Petre Ioana
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
J Med Philos. 2017 Jun 1;42(3):328-341. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhx003.
The possibility of performing germline modifications on currently living individuals targets future generations' health and well-being by reducing the diversity of the human gene pool. This can have two negative repercussions: (1) reduction of heterozygosity, the latter being associated with a health or performance advantage; (2) uniformization of the genes involved in reproductive recombination, which may lead to the health risks involved in asexual reproduction. I argue that germline interventions aimed at modifying the genomes of future people cannot be ethically justifiable if there is no possibility of controlling the intervention either by reversing or altering it, whenever need demands it. This argument is challenged on six different grounds: safety, population versus individual focus, spontaneous mutations, exceptionalism, the intentional pursuit of genetic diversity through germline interventions, and harm reduction potential.
对当前在世个体进行生殖系修饰的可能性，通过减少人类基因库的多样性，将目标指向了后代的健康和福祉。这可能产生两种负面影响：（1）杂合性降低，而杂合性与健康或表现优势相关；（2）参与生殖重组的基因同质化，这可能导致无性繁殖所涉及的健康风险。我认为，如果在需要时无法通过逆转或改变干预措施来对其进行控制，那么旨在修改未来人群基因组的生殖系干预在伦理上是不合理的。这一论点受到了六个不同理由的挑战：安全性、关注群体与关注个体、自发突变、例外论、通过生殖系干预有意追求基因多样性以及降低伤害的潜力。
