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S3 Episode 1: The ethics of genetic engineering
5 Plays5 months ago
Today we sat down to discuss the ethics behind the evolving science of genetic engineering, touching on the example of Adam Nash and exploring this question from a health and societal perspective.
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Transcript
Introduction to Ethics in Eugenics and Gene Editing
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Speaker
and welcome back to the Debatable Discussions podcast.
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Today we've got an episode centred around ethics and in particular eugenics and gene editing.
Case Study: Adam Nash, The Savior Child
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Today we're going to be discussing whether it's ethical or not to have a saviour child produced through IVF and this comes as a sort of
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question that first was posed in the 2000s when Adam Nash was born in August of 2000 and he suffered from, he was basically born for the sole reason of saving his sister Molly who suffered from Fanconi anemia which is a rare life-threatening disease.
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Now Adam was created and he was tested and
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He was chosen out of 15 embryos made so that he would be a perfect match so that he could give his sister transplants.
Morality of Creating Savior Children and Genetic Selection
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Now, obviously, there's a huge question about this, whether it's ethical or not.
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So, John, first of all, before we get into more specific questions, do you think it's ethical or not to create a saviour child?
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So I would say that it isn't ethical.
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And my sole reason for saying this is that, is it moral to bring a child into existence with the sole purpose of their existence being to support someone else's existence?
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Because when we're born, you and I, our purpose, our purpose for life was whatever we deemed it to be.
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However, in that case with Adam Nash, his purpose in life is to support his sister.
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Also, I think
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There are many ethical implications which come from effectively what is selecting embryos based on the genes in them.
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And they are that, and we're already seeing it right now in countries, especially like the United States of America, that the richest 1% of society are examining, let's say five or 15 embryos, and they are picking the one with the most desirable characteristics.
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So from analysing their genes, they can work out
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if they have nice aesthetic features or if they'll be clever.
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And that sort of creates almost a society in which the rich use eugenics to further themselves.
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So I would say that it isn't ethical to have a saviour child.
Genetic Engineering and Societal Disparities
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But what do you think, Dan?
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Yeah, I agree with you.
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I think it definitely creates a big disparity from the moment of birth.
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Uh, which is unnatural, you know, at the moment of birth, we're sort of, I'm not going to say we're all equal because there's not factually correct.
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And that some people are smarter.
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Some people are going to be better looking.
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Some people are going to have some, some attributes.
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Some people are going to get taller.
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Some people are going to be, you know, their muscles have a specific sort of percentage of short, fast twitch to long twitch, which makes them really good sprinters or the other way around.
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So I wouldn't say we're equal, but we're in a sort of,
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know, natural equality.
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We're about as equal as we're ever going to be.
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I think obviously that is not influenced by anything, by wealth.
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It's, you know, it's all random.
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No matter how rich you are, your child may be a big idiot.
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Or you could be poor and your child might be a genius.
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And everything in between, you know, I think that is something that is necessary to be kept because if the smartest and so if the richest people keep engineering their babies, you're going to have this huge dividing class, which is just unnatural.
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You're not going to have a system based on the sort of natural survival of the fittest.
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You're going to have a system based on the survival of the richest, choosing the fittest, so on and so on and so on and so on.
Aesthetic vs. Significant Genetic Choices
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And I think that has huge problems, but also John, do you think there's a difference between choosing if your baby's going to have blue eyes or brown eyes, do you know, choosing other features?
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Well, yeah.
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So, I mean, obviously choosing whether your baby's going to have blue or brown eyes, that's a very, very minor aesthetic consideration.
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And the only implications I can really see where such a consideration would be taken, where someone would say, I want my baby to have blue eyes, is if there was, let's say, some sort of societal pressure that people with blue eyes were better.
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And that then would really be a system of eugenics because people are trying to get certain, because people are trying to make sure their children have certain characteristics.
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In this example, though, I think there is quite a big difference between Adam Nash, whose characteristics were chosen upon those which would support his sister, and between having blue eyes.
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Because blue eyes are just the smallest thexic feature.
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But supporting your sister, being an embryo that is chosen specifically for that purpose, that is a huge difference to blue eyes.
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Yeah.
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I definitely agree
Ethics of Gene Editing in Plants and Animals
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with that.
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I think
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characteristic although it's a bit weird I'd argue a bit unnecessary doesn't have any lasting implications frankly
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Because in my opinion, your opinion, people who, you know, most people's opinion, having blue eyes or brown eyes or having black hair or brown hair or blonde hair, whatever, this makes no difference between your ability as a human being.
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But you being chosen for a specific purpose, which is for you to literally be number two.
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Yeah.
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I think that is, you know, that caused some incredible harm on the,
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on the child.
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I mean, can you imagine sort of knowing that your whole purpose in life and you're basically just living to save someone else and that you actually don't really matter?
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It'd be interesting to think what Adam Nash thinks.
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I mean, obviously, we obviously always do acts.
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I mean, hopefully people obviously do acts to help each other out.
