The Moral Boundary The science of genetic engineering has reached the boundary of moral acceptability. Genetic engineering is now entering the realm of morally unacceptable technology by the standards of American society.
Why have we reached this moral boundary? There is a large segment of American society that believes that science and technology are driven by corporate self-interest and short-term profit. In the instance of human genetic engineering, this is not the case. Profits are not visible on the horizon and corporations are not active players in the field.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the the aggressive nature of the current human genetic engineering is driven by traditional research goals of curiosity and imagination. Curiosity and imagination can carry well-meaning, intelligent individuals into morally treacherous territory, and they have.
What is it that has brought this research field to the brink of moral opprobrium? The problem is that a wide range of unrelated fields of genetic engineering research are moving rapidly in many directions. Because of this speed and variety, within a domain of complex technical language, it is difficult for any group of ordinary American citizens to grasp the impending danger and step forward to alert practitioners in this field to their imminent mistake.
Research in in-vitro human cells, in embryos, and fetuses is so rapid that it is hard for sincere researchers to see that the American moral boundary is about to be crossed in each area.
Where is the American moral boundary in human genetic engineering? As with all moral imperatives, this is a double negative:
No American child shall be born if its genetic heritage has been changed; every child must come from a mother cell and a father cell with no engineered genetic heritage.
The reason for this moral imperative, which is deeply embedded in the founding documents of America, is that each American is born with inalienable natural rights.
These rights are derived from a natural commons, known as our genetic heritage. No person or persons can make changes to that natural commons on their own accord. Not kings, not scientists, not government regulators, not any small group of people. The American genetic heritage can only be changed by the consent of the people who live in America; such a change will have to come in the future by the active decision of our full elective processes. That is the only way that our common heritage can be changed.
The wording of this moral boundary of human genetic engineering is precise. This precision is intended to help researchers understand the many research directions that are morally out of bounds. The phrase "genetic heritage" is deliberately broad enough to exclude the combining of a nucleus from one cell and the mitochondria from another. This is a moral boundary because there is not sufficient evidence to prove that genetic heritage is not carried by a combination of these elements in conjunction with the cell cytoplasm.
Cloning of humans is clearly unacceptable, as evidenced by public response in the recent past; the birth of a human without the use of the father's cell, intact, is not the birth of a human with the same genetic heritage as all other Americans are born with.
Engineering which changes the genetic heritage of the embryo or the fetus is morally unacceptable. This moral prohibition does not extend after birth to somatic cell engineering.
One area of research that is not beyond the moral boundary is screening of human embryos before implantation. This is currently being done and has not created significant resistance among knowledgeable citizens because it does not engineer the human genetic heritage.
Summary There is a moral boundary to human genetic research. Rapid developments in a wide range of fields are impinging on this moral boundary. Sincere researchers are unaware of the moral boundary because ordinary Americans find the speed of change and the technical complexity off-putting. The boundary exists, nevertheless. The moral boundary derives from an American imperative that establishes a human commons based on our genetic heritage. This genetic heritage is inviolable until a consensus of Americans agrees to make changes in it.
The Council of Europe Declaration, 1996. 123 signatories as of July 1998. Article 13- Interventions on the human genome.
An intervention seeking to modify the human genome may only be undertaken for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic purposes and only if its aim is not to introduce any modification in the genome of any descendants.