10 gene editing & manipulation laws
Law #1 - Gene editing or manipulation must not give any abnormal human capabilities whether it be internal or external that provide a mental or physical advantage over unedited or manipulated humans.
The purpose of this law is to preserve the traits of the human species.
The possibility to create a human being with capabilities that we can currently only dream of is extremely likely. However, sadly this is something we must avoid to the utmost extent.
If we were to give abnormal capabilities such as an increased IQ of 200 or higher, superior muscle strength and so on that we are not naturally presented with them at birth then we run the risk of segregating the human species into different divisions or classes.
Even more issues arise when we look at the moral aspect of it. If a wealthy company were to genetically edit or modify the genes of an infant to possess traits of extreme mobility, that infant would most likely grow up to be a professional runner, we can see the issues beginning to surface. The competition of skill and hard work athletes put into becoming as fast as possible is completely negated due to one genetically modified human possessing abilities to be dramatically faster without any work being put in, and all of this is due to one wealthy company having the power to create a completely different class of athlete when other countries may not have the ability or technology to do this.
We can see that without laws around genetic editing or modification that wealthy companies or organizations could exploit genetic editing or modification for their own personal gain. We also see that for one person to possess abnormal capabilities that others may not, would divide society into the edited and non-edited people. These are the reasons that we must prevent genetically editing or modifying humans to give any abnormal human capabilities whether it be internal or external that provide a mental or physical advantage over unedited/manipulated humans.
Law #2 - The implementation of gene editing or manipulation must not separate humans by physical or mental ability and must not create a higher class of humans.
The purpose of this law is to keep humanity together and prevent the division of humans.
As we’ve been presented with the technology to edit human genes allowing them to possess almost any trait we wish, we start to ask the question of how we should use this. Not only can we create a superhuman with the abilities to do anything we want them to we can also use their abilities to our own advantage whether it be political or apolitical. This means if we were to alter a human to have an extreme capability towards correct judgment along with lack of emotion, this human would most likely be used in politics and eventually dictate everything that we do. They would collect a following of people praising and fawning over them, along with people hating and being repulsed by them.
By altering one human to have extraordinary abilities we will inevitably divide humanity into three groups: The first being the super edited humans, capable of having almost any ability we want them to obtain; living as if they are of a completely different class, which of course they are. Next, are the followers and admirers of the super edited humans, the people who love what these edited humans do whether it be for politics or for other circumstances. The final group would consist of the people who do not agree with the super edited humans and believe that it is wrong for people to act as if they are a God like figure. A division like this should not be present due to our ability to genetically edit or modify a human and thus must be prevented from happening as the possibility of revolt, war and uprisings are extremely likely due to the disbelief of having a higher being.
Law #3 - Gene Editing or manipulation must not give anyone any external differences that are not displayed in Homo sapiens.
The reason for this law is to preserve the natural appearance of the human species and to not put unborn babies at risk of unwanted cosmetic changes.
The modern human appearance has stayed extremely distinct from other living organisms for over 200 000 years. This has allowed for the passing of genes from mother and father to their infant, producing a predictable result distinct to the human species, however, with our ability to genetically edit or modify other humans we a may be at risk of permanently altering our appearance as well as putting our children at risk.
A child is born with the head of a dog due to genetic editing, grows old enough to get married and has a child with his wife who has the head of a lion. Like children as we know today, where two humans with no altered genes can easily conceive a child without much trouble, this child will turn out similar to the parents, cosmetics wise. However, the parents with the head of a lion and head of a dog have genes from completely different species and as of now we have no idea how it would work if they were to have a child. If they did go through with it the child may be at risk of severe genetic mutation, their face may be a grotesque mix of the parents resulting in an incapability to properly breath and/or eat or they may simply die from their deformation at birth.
As of now we do not know how inter-species cosmetic genetic editing or manipulations may work and therefore we should not risk our children’s wellbeing by performing it. We also should be keeping the human appearance and not be altering it for our own pleasure.
