Law Commons^™

Genome Editing 2020: Ethics And Human Rights In Germline Editing In Humans And Gene Drives In Mosquitoes, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The moon landing, now more than a half century in the past, has turned out to be the culmination of human space travel, rather than its beginning. Genetic engineering, especially applications of CRISPR, now presents the most publicly discussed engineering challenges—and not just technical, but ethical as well. In this article, I will use the two most controversial genomic engineering applications to help identify the ethics and human rights implications of these research projects. Each of these techniques directly modifies the mechanisms of evolution, threatens to alter our views of ourselves as humans and our planet as our home, and …