Laws of Gene Manipulation and Editing​
How we decided on these laws?
The first thing you should understand about these laws are that they are made for times when we have perfected gene manipulation and editing to a point where we can birth a human baby with the head of a giraffe. The possibility of gene editing and manipulation to improve human kind is clear, however with the good comes the bad. What if during times of war, average men and women are altered to perform 10 times stronger in battle; what do we do to fight this and most importantly, what do those people do after the war?
As you can see, there are both the good and the bad that come with every new step forward in science. We have written an assortment of rules to limit or prevent what we deem inappropriate, cruel or inhuman uses of gene editing and manipulation.
For each law to be decided on it had to prevent either possible human harm or endangerment, or it must specify the positive uses for genetic editing and manipulation as to avoid any loopholes.
For example, law No. eight seems extremely restrictive and use of our incredible technology, however as more thought is put into its meaning you will start to understand why it is so oppressive. Without it, organisations have the ability to create human beings with supernatural abilities that make such a person to differ from the rest of society, seemingly a person with ‘godlike’ abilities; this is simply not fair and there must be restrictions on its use to keep people the same, healthy and happy.
​
What are the current affairs of human genetic editing?
As of now, there are no laws around genetic editing or manipulation dictating what can and cannot happen around genetic engineering. Even though there are no proper laws, a group of 40 countries has outright banned all genetic editing or manipulation on humans from their country. However, there are some countries such as, the United Kingdom, China, and the USA who are already conducting experiments on human embryos.
China and the USA are some of the few countries that are beginning to use gene editing on humans. Rumours had spread in 2014 that the USA and China had begun to use CRISPR, on human embryos. In April 2015 a researcher team at Sun-yat Sen University, in China, created the first genetically edited babies, called Lulu and Nana so they can be resistant to the HIV virus. Furthermore, the USA have also launched two clinical trials in February 2018, in California, to use gene editing on humans to target a disease called Hunter Syndrome.
​
The reason why China, the USA and other countries are beginning to edit genes in humans is to explore the technological possibilities and to conduct experiments to see what kinds of problems they can solve. This view is supported by Philipp Dettmer, a German educational You-Tuber, as he explains that if we stop researching and innovating in the topic of genetic editing then “the science of genetic editing will wander off to a place with rules and jurisdictions that we are uncomfortable with” and this exciting new scientific innovation will be compromised.
​
However, we must not get too drawn to this new technology because there are still uncertainties and safety, ethical and social concerns that we have to address before we can properly use gene editing on humans. But once these issues have been sorted out we will be free, to some extent, to use this technology to possible cure prevalent diseases and solve other real-world problems concerning humans.