The Silent Genocide: Ethics Of CRISPR and Gene Editing.

    The idea of “designer babies” honestly feels like something out of a movie, but after learning more about CRISPR, it’s clear that this could become normal in the future. I read a study where researchers edited the CCR5 gene in human embryos to try to make them resistant to HIV (Ma et al., 2017). That completely surprised me. They were not just testing cells in a dish. They actually showed that human embryos can be edited in a way that changes how they develop. It is great to think about preventing genetic diseases, especially the ones that are painful or deadly. But once we start editing embryos, it becomes hard to know where the limits should be. If we can remove a disease, what is stopping people from wanting to change things like height or intelligence someday?

    CRISPR is powerful, but it definitely is not perfect. Another study pointed out that the editing process can cause mistakes. These are called off-target effects, and they can lead to new problems that scientists do not fully understand yet (Berg, Cwik, & Bordoni, 2025). That part made the whole thing feel more real to me. It also reminded me of the situation in 2018 when a scientist in China edited twin embryos. Those children are growing up with edits in their DNA that no one can predict long term. So even though gene editing could help many people, it also comes with huge responsibilities. Just because a technology is available does not mean we are ready for the risks. I think using CRISPR to stop serious diseases makes sense, but choosing traits or changing things just because someone wants a certain type of child feels like crossing a line. Genetics affects future generations, so we have to be careful with how far we take it. If we let this get out of hand, it wouldn't be ridiculous to see the appearance of “less desirable” traits be reduced drastically. That begs the question, who gets to decide which traits are more or less desirable and when does this just become eugenics with extra steps.

References

Berg, A., Cwik, B., & Bordoni, L. (2025). The ethics of human embryo editing via CRISPR-Cas9: A systematic review. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 50(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-024-09538-1

Ma, H., Marti-Gutierrez, N., Park, S.-W., Wu, J., Lee, Y., Suzuki, K., ... & Mitalipov, S. (2017). Correction of a pathogenic gene mutation in human embryos. Nature, 548, 413–419. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23305