Law #4 - Gene editing or manipulation must only be implemented if the reason for the implementation will last longer than 25 years.
This law is to preserve genetic editing or modification for long term issues and to prevent it from being used as an aid in times of war or for experimentation.
In times of war everything is chaos; in WWII the Nazi’s were developing certain types of acid even they found too cruel and deadly to be used in the battlefields. Now imagine having an option to create a super human that can do anything, they can single-handedly win you the war. However tempting this may be, the impact would be terrible. Not only are you testing hundreds of men and women to create the perfect edit you are also at risk of starting an entirely new war as the countries or other unions you have just beat would be extremely angry at your foul play, most likely starting a whole other war purely fought by the super edited humans.
More issues arise when you realise that once the reason for creating an edited or manipulated human that they must live with their differences for the rest of their life due to what the organization has done to them. A super edited human will most likely be unable to comfortably live out the rest of their life, no matter how much money they have received for doing their job; they’d be an outcast to society, even an attraction for tourists like a tiger in a zoo.
It is not right to be using genetic engineering for short term usages like war or financial gain and we must prevent it from happening.
Law #5 - Gene manipulation/editing must not be used in any country involved in war.
The reason for this law is to prevent genetic editing or manipulation in times of desperation and chaos.
In times of war people get desperate and sometimes will do despicable things to win. Therefore, genetic editing must not get tangled up in war ridden countries for the wrong purposes. Thousands upon thousands of human beings would be tested upon to create the perfect human for war. These humans did not ask to be born into a life of testing and mutations, nor did they ask to be a part of war, however because their country decided they would be they are forced to be.
Another similar issue arises when we look at what would happen if every country had the ability to genetically edit or modify their citizens to be super soldiers capable of winning wars. Millions of these people would be sent out to fight their countries war, but due to the difficulty of genetic editing or modifying, the soldier’s would most likely have the same abilities; this would almost certainly cause a stalemate lasting years, causing only destruction and starvation.
Genetic editing or modification must not be used for war or in any country involved in war, the temptation of winning would be too strong to prevent countries from not editing or modifying their soldiers and that is why we need to completely prevent it by making it illegal to do so.
Law #6 - Genetic editing or manipulation must only be used for disease prevention, Climate survivability and health.
This law is to preserve genetic editing or manipulation for necessary circumstances instead of personal gain.
Instead of using genetic editing or modification for just about anything, we need to limit its use to longer lasting, more deadly issues such as climate change and disease. Not only would using genetic editing and modification for anything we want to, be incredibly dangerous, it could also cause serious, unpredictable circumstances down the line. The more frequently we edit or manipulate our genes, the less we keep track of what we’ve done, we may even start genetically editing or modifying ourselves to fix issues we caused by genetically editing ourselves.
Unlike the issues with war and conflict, editing ourselves to improve our survival in places with disease, extreme temperature or climate would not, as far as we know, cause problems if we do it in a safe and reasonable way. Only minor edits should be made to help prevention; like vaccines, it should not be able to be recognised from the outside. If we do this correctly we can most likely eradicate all major diseases rather quickly, saving millions of lives in the process.
Law #7 - Gene editing or manipulation must be performed in an approved laboratory that meets the national guidelines for health and safety by a scientist who has a PhD in gene editing or manipulation.
This law is to prevent laboratories that are unfit for genetic editing or modification from performing any edits or modification and possibly permanently damaging a subject.
Quite simply, if a person unfit to genetically edit or modify a human were to attempt to, they run the risk of permanently damaging the human being they performed the edit on. As genetic editing is such a delicate procedure to perform in any laboratory, to perform in in one unfit for medical surgery would be extremely dangerous and risky.
Genetic editing must be performed in a laboratory that meets the national guidelines for health and safety to prevent unsafe genetic editing or manipulation along with accidental edit made to the gene through cross contamination.
