISPR technology, [which] will help prevent safety mishaps by amateur users of CRISPR kits.”

CRISPR is the same gene-editing technology that scientists have used to clone and kill human embryos for research.

As we have said many times, human beings are not research material, but gene-hacking technologies like CRISPR treat them that way.

All scientific research must respect the sanctity of human life.

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