There are three timetables worth looking at in terms of human germline modification using CRISPR method. The first one is the short term; how the technology will affect people and society in the first five years of its implementation. The second one is the medium term; how the technology will have impacted healthcare, society and people in the first hundred years of its implementation and lastly the third one, which is the extreme long term; how the technology will have affected human evolution and development on the whole. Will CRISPR have any lasting effects, ten thousand years after its implementation?
3.1 Short Term
In the short term, the main medical purpose of CRISPR technologies in humans, would be to easily check for genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease. Armed with the information that this testing would offer, parents and health care professionals could make more informed decisions regarding the continuation or termination of a pregnancy. It could also help with discovering genetic diseases quicker, …show more content…
It could be seen as an implication that some genotypes are inherently inferior to others. This raises several ethical issues with numerous groups. Some groups feel that every conceived foetus must be carried to the full extent of its term by the mother, and they see a move towards the use of CRISPR in this fashion as morally wrong. By an extension of this belief, they also believe that modification of the human germline is immoral. Other groups, may associate practices akin to this with eugenics, a concept which most of the public has been uncomfortable about since it’s use in the middle of the 20th Century. Each of these groups’ concerns about the using of CRISPR in human embryos are rooted in the same standpoint - that it is wrong to kill, but must be addressed in very different ways, ethically. (THE ETHIC
3.1 Short Term
In the short term, the main medical purpose of CRISPR technologies in humans, would be to easily check for genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease. Armed with the information that this testing would offer, parents and health care professionals could make more informed decisions regarding the continuation or termination of a pregnancy. It could also help with discovering genetic diseases quicker, …show more content…
It could be seen as an implication that some genotypes are inherently inferior to others. This raises several ethical issues with numerous groups. Some groups feel that every conceived foetus must be carried to the full extent of its term by the mother, and they see a move towards the use of CRISPR in this fashion as morally wrong. By an extension of this belief, they also believe that modification of the human germline is immoral. Other groups, may associate practices akin to this with eugenics, a concept which most of the public has been uncomfortable about since it’s use in the middle of the 20th Century. Each of these groups’ concerns about the using of CRISPR in human embryos are rooted in the same standpoint - that it is wrong to kill, but must be addressed in very different ways, ethically. (THE ETHIC