My Thoughts on Genetic Editing

In the news this week: scientists have made a major advance towards editing baby's genes in utero in order to prevent genetic diseases.  As someone whose child has a genetic disorder, I have some thoughts on this.

My first instinct is that we shouldn't be messing with genes because:

1.  Can the scientists get it right?  Some of us won't even eat a vegetable that's been genetically modified for fear that messing with the plant's genes is going to cause negative consequences.  (By the way, I'm in favor of genetically modified food, but that's a discussion for a different post.)  If we can't trust scientists to modify our food, then why in the world would we trust them to modify our *babies*?  From the article, it looks like the method they have developed involves cutting out the genes that carry diseases and then hoping that the body grows healthy genes in its place.  I'm no scientist, but that seems to leave some very significant room for error.  And while genetics is getting more advanced all the time, (my understanding is that) the precision with which bodies operate using DNA far outpaces our human understanding of how all this works.  So the pieces of DNA that get cut out could very likely be too big, too small, cutting out some of the essential with some of the faulty, etc.  

2.  What kind of Pandora's Box is this opening?  If you can modify genes to help prevent diseases, you can also modify genes to choose gender, skin color, intelligence - anything about the body.  Are we okay with messing with any of this?  Doesn't this sound a lot like eugenics?  Doesn't this also sound a little Tower of Babel-esque?

3.  Even if it can be limited only to preventing genetic diseases, and can be done 100% correctly, should it be done?

This is the trickiest question, I think.    On one hand:  As a person of faith, I think that God is good and God is sovereign, and that He created this diversity of abilities for a good reason.  I don't fully understand it, but I trust that God knows better than I do, and that there are good reasons for all the beautiful diversity in the world, including genetic diversity.  

On the other hand...I'm glad that I will never have to make this choice about gene editing, because while I do feel like it's a bad idea for all the reasons listed above, it would be excruciating and nearly impossible to decline that choice as the parent, at the beginning of a difficult medical journey.  I love Joshua fiercely, exactly as he is, and I have learned a ton and grown as a person and met some wonderful friends because of his disability -- but despite all that, if someone handed me the "keys to the kingdom" of his DNA that would allow me to fix the missing pieces that have caused all the surgeries, all the medical ups and downs, all the developmental difficulties - it would be so hard not to accept that.  Because the world is built for medically and developmentally typical people, and Joshua's life (especially those first years) would just be easier if he was "typical".  And there are other kids whose genetic condition has impacted them much more severely, including some whose conditions are not compatible with life - when you think about these cases, the analysis doesn't seem so clear cut.  It raises an interesting ethical question about why is this different from other cutting edge medical technology that can prolong life, why is this the appropriate place to draw the line?  Why wouldn't we want to help children have more years of life and less pain?

  As always, I'm interested to hear my friends thoughts, and I ask people to please be gentle and respectful in the comments.