A panel of researchers from the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Medicine released a report last week indicating preliminary support for embryonic gene editing in cases of severe disease or disability.
This support for genome editing represents not only the potential alteration of human germlines, the genetic material we may pass on to our children, but also the crossing of an ethical line. Genetic selection, after all, has its own questionable historical lineage.
I believe germline editing is a eugenic process. From the Greek term for “well-born,” eugenics refers to the selection of heritable biological traits with the aim of producing ideal progeny.
Amid post-Darwinian theories of biological degeneracy in the 19th century, eugenics emerged as a scientifically backed effort to eliminate disability, mental illness and non-white races from the human gene pool through forced sterilization and other intrusive measures.
In the 20th-century United States, eugenic efforts consolidated into federally funded sterilization programs in 32 states, some of which endured well into the 1970s. Indiana, in fact, was the first in the world to enact compulsory eugenic sterilization legislation in 1907.
A notorious 1927 Supreme Court ruling in Buck v. Bell upheld the constitutionality of sterilization laws in the case of Carrie Buck, a woman deemed “feebleminded” and “unfit” in Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ majority opinion.
It is essential to recognize that eugenic practices received overwhelming scientific, medical and governmental backing in the name of public health. Though the practice is now acknowledged as unethical, it was legally dismantled only about half a century ago.
Embryonic gene editing procedures are not on the same ethical level as forced sterilization, but the processes nonetheless share eugenic goals.
An underlying principle of eugenics is that society gets to decide which conditions should be eliminated from the human gene pool.
This determination involves a subjective value judgment in selecting which specific diseases or disabilities should not be permitted to exist.
The panel’s report does acknowledge the troubling relationship between eugenics and human germline editing. While the awareness of this history is crucial in considering the ethical principles at stake, it does not resolve the problem.
The report offers no concrete guidelines for assessing which conditions qualify as severe disease or disability, nor does it clarify whether this determination would be based on quantitative measures, like fatality rates, or other more subjective measures.
Research for treatments is a better investment of resources, and it enables progress toward less ethically questionable options.
The National Institutes of Health currently allocate no funding to gene editing in embryos – and for good reason.
Fortunately, it will likely require several years before embryonic gene editing would be a viable option. In the meantime, it’s time to reassess the ethical heritage of the practice: eugenics.
kmilvert@umail.iu.edu