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But this is more than just helping someone else out.
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This is your sole purpose being to help someone else.
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Also, on this sort of subject of gene editing, it's actually reminded me of something which is part of the national curriculum for GCSEs in the UK.
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And that is gene editing in plants and animals.
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And so, Diane, as a biologist, what do you think about gene editing and plants and animals?
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Do you think that's ethical to, let's say, increase production yield?
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I think you've got to look at it from a philosophical perspective.
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First of all, you've got to determine whether plants and animals are able to realise that if life has a purpose.
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You've got to look at that.
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In my opinion, I don't think they do.
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I don't think a tree is able to realize that there's a purpose in life.
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I don't think plants have that cognitive function.
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So I do think for plants it's 100% acceptable.
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Then when you get to animals, it gets a bit more difficult because it has been proven that animals have some sort of cognitive ability and they can reason and they can feel emotions.
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But whether they're conscious, fully, and sentient to the point where they can realize whether life has a purpose and a meaning, I don't think that's the case.
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And that's the reason I'm not vegan.
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So I do think it's acceptable because I don't think you're doing any active harm.
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I don't think...
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your your sort of sheep or your lamb realizes that you know their purpose is to be eaten at a restaurant I don't think they realize that I think it just it just it just happens
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What do you think, John?
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I think it's interesting because obviously with this case of Adam Nash and his sister, Adam is being basically genetically, has been genetically sort of edited in a way for his sister's survival.
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But then we
Animal Cognition and Ethics in Sports
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genetically edit wheat, for example, and sheep for our survival, for food to eat, because they will produce...
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because perhaps they're the healthiest, for example, that embryo has chosen.
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But then I think it is an important sort of moral distinction that you made that plants, for example, they can't cognitively know what's going on effectively.
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They can't say, oh, I'm being bred for the sole purpose of being eaten.
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They don't know.
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And so by genetically editing them,
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As far as I know, we aren't harming them in any sort of cognitive way at all.
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They're not going to be more unhappy because of that.
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Yeah, exactly.
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But an interesting avenue to explore, though, could be the animal one, because we do see animals being genetically edited or bred towards, let's say, horse racing.
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or bullfighting so i know it's a bit of a tangent but do you think those sort of sports are ethical and is it ethical to genetic genetically edit an animal to be just for sport i think it all comes back to the same question really which is do animals have the intelligence and the consciousness to to realize that yeah
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Or does just life just happen?
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And are they more so if like, I get food, I'm happy.
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Because I think if you do say that animals are fully conscious and able to realize that, then I don't think you can make an argument against being vegan.
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I think, you know, if that is the case, I genuinely think we should all be vegan right now because you can't, it's, it will basically be the equivalent of killing a human.
Human Enjoyment of Animal Suffering
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Because what makes us now sort of the apex predators and the people who are allowed to do these types of things is that we think we have a better reason, a better understanding, and frankly, we're more conscious.
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But if that hasn't proved to be the case, and if everyone just has the same consciousness, then I think, number one, we should all be vegan.
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Number two, that should be banned.
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But...
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At our point in time today where we are not vegan, where it is permissible to eat animals, I do think it's fine for those sports to occur.
00:10:47
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What do you think?
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I think it's a difficult one because, as you said there, there is a sort of moral superiority that we have over animals.
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And that's pretty objective, you could say.
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Animals are conscious, but we have a more sophisticated and complex level of consciousness that animals don't have.
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But it does raise interesting ethical implications nevertheless, because we watch, for example, bullfighting, a popular sport in Spain.
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Is it ethical for us to watch an animal being tortured or being bullied effectively?
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And is it right that we're sort of gaining a sense of pleasure from watching that?
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And nevertheless, is it all right to watch someone suffering for your own benefit?
Ethical Boundaries in Human Gene Editing
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In that instance, I do think it is, because I do think humans inevitably, and this is going to sound quite narcissistic, but they sort of, people do effectively enjoy
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elements of when people are suffering.
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And the example I've used for that is when someone falls over on the floor.
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It's not funny, but people do laugh.
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People do laugh at other people's sort of expense.
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So I think in sort of in an entertainment way, in very sort of isolated examples, we do sort of laugh at
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people being almost hurt effectively.
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I mean, what do you think, Dan, moving on with this?
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Yeah, I think, again, you know, does the bull realise he's being bullied?
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Oh, yeah.
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That's the question.
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That's the question we need to ask.
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And that's, frankly, we can't answer it.
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But could the bull realise?
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Because maybe he knows, maybe he's being physically hurt.
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Perhaps would he realise it from that?
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Because animals can feel, obviously, pain and...
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I don't know.
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I don't know.
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I think... I don't think there is anyone who knows for sure.
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Because it's such a complex question, obviously you can't just go to a bull and say, do you feel bullied?
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Yeah.
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It's not that easy to just have a conversation.
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You can't just send the, you know, independent bulls, inspectors to have a meeting with the bull and say, well, are you bullied?
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Are you feeling safe?
