Scientific progress allowed parents not only to choose in advance the gender of the unborn child, but also to lay in it the given inclinations, for example, to sports or mathematics.
However, in April, the first warning signals were received. Chinese researchers reported experiments on 85 damaged human embryos. They removed the gene responsible for a dangerous blood disease and replaced it with a healthy one.
But the experience was unsuccessful. In most cases, the genes were not changed at all. And in those few cases where this was successful, other problems arose.
Even if the researchers did not have plans to create a living child, their work once again raised the question of how soon science will be able to "design babies." And to what extent can such actions be considered ethical?
"Science is evolving very quickly, so society needs to think about its future behavior," - says Peter Shattner, scientist and author of Sex, Love and DNA: How Molecular Biology Teaches Us to Be Human. "Abortion has been a complex and controversial issue for many years, and with the emergence of an opportunity to look into the future of the child through the DNA of the embryo, the number of ethical and moral questions will increase."
- Thanks to scientific progress, parents will be able to choose in advance not only the gender of the baby, but also the inclinations in later life, for example, to sports or mathematics.
And then questions like "should they?" will become more and more relevant. Shattner says that several scenarios are needed for the development of events that humanity will face in the future. Here are some of them.
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1. The cost of DNA testing goes down. As a result, a large number of hereditary diseases are detected in newborns. In 1995, five such diseases could be detected. Ten years later, many countries have identified more than 24 diseases by testing.
In the near future, complete DNA gene sequencing (a method for characterizing disease genes in individual patients) will become cheaper than an individual genetic test.
But what will they do with this data? Do parents need to know about every potential threat to the health of their child that they may face in the future? “You also need to think about whether children will want to know about their genetic makeup as they enter adulthood,” says Shattner.
2. Prenatal (prenatal) DNA diagnostics already makes it possible to recognize Down syndrome or Tay-Sachs disease (a disease affecting the central nervous system) in an unborn child. But the ability to read DNA is improving, and soon parents will be able to know whether their unborn child has a hearing impairment or mental retardation. But what will parents and society do with this information?
3. Using an ultrasound scan at the 12th or 13th week of pregnancy, you can find out the gender of the child. However, with the help of DNA, it will be possible to determine the sex of the embryo much earlier - in the seventh week of pregnancy. But this is not the limit for those parents who want to choose the gender of their unborn child in advance.
By combining prenatal genetic testing and in vitro fertilization, it will soon be possible to simulate a baby. “For some parents, the temptation to play God and choose for themselves, based on various non-medical considerations, what their future children will be will be very tempting,” says Shattner. "And the consequences of that choice can be extremely worrying."
He also says that society itself must be aware of the consequences, since science is unable to provide answers to all questions.
"Science can only answer the question 'what is this?" - adds Shattner. - But to questions about whether moral or ethical norms should or should not exist, science will never give us the answer."
“But by gaining a deeper understanding of how the world works, we are improving our position. Therefore, we ourselves can make public and personal decisions based on our own concepts of morality and ethics."
Peter Shattner is a scientist, educator and writer with 30 years of experience in experimental research in the fields of molecular biology, genetics, biomedical devices, and physics. He is the recipient of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine Award for Technical Innovation.
He received his doctorate from the Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg MIT and has done research and taught at California State University and Stanford University. Author of countless scientific articles and essays, as well as the textbook "Genomes, Browsers and Databases".
His latest work, Sex, Love and DNA: How Molecular Biology Teaches Us to Be Human, is his first book not for scientists, but for ordinary people.