Law #8 - The organisation that performs the editing or manipulation are liable for any severe negative impacts against the subjects.
The reasoning for this law is to hold all scientists who are going to perform gene editing or manipulation accountable for each edit or manipulation they make.
For gene editing to run smoothly and work without a hitch we must take precautions about who will be performing the procedure and the responsibility they hold. As you can image, to come up with the perfect method to edit a human’s genes for a certain result the scientist or organisation was looking for would take an extremely long time; a period of time in which could be sped up through human testing. An idea turns into a plan and a plan turns into action, test after test on each individual human, trying to find the perfect result, tweaking it here and there. Thousands of humans permanently damaged due to failed experiments, all to find a cure for an ancient disease. However, what can we do? Surely there must be a way to prevent this outdated methodology.
Therefore this law must be in place, as simple as it seems it is just as necessary as any other law. A minimum fine of one million Global Currency Units (GCU) will be applied to any one person or organisation to have caused damage through genetic editing or manipulation.
Law #9 - Genetic editing or manipulation must not be subject specific unless they are at critical danger from disease, and must be implemented into a specific region or town affected by desease and/or severe weather.
This law is to preserve the importance of genetic editing or manipulation for long term issues, helping aid entire communities of people from the same issue rather than helping one wealthy or powerful person.
The possibilities for genetic editing or modification are almost endless. We have the ability to eradicate diseases that have survived for millions of year, we can alter an unborn baby to have any hair, eye or skin colour we want them to. As of now we have already implemented genetic modification, or GMO’s into our vegetation, items like the Flavr Savr Tomato and Arctic Apples have all been genetically modified.
If the potential for genetic editing or modification is so great then why would we allow the wealthy or powerful to exploit it for personal gain when it could do so much more for the world? Instead of editing a single child to be our next war commander, we could be using it to fight malaria in Africa. A few children for every town, city, tribe or community in need of help, may eventually share the same edited genes passed on from the child, protecting them from the disease the gene was edited to fight.
By using genetic editing or manipulation as a way to protect a future community is a far more effective use of our technology than for personal gain.
To use genetic editing or manipulation for a specific subject, unless they are at critical risk from disease, birth defects, syndromes or a congenital disability, and must be implemented into a specific region, town, community, tribe or city affected by disease and or weather.
Law #10 - Implementation of a new genetic edit or modification must be approved by a worldwide collective organisation of a team of representatives from each continent before it happens.
This law is to ensure a robust approval process through a collective judgement from a worldwide organisation for every individual new method of genetic editing or modification to be applied to humans.
For any new law to be in place, we must have a way to decide whether to allow it. Indeed, we have written laws, but there are ways to work around them, finding the flaws in each and every law until a grey area is found where what they wish to do is not illegal, but it isn’t by any means acceptable. We can help prevent this by filing a law that checks every new genetic edit or manipulation before it can be used.
This law would consist of a team of 6 representatives, one from each continent (Europe and Asia being the same continent), to help decide on the implementation of a new method or outcome of genetic editing or modification. If a new method or result of genetic editing or modification is wanting to be implemented into society, it must successfully be approved by each representative in Genetic Engineering Methodology and Outcome Approval Organisation (GEMOAO), if the decision is not unanimous the new method or outcome will be declined and prevented from live use.
For someone to join the GEMOAO, they must not have any ties to politics except for citizenship and they must not have any influence over major companies, organizations or people. This is to prevent any member from unjustly disagreeing with what is presented, and there by preventing it from live use due to outside bias. For example, if a new outcome of genetic editing or manipulation was presented to GEMOAO with aims of preventing the erratic spread of influenza, it may be turned down by a single member due to outside bias; possible beliefs that it would give a country an advantage over the member’s country in times of war or conflict may occur.
To help judge if a new methodology or outcome of genetic editing or manipulation is fit for live use we must have an organisation of worldwide representatives to judge its correctness.