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Do we have any safeguarding concerns?
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So...
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With that not being possible, you obviously have to look at signs.
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We can tell animals are happy.
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But again, do we fully know that they're happy because of something or are they just happy because they've been fed?
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Yeah.
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Are they happy because it's sunny?
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Like what level of consciousness are they at?
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We don't know.
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I don't know.
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And I think until we find out and like,
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There's nothing we can do.
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Yes.
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I think
Future of Human Gene Editing
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that is the point that a lot of animal rights activists are trying to make, is that we don't know, so we should be cautious.
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Oh, yeah.
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Which I think is fair enough.
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But at the same time, we don't know, so we could assume that if they were conscious, we would know.
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No, yeah, I agree with you there.
00:13:58
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We just don't have, we obviously can't understand an animal because it's not exactly like we can speak to it and directly converse with it around whether they're happy or not being used in sport or being genetically edited for a singular purpose.
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But perhaps bring it on back to the main discussion of genetic editing and in particular genetic editing of embryos.
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Do you then think, Diane, that perhaps genetically edited... Do you ever think there's an instance where gene editing in humans could be ethical or could be moral?
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You know, are there any examples where we could allow it?
00:14:39
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Well, yes.
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I would argue so, but I think it's very hard to regulate.
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So I'm not talking from a legal perspective here.
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I'm just talking from a sort of moral perspective.
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I don't know if this could be placed in practice, but...
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I think there could be a case made for gene editing in the cases of sort of congenital diseases.
00:15:03
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But would we basically, do you think we'd have a very unnatural society or we'd have to create a limit almost for if we would eradicate every genetic disease, we couldn't just have these very healthy humans who are perfect?
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Is it an extent?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I think that's, that's a really good question.
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I think the main, the main question again comes to,
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the equality at birth.
00:15:30
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I don't think, you know, I don't think there's a need for genetic diseases.
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There's not a biological need for them.
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We don't need them to survive.
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Frankly, it's better if we don't have them.
00:15:41
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I think the more we can get rid of them, the better we'll be in a way because we'll have happier parents, happier children.
00:15:51
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Although, you know, for example, Down syndrome children, some of them are incredibly happy.
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But I think overall we'd have a happier society.
00:16:01
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We'd have a society with sort of less disease is objectively a good thing.
00:16:10
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You know, I think especially sort of congenital disease because we can't eradicate.
00:16:15
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Eradicating all, you know, disease from your genetic code is just crazy because it won't work.
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because then you'd have a different disease for a random mutation, then we'd all die because of no immune system.
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So that wouldn't work.
00:16:31
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But congenital diseases like that, I think could be avoided quite, quite, not quite easily, but quite necessarily.
00:16:39
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Yeah, I agree with you there.
00:16:40
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And I think you could establish a net benefit across society by removing such diseases.
00:16:47
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And it's reminded me because I read a book by Peter Singer, the famous Australian ethicist, and he did mention how...
00:16:55
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I think it was under the Clinton administration in America, some American and British scientists did make this revolutionary discovery of effectively opening a gene.
00:17:05
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And it was basically making this first step towards being able to, let's say, edit out Down syndrome from a gene.
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And so I think perhaps maybe in our generation or...
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a few generations after us, gene editing will definitely be possible.
00:17:23
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And we'll definitely be able to not just view embryos as that, not just to view the genes of embryos as we are able to at the moment, but we'll also be able to actively change them, which is, which is quite an amazing thing because obviously the richest people in society could just say, well, can you edit my child to have blue eyes?
00:17:46
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to be very good sports.
00:17:49
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Six foot five.
00:17:50
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Yeah.
00:17:53
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I think, yeah, I think there's definitely a sort of slippery slope of people just engineering the perfect baby.
00:17:58
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And obviously that's not what life is about because you frankly don't get to choose your children.
00:18:06
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you choose when to have them most of the time, but you don't choose your children.
00:18:12
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You can't choose this how I want my child to be.
00:18:15
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You kind of have to live with it and grow with it and accept it.
00:18:17
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And it's a sort of rite of passage of sometimes your own views, your own beliefs being challenged, I think, through the perspective you have of having a sort of
00:18:31
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Uh, person, although very similar to yours, very different.
00:18:39
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Oh yes.
00:18:39
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So in summary today, um, me and Diane discussed whether gene editing was ethical.
00:18:46
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And in particular, we looked at the case of Adam Nash, who was a savior child.
00:18:51
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Um,
Episode Summary on Gene Editing Ethics
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also we sort of drifted over to gene editing and animals and plants.
00:18:57
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And we also drew a few modern day comparisons.
00:19:01
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Many thanks.
00:19:03
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And of course, if you like this episode, please do look back on our previous episodes.
00:19:07
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We are trying really hard to bring an episode every week, although quite difficult at the moment with our extremely busy schedules.
Closing Remarks and Podcast Update
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But we're definitely trying and we hope to see you next week.
00:19:19
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Yeah, hope to see you then.