If your parents were given the opportunity, would you want your genes to have been changed to make you three inches taller? Varun S, a Skyline student, states that he would have.

Discussion about genetic modification has grown more prominent online as scientific achievements make the future possibility of widespread human genetic customization more reasonable. Most recently, CRISPR technology has provided a more efficient and accurate way to edit genomes, or the entire set of genes, than any method before.

The true question is whether genetic modification is worth the increasingly high cost.

Numerous health officials and scientists believe that genetic modification would enable treatments for a variety of diseases. Humans could finally control the uncontrollable: our very own genes. Those with genetic traits for disease or abnormal conditions could choose not to pass them down. Genetic modification often seems like the key to utopia.

On the other hand, there are concerns among the public that genetic modification poses a threat to human individuality. Innovative Genomics Institute, an American nonprofit research institute, also mentions concerns that, if genetic modification were to become mainstream, children would quickly become a representation of “desirable” traits with parents “playing God.” There is a general worry that genetic modification will quickly devolve into eugenics, an ideology revolving around the idea of “better” and “worse” genes.
Mr. Gillespie, an IB Biology teacher at Skyline, weighed in on the issue. “I believe genetic modification on humans is unethical because the patient who will deal with any repercussions or side effects cannot consent.”

As technology improves and anything becomes possible, people must ask not just how something can be used, but whether it should be used, and who gets to decide.

For more information:
CRISPR & Ethics