Reasons and Reproduction: Gene Editing and Genetic Selection.

Area of Science:

• Bioethics
• Genetics
• Medical Ethics

Background:

• Current bioethical debates often favor embryo selection over gene editing for preventing genetic disorders due to perceived risks associated with gene editing.
• This perspective overlooks a key moral consideration: the potential benefit to the individual who would develop from the edited embryo.

Purpose of the Study:

• To argue that gene editing offers a morally significant advantage over embryo selection in many cases.
• To address and refute common objections to the moral permissibility of using gene editing for therapeutic purposes.

Main Methods:

• Philosophical argumentation and ethical analysis.
• Examination of moral distinctions between causing harm and withholding benefit.
• Analysis of objections concerning the unequivocal benefit of gene editing.

Main Results:

• Gene editing can be morally superior to embryo selection because it can be actively better for the resulting individual, making its omission worse for them.
• Embryo selection, conversely, is never better for the individual who develops from the selected embryo.
• Objections that the moral weight of "worse for" does not differ from "better for," and that beneficent gene editing is not unequivocally better, are addressed and refuted.

Conclusions:

• There is a significant moral reason to prefer gene editing over embryo selection in certain cases of preventing genetic disorders.
• The potential for gene editing to confer a direct benefit on the future individual strengthens its ethical justification.
• Further ethical consideration of gene editing's benefits, beyond risk assessment, is warranted.