How I accidentally spent the afternoon reading about gene editing in China
Two weeks ago, I needed to find the name of a certain American medical school. Finally, I found it. It was the Baylor College of Medicine that had partnered with the Chinese University of Hong Kong to build the world's most effective prenatal screening test for Down Syndrome. The test has been used by millions of people--especially in China--to find and abort children with Down Syndrome.
The two medical schools have also started an annual genetics symposium.
Baylor and CUHK do a lot of valuable medical research, with the goal of helping both the mother and the fetus. But in addition to healthcare, part of their general mission is finding disabled fetuses in order to kill them--which is not healthcare.
|
|
Honestly, that was more information than I needed. But one link led to another, and I continued reading about "genomic research" in China. " Genomics" includes all the science related to the structure, function, mapping, and editing of genomes.
It all sounds kind of boring. But it's a growing industry, with a noble goal: to make everybody healthy.
Unfortunately, Genomics may become a re-packaging of Eugenics, the massively popular progressive scientific movement of the 20th century that led to forced sterilisations around the world (as well as the Holocaust).
Genomics has the potential to do a lot of good, and to bring about historically unprecedented evils. |
|
Anyway, I finally quit reading, and got back to work. But later, on Tuesday evening, I found out about ANOTHER conference, which was part of a major international news story last week.
Last Tuesday, the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong opened the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing. It took place November 27-29, and was attended primarily by scientists from America, Great Britain, and East Asia. The doctors in western nations have some restrictions on their scientific research, but China does not restrict research in the same way.
Without explanation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences had backed out of the conference, and so the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong offered to be the host.
|
|
The Recent Gene-Editing Scandal
But that's probably not the part that you heard in the news. You probably heard about the Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who made an announcement right before this conference in Hong Kong. He told the world that he had already used gene-editing technology on several couples (via IVF) and one of them successfully gave birth to twin girls. (Presumably, many other human embryos were created and discarded in the process, because that's how IVF normally works.)
Dr. He Jiankui was also a speaker at the conference in Hong Kong. He was allowed to speak. But this was the response of the conference leaders: Statement from the Organizing Committee on Reported Human Embryo Genome Editing.
In their statement, there is no concern over how many human embryos are destroyed. Several decades ago, the scientific community briefly considered the ethical implications of destroying embryos. But they haven't really worried about it since then.
The current concern revolves around how powerful and influential gene-editing technology is, and how long the scientific community should wait before using it.
If you want to know more, you can Google it, or look on Twitter for #geneediting, or contact me.
I think that the way that people are responding to this story is similar to how people felt 50 years ago, when abortion advocates were beginning to change abortion laws in Western countries. Most people thought abortion would have devastating consequences. But they didn't know how to respond.
I think that everyone feels that this gene-editing story is very important, but nobody knows what to do. Besides, this is a problem for scientists, not for us--right?
But the problems that arise from human gene editing will affect us all. So how do we respond? I don't know. But at the very least, the Church must keep its head on straight, and make it clear that we will not participate in any research that destroys human beings.
|
|
Here is an article about the He Jiankui's gene-editing scandal by a Chinese pro-life leader (Chinese only): asiaforlife.com/zh-hant/基因編輯嬰兒當人類試圖扮演上帝說的上帝是怎麼/.
As the article mentions, we shouldn't be surprised by ethical indiscretion among scientists who kill human embryos. The world is okay with 50 million abortions every year, as well as IVF methods that kill millions of human embryos.
Honestly, it surprised me that people were shocked by last week's scandal. I hope there is some way to take advantage of that twinge of conscience while it lasts.
|
|
Asia for Life Facebook Page
You can see other blog posts at asiaforlife.com/blog. But the easiest thing to do is to "Follow" the Asia for Life Facebook Page at facebook.com/asiaforlifepage/posts.
|
|
|
Remember, Facebook will not show you the posts regularly, unless you select "See First".
|
|
|
|
