Germ-line intervention and our responsibilities to future generations

Abstract

As early as 1930, Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and C.S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man) predicted that the greatest threat to humanity was not nuclear destruction, but developments in genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology. Their statements were indeed prophetic! The rediscovery of Gregor Johann Mendel's laws of heredity in the early part of this century helped promote an understanding of the origins and workings of genetic diversity. The principal phenomena involved are segregation, mutation, and recombination of genes. Together, these three actions, through the opportunities they generate for genetic diversity, have since been used to improve plants, animals, and micro-organisms of interest to agriculture, industry, and medicine. From the beginning of this century, techniques such as planned hybridization and later, the induction of mutations, have been applied by agricultural and biological research institutions to create new genetic combinations. New antibiotics and vaccines came into use and fermentation techniques made rapid strides. Hybridization also became a method of increasing the growth of crops and animals, a phenomenon known as hybrid vigour. Progress in the field has since been marked by increasingly striking discoveries. The unravelling of the double helix structure of the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule (DNA) inaugurated the era of molecular biology and opened up a new world of genetic engineering. Recent developments have made it possible to identify specific sequences of DNA that are associated with individual traits of organisms. Begun in 1990, the Human Genome Project is an effort to decipher the complete genetic code of the human species. It involves both mapping (locating) all the genes in human DNA and sequencing (determining the order of nucleotides) for each of these genes. Its results are emerging piece by piece as the coordinated efforts of researchers proceed, and many of them - such as the identification of genes for colon cancer and cystic fibrosis - are already beginning to be applied in practice. While the potential benefits of the Human Genome Project to society are enormous, there are also serious risks from the unanticipated consequences of this powerful new knowledge. The development of routine tests for predispositions to diseases and other human traits raise a host of complex ethical and legal questions. In short, genetic enhancement risks violating human dignity by opening up the possibility of discriminatory practices. To make sure that this new power does not rebound against humanity, and that scientific and technological progress, source of wellbeing for individuals and nations, would not be used for self-destructive means, constant efforts must be made not to transgress human rights and freedoms. The concept of human dignity is decisive here as fresh dangers loom on the horizon. With regard to 'dignity' one recalls the Enlightenment principle that a human being is to be treated as an end, not a means to a further end. The modern humanist understanding of dignity is in part a secularization of the previous religious commitment to the infinite value of the human being. What this means is that a human person is the locus and end of moral value, not to be subordinated to other values presumed to be higher. For this reason, it is not only legitimate but imperative for the international community to do all it can to establish a collective system to defend this essential basic value - the integrity of the human being. The formal inclusion of the human genome in the common heritage of humanity, in other words the recognition that it constitutes one of humanity's primary "resources" which it must safeguard, would undeniably contribute to this end. The human genome, like any other component of the common heritage of humanity (the seabed, the oceans, celestial bodies), must be subject to the rule of the principle of equality and non-discrimination as regards its use. From this it follows that any advance in knowledge about the human genome must benefit humankind as such. Likewise, in my view, there can be no private rights regarding the human genome, which is not open to appropriation by anyone. In 1953 Bertrand Russell wrote: "The human race has survived hitherto owing to ignorance and incompetence; but, given knowledge and competence combined with folly, there can be no certainty of survival. Knowledge is power, but it is power for evil just as much as for good. It follows that, unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will be an increase of sorrow."l To the perilous leaps in power, associated with war and ecology, we must now add genetic knowledge. Past genetic theories, usually infected with prejudice, have brought the world much sorrow. A new ethical imagination that is slowly emerging through frank: debate on human dignity allows us to hope.