This blog post takes an in-depth look at the ethical issues raised by parents manipulating their fetuses’ genes.
One of the most talked-about scientific issues in the medical community recently is CRISPR, a new form of gene editing technology that is at the heart of genetic recombination technology. After reports that it is more accurate and efficient than existing technologies, there have been bright prospects that it could offer hope for the treatment of diseases such as AIDS and cancer. However, many people have expressed concerns about the emergence of a society where genetic manipulation is freely practiced. Is it really acceptable for parents to change the physical abilities and characteristics of their children through genetic manipulation so that they are born with the traits they desire?
There are many movies on this topic, and as biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, continues to advance, ethical debates continue. Michael Sandel’s book, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, which inspired this article, also deals with this topic. So, should parents be allowed to genetically engineer their children using biotechnology?
First, let’s start by clarifying our position on this issue: genetic manipulation of fetuses should not be allowed. Of course, there may be some unavoidable special cases, such as cutting out genes related to diseases that are medically untreatable or unlikely to be treated. However, this only modifies the disease, and the child is still born with the appearance and characteristics that were originally planned. In other words, what we are trying to say here is that it should not be allowed for parents to change the general characteristics that a child is born with, such as physical abilities such as motor skills, appearance, height, and cognitive abilities, according to their wishes.
The first reason is that there will be significant differences in the lives of children depending on whether they are born through genetic modification based on their parents’ financial circumstances and the extent of the modification. The “ideal type” of child design and the extent to which parents’ financial resources can match that ideal type can ultimately cause differences. Those who agree with genetic engineering to give birth to children, or “designing” children, as Sandel puts it, question the difference between spending large amounts of money on tutoring for academics, sports, and piano lessons to help children achieve more, and giving them better genes to increase their chances of success. However, it should be noted that many people are opposed to the idea of expensive private lessons in the first place. The question is whether a race with an unequal starting line is fair.
It is well known that the amount and level of private education that children receive varies greatly depending on the average income of their region, and that this is a major factor in the wide gap in academic achievement between regions. Some children grow up receiving education that suits them from an early age through expensive private tutoring, while others grow up without ever receiving private education due to poor circumstances, and when this continues for decades, it is natural that differences in academic ability will arise, which will directly affect their economic ability as adults. In a reality where there is a widespread awareness that children should receive private education so that they do not fall behind in competition, the economic circumstances of parents are passed on to their children.
However, if this becomes more severe and differences arise in the circumstances into which children are born, rather than the education they receive after birth, the differences will become even more serious. Even though they were originally born with normal physical abilities and appearances, children who undergo genetic engineering are born with exceptional physical abilities and appearances, while children who are born normal have different chances of success regardless of their own will. If private education was a factor that provided differences that could be overcome to a certain extent through hard work, genetic engineering would be a factor that would give children differences that cannot be overcome even through extreme efforts. Furthermore, if genetic engineering becomes as common as private education is today, and the range of possibilities expands, the physical and cognitive abilities of children will vary greatly depending on their parents’ financial ability to pay for genetic engineering and the extent to which they can insert superior genes. These differences will affect children throughout their lives, which will only exacerbate the current social problem of passing on the economic conditions of parents to their children.
Second is the issue of uniformity. If you hear that “you can manipulate your genes or those of your children,” most people will have a predictable idea of what genetic manipulation entails. In a society that emphasizes physical attractiveness in popular culture and the media and places importance on academic achievement, cognitive abilities are considered a major factor for success, along with good health and athletic ability. As plastic surgery has become commonplace, those who oppose it cite concerns about the standardization of beauty as one of their reasons. Similarly, if genetic engineering becomes commonplace, there is a risk that not only physical appearance but also cognitive and physical abilities will become standardized. If all children are born looking similar and with similar abilities, as if they were products manufactured in a factory, then genetic engineering, even though it is not an obligation, will become the norm, and children who are not genetically engineered and are born without exceptional intelligence or physical abilities will be treated as if they have disabilities. The movie “Gattaca” vividly depicts this future.
