Gumer Jennifer M
a Bioethics Department of the School of Professional Studies , Columbia University , New York , USA.
b Institute of Bioethics, Bellarmine College of Arts and Sciences , Loyola Marymount University , Los Angeles , California , USA.
New Bioeth. 2019 Jun;25(2):137-152. doi: 10.1080/20502877.2019.1606151.
With recent reports that a Chinese scientist used CRISPR-Cas9 to heritably edit the genomes of human embryos (i.e., germline editing) brought to term, discussions regarding the ethics of the technology are urgently needed. Although certain applications of germline editing have been endorsed by both the National Academy of Sciences (US) and the Nuffield Council (UK), this paper explores the ethical concerns related even to such therapeutic uses of the technology. Additionally, this paper questions whether the technology could ever feasibly be contained to the therapeutic realm. Consequently, this paper necessarily considers the ethical concerns related to enhancement uses of the technology even if only therapeutic applications are initially considered. In light of the concomitant risks, this paper assesses the technology's countervailing benefits to conclude they do not prevail given that similar outcomes can largely be achieved with existing technologies. Consequently, this paper recommends an international ban on germline editing.
随着近期有报道称一名中国科学家使用CRISPR-Cas9技术对已发育至足月的人类胚胎基因组进行了可遗传编辑（即生殖系编辑），关于该技术伦理问题的讨论亟待展开。尽管生殖系编辑的某些应用已得到美国国家科学院和英国纳菲尔德生物伦理委员会的认可，但本文探讨了即便该技术用于治疗目的仍存在的伦理问题。此外，本文还质疑该技术是否真的能够仅限于治疗领域。因此，即便最初仅考虑治疗应用，本文也必然会考虑与该技术增强用途相关的伦理问题。鉴于相关风险，本文评估了该技术的抵消性益处，得出的结论是，鉴于现有技术在很大程度上能够实现类似结果，这些益处并不占优。因此，本文建议在国际上禁止生殖系编辑。
