Kerby Anderson

A recent NPR story begins with this introduction: “About a year before the pandemic hit, a scientist in China, He Jiankui, revealed that he had secretly engineered the birth of the first CRISPR gene-edited babies.” The scientist was imprisoned for three years for violating medical regulations. But now some are beginning to suggest we should begin to genetically engineer babies.

One bioethicist observes that there seems to be “a convergence of people who are thinking that they can improve their children, whether it’s their children’s health or their children’s appearance or their children’s intelligence.” In fact, one company startup in New York City is called the Manhattan Project and has plans to explore how to do gene correction in human embryos.

The story ends with the bioethicist reminding us that to “move fast and break things has not worked very well for Silicon Valley.” He then concludes that “in health care, because when you talk about reproduction, the things you are breaking are babies.”

My booklet on A Biblical Point of View on Genetic Engineering makes a distinction between genetic repair and creating new forms of life. We live in a fallen world (Genesis 3) which was not part of God’s plan for the world. Genetic engineering to treat and cure genetic diseases should be seen as exercising our dominion over the creation (Genesis 1:28).

We don’t have the scientific foresight nor the moral wisdom to create new forms of life or significantly modify human beings. As ethicist Leon Kass observed, “Engineering the engineer seems to differ in kind from engineering the engine.”

I would be glad to bless you with my booklet because we need to think biblically about genetic engineering.