The Larger Agenda of Human Engineering

There’s probably not a parent in the world who hasn’t wished for a magic wand that would make a sad child happy, or transform an unruly child into a civil one. And history is littered with the myriad methods cultures have applied to bend their members toward a particular definition of human nature.

But for the first time in human history, we are confronted with an entirely new approach to altering human nature, one that could have great benefits but could also carry great risks. Geneticists are closing in on a mythic power that humans once only dreamed of, the power to alter the genetic materials we pass on to future generations by engaging in “inheritable genetic modification” (IGM) or “germline engineering.” (In contrast, “somatic engineering” affects only the person being treated, without producing changes in patients’ germ cells—their eggs or sperm—that can be passed on to future generations.)

The personal, social, and political dangers inherent in asserting control over the human germline were well apparent when Aldous Huxley published his prophetic novel Brave New World in 1932. At that time, wellintentioned, highly educated scientists and politicians were wielding the surgeon’s scalpel to realize a vision of genetically “improving” human nature by eliminating “bad genes” from the human gene pool.

Humanity needs a crash course in the science and politics of the new human genetic technologies. We need to distinguish benign applications from pernicious ones, and we need to adopt policies affirming the former and proscribing the latter. We need to repudiate eugenic political ideologies and deepen our commitment to the integrity of the human species and the dignity of all people. We need to do this on a global scale and within less than a decade.  Two new technologies are of critical concern: reproductive cloning and inheritable genetic modification and reproductive cloning is the creation of a genetic near-duplicate of an existing person. If I cloned myself, would the child be my son or my twin brother? In truth, he would be neither. He would be a new category of biological relationship—my clone. Opposition to reproductive cloning is nearly universal, and the United Nations has begun negotiations on an international treaty to ban it.

Inheritable genetic modification (IGM) means modifying the genes we pass to our children. Most people intuitively understand that if IGM were allowed it would change forever the nature of human life. People would quite literally have become artifacts. If cloning is the atomic bomb of the new human genetic technologies, IGM is the multi-megaton hydrogen bomb. Only the most egotistical or deluded would want to clone themselves, but if IGM were allowed even many who are appalled at the prospect of using it would feel compelled to do so, lest their children be left behind in the new techno-eugenic rat-race. Once we begin genetically modifying our children, where would we stop? If it was acceptable to engineer one gene, why not two? If two, why not twenty, or two hundred? IGM would put into play wholly unprecedented biological, social, and political forces that would feed back upon themselves with impacts quite beyond our ability to foresee, much less control.

What policies do we need? We need domestic and international bans on reproductive human cloning and inheritable genetic modification, and effective, accountable regulation of all other genetic technologies. At the same time we need to affirm the many beneficial applications of genetic science—in diagnostics, therapeutics, pharmaceutical development, and other medical fields—and to ensure that these are available to all people, regardless of economic status or geography.

Extracted from: http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EP154A.pdf

From this, I realise that there is actually a larger reason behind as to why scientists pursue this process. From this professor's point of view, I know that Genetic Modification needs to be kept under control so as to prevent a complete wipeout of the human race but it may do the human race some good in the future as it can help to prevent illnesses and serve as a benefit to the future generations of humans to come. Thus, GM is not a process with all bad no good motive behind. Therefore, we need to reconsider our stand, should this process still be allowed in the world? Or should we act as if this process has never been invented and let things stick to their original course?