Document Type
Essay
Publication Date
Spring 2025
Abstract
The prospect of using CRISPR-Cas-9 technology to edit human embryos in a process called germline editing has the potential to irreparably change the world as we know it. Many pose the question: if you could save your child from having a disease, would you? But I argue that is not the only—or even, real—question we should be asking. Instead, I ask you, should we be changing humanity as we know it in ways that elude even our foremost scientists? Should we decide what disabilities make people not worth being people? Should we introduce a technology knowing full well that it will likely lead to eugenics and genocide? Should we make available techniques which will only serve to widen the inequality gap? If we allow CRISPR to be used for germline editing, all of these hypothetical questions will no longer be ‘what ifs,’ they will be reality.
Recommended Citation
DeCostanza, Grace O., "Classic Philosophers on Modern Issues: The Ethics of Germline Editing" (2025). Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics. 36.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/ethics_essay/36
Comments
Honorable mention prize winner.