Jennifer Doudna on “Eugenics”
The endlessly polluted debates on genetic therapy and enhancement
In her 2017 memoir,1 Jennifer Doudna—the Nobel Prize-winning co-discoverer with Emmanuelle Charpentier of CRISPR-Cas9 as a tool for gene editing—has a thoughtful chapter on the potential future of gene editing in human reproduction. She covers the debate from those considering gene editing “unnatural” and those like Steven Pinker who urged bioethicists to “get out of the way” to allow use of CRISPR to prevent genetic diseases, to those like Julian Savulescu who argue there is a moral duty to use reprogenetic technologies to eliminate genetic diseases and enhance future generations.
Doudna notes that “[i]t’s almost certain that germline editing will eventually be safe enough to use in the clinic” (p. 222) and points out that the kind of gene edits CRISPR induces occur naturally in every generation. Actually the natural mutations are much more dangerous insofar as these are random… She writes:
While I share the general feeling of unease at the idea of humans taking control of their own evolution, I wouldn’t go so far [like National Institutes of Health] Director Francis Collins as to say that nature has somehow fine-tuned our genetic composition. Obviously, evolution didn’t optimize the human genome for the present era, when modern foods, computers, and high-speed transportation have completely transformed the way we live. And if we look over our shoulders at the course of evolution that has led to this moment, we’ll see that it’s littered with organisms that certainly didn’t benefit from the mutational chaos that underpins evolution. It turns out nature is less an engineer than a tinkerer, and a fairly sloppy one at that. Its carelessness can seem like outright cruelty for those people unlucky enough to inherit genetic mutations that turned out to be suboptimal. (pp. 227-8)
Doudna is unsympathetic to the argument that gene editing is “unnatural”—whatever that might mean in the field of medicine. She gives many examples of individuals and their families whose lives were ruined by genetic disease, quoting one woman: “If I could use germline editing to remove this mutation from the human population so that no one else suffers as my sister did, I would do it in a heartbeat!” (p. 228)
While endorsing therapeutic gene editing, Doudna is more cautious regarding gene editing for enhancement (such as boosting IQ) as this could lead to a growing “gene gap” between social classes, leading to a runaway spiral of mutually reinforcing economic-genetic inequalities (p. 232).2
Doudna is highly critical of many of the national and international texts and regulations in force on gene editing and “eugenics.” She cites the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee’s (IBC) 2015 opinion on the human genome and human rights that heritable gene editing would “jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics disguised as the fulfilment of the wish for a better, improved life.” It is left unclear how “human dignity” is preserved by forcing people to be born with preventable congenital diseases.3
Doudna is critical of the U.S. Congress’ 1995 Dickey—Wicker Amendment banning federal funding into any research creating or destroying human embryos, as well as a more recent move from legislators banning the FDA from reviewing any therapies modifying the heritable human genome. She points out that restricting therapeutic gene editing will likely lead to “CRISPR tourism” whereby prospective parents at risk of passing on a deadly gene choose to have their children in more bioliberal jurisdictions.
Perhaps Doudna’s most trenchant comment is on the sheer moralistic vagueness of many anti-editing and anti-“eugenic” regulations in force:
The nebulous language in which government policies toward germline editing are often couched makes the issue of regulation particularly challenging. For example, a recently adopted document regulating clinical trials in the European Union prohibits “gene therapy clinical trials … which result in modifications to the subject’s germline genetic identity.” How “genetic identity” is defined is unclear, however, as is the question of whether “gene therapy” encompasses gene editing with CRISPR. In France, acts that “undermine the integrity of the human species” are banned, as is any “eugenic practice aimed at organizing the selection of persons.” Yet preimplantation genetic diagnosis—a procedure that falls under the literal definition of eugenic—is offered in French clinics, so this is too vague to be useful. (p. 236)
France’s provisions against “eugenics” stem from the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which prescribes that “[i]n the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular … the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at the selection of persons.”
Taken literally, this would mean the banning of embryo selection on the basis of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, the abortion of fetuses with severe congenital disorders (such as Down’s syndrome), and even allowing women to select sperm from sperm banks on the basis of the donor’s intelligence, education, socioeconomic status, personality, or health. All such practices are allowed in one or more European countries.
Doudna has put her finger on the misuse of the word “eugenics” in so much contemporary law and discourse. Given that many literal eugenic practices (like sperm selection or selection based on preimplantation genetic diagnosis) are lawful, the blanket ban on “eugenics” can only mean something else is meant, presumably coercive practices or, more hazily, anything deemed too inegalitarian for the current Zeitgeist. In this sense, the word “eugenics” has become about as morally hypercharged and meaningless as the word “fascism” (which, as George Orwell pointed out, as early as 1944 did not mean much more than “bully” in the common acceptance).
As such, it seems useless for people discussing reprogenetic technologies to use the term “eugenics” if any kind of dispassionate and objective discourse is intended. Few understand the term in its rigorous historical sense. New technologies ought to be individually judged on their merits and not by emotive name-calling. Doudna herself points out that using the E-word is an easy way to get attention: “But while it’s certainly attention-grabbing to equate gene editing with these dark precedents [of coercive eugenics], the comparison doesn’t hold up to scrutiny” (p. 233).
Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg, A Crack in Creation: The New Power to Control Evolution (London: Vintage, 2018).
By contrast, philosopher Jonathan Anomaly and economist Garett Jones have argued in favor of genetically increasing IQ on the basis that individual prosperity is increased by belonging to a network/group with a high collective IQ. In any event, given the sheer number of low-but-accumulative effect genes involved in intelligence, gene editing does not seem a realistic way of boosting IQ or highly polygenic traits in general.
Ironically, Julian Huxley, the first director of UNESCO, argued in a foundational text on UNESCO’s “purpose and philosophy” that recognizing “biological inequality” and promoting eugenics should be central to the UN cultural organization’s wider mission. He wrote:
At the moment, it is probable that the indirect effect of civilisation is dysgenic instead of eugenic; and in any case it seems likely that the dead weight of genetic stupidity, physical weakness, mental instability, and disease-proneness, which already exist in the human species, will prove too great a burden for real progress to be achieved. Thus even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for Unesco to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. (p. 21)
Good piece. Jennifer Doudna speaks sense and does it clearly.