According to reports in The Wall Street Journal, billionaires in Silicon Valley are trying to expand the frontiers of genetic engineering in the eternal quest to create genetically engineered human beings with enhanced intelligence and traits preferred in different cultures.
Editing genes in sperm, eggs and embryos is currently banned in the United States. The current effort by Preventive, a Silicon Valley startup, involves a couple with a genetic abnormality who want to participate in producing a genetically engineered embryo.
Scientists are currently employing technologies for treating genetic birth defects (including edited and inserted DNA after birth, but not before birth).
In fact, scientists and medical ethicists have been calling “for a global moratorium until the ethical and scientific questions get resolved.”
Preventive is the harbinger of other efforts in Silicon Valley and beyond that are pushing all boundaries in the areas of genetic engineering and reproductive technologies. The stated goal is one of attempting to cure genetic diseases and genetic birth defects. The stated goal is to produce babies “who are free of genetic disease and resilient against illnesses.”
The shadow looming over all the experimentation, however, is the specter of eugenics (the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable).
Click Here to Read More (Originally Published at The Christian Post)