If genetic engineering leads to uniformity in the appearance of children, it will have a major impact on their future. Those in favor of genetic engineering may argue that having more people with exceptional abilities will improve the efficiency of industry as a whole. However, people live their lives finding work that suits their abilities. Those with high intellectual abilities can use them to become researchers who contribute to society and humanity, while those with physical abilities can engage in occupations that require such abilities. However, if everyone is born with the same abilities and conditions, they may not be able to find their aptitude. If everyone lived with a similar level of intellectual ability, children would not be able to recognize their own excellence, and they would not even realize that they are suited to research. They would feel that there are many people who can replace them. People feel a sense of belonging to a group when they realize that they are “needed” by that group, and they feel a sense of fulfillment in their lives. However, if everyone has the same abilities, even if a person’s personality is more suited to a particular job than anyone else, they will feel that someone else with the same abilities can replace them, and they will not feel a sense of belonging or fulfillment.
Of course, there may be an argument that uniformity would not occur if there were differences in genetic manipulation based on economic power, as mentioned in the first argument above. However, this is only a difference in degree, and ultimately, the genetic factors that parents want to give their children for a successful life are predictable to a certain extent. With the intensification of college entrance exams and the growth of the private education market, cram schools have been criticized for being factories that produce children who solve the same problems and think the same way. With the growth of the plastic surgery market, a term has emerged to describe people who have undergone multiple plastic surgeries to achieve similar faces. However, private education and plastic surgery are also subject to differences in the extent to which they can be realized depending on economic power. Similarly, if it becomes possible to design children through genetic engineering, parents will try to create children who match the “ideal type” implied by the mass media and our society, with only slight differences, in order to achieve that ideal. This is a counterargument to the opinion that the above two reasons are contradictory.
The final reason why child design should not be allowed is the issue of children’s sense of their roots. The reason why there are expressions such as “a family of musicians” or “a family of athletes” is because certain characteristics, such as musical talent and athletic ability, are passed down from parents to children through genetics. Of course, the optimal environment, education, and parental connections may also be factors in achieving success in these fields, but if both parents are outstanding athletes, we usually expect their children to have above-average athletic ability. In addition to innate talent, children are born with physical characteristics that resemble their parents. These characteristics, passed down through genetics, play a role in making children feel a sense of belonging within their families. Many children who are adopted as infants try to find their biological parents, no matter how devoted their adoptive parents are, because their biological parents are the ones who made them who they are and resemble them. However, if there were a way to design children, many parents would not want to pass on their own flaws to their children. They might also genetically engineer their children to have abilities they themselves do not have, in the hope that their children will achieve the dreams they were unable to achieve due to their own physical limitations. As a result, the child would be born with outstanding qualities that the parents do not have, or would not inherit the parents’ prominent flaws. In that case, the characteristic of “resembling one’s parents,” which currently plays a major role in parent-child relationships, would become meaningless.
As children grow up, they will think about their roots, and they will not find the outstanding qualities that constitute the largest part of their identity as assigned by society in either of their parents. In the past, discovering similarities with one’s parents would have been an opportunity to increase a sense of belonging and intimacy, but if these characteristics were obtained through genetic engineering, should one be grateful to the researcher who manipulated the genes to achieve them, or to the parents who “bought” the superior genes before the child was even born? In this case, apart from the fact that they gave birth to and raised them, the important meaning of their biological parents “passing on their genetic traits” disappears. It is a question that needs to be considered whether children born through genetic engineering will feel the same way about their parents as children born without genetic engineering, thinking of them as their roots and feeling the same bond. It is often said that the family is the smallest unit of society, and if the bonds within the family are weakened, the impact on society as a whole will be significant.
With the gradual advancement of technologies for reading, cutting, and splicing genes, which are necessary for genetic engineering, and the increasing number of successful experiments using animals, there is ongoing debate about whether it is acceptable to manipulate genes before a person is born. Those in favor of genetic engineering may have their own reasons, such as creating flawless bodies and improving industrial efficiency, but this concept is closer to a factory that produces children that society wants rather than having children, and it only leads to uniformity. Furthermore, a child’s future success will vary greatly depending on their family’s economic circumstances even before they are born, and they will struggle to establish their identity within their family and their roots, which could destabilize the family system, the most fundamental foundation of society. For this reason, parents should not be allowed to arbitrarily modify the physical and cognitive characteristics that children are born with, beyond the extent necessary to correct serious physical defects.
