Repronews #58: South-African bioethicists defend therapeutic human gene editing
Mexico fertility falls below US; NYT on US infertility; Singapore flexible work; genetics & suicide attempts; top E. O. Wilson quotes; Darwinism in China
Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:
Repro/genetics
Donrich Thaldar and colleagues argue heritable human gene editing may be acceptable in South Africa to tackle tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS
Population Policies & Trends
Mexico’s total fertility rate fell to 1.6 in 2023, lower than the U.S.
The New York Times asks whether the U.S. has an “infertility crisis”
Study suggests flexible and remote work could boost fertility in Singapore
Genetic Studies
International study finds 12 genetic variants linked to suicide attempts
Further Learning
Top quotes from evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson
Craig Willy on Darwinism’s influence in China from Pan Gangdan to reprotech
Repro/genetics
Debate on status of heritable gene editing in South Africa (The Conversation)
Donrich Thaldar, a Professor of Law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and colleagues defend new research guidelines in South Africa that allow for heritable human genome editing (HHGE) under certain conditions.
Thaldar says critics Françoise Baylis and Katie Hasson are “invoking the spectre of eugenics and expressing a bio-conservative opposition to HHGE that claims it fundamentally compromises human dignity.”
He argues the critics ignore the content of the guidlines in a “a knee-jerk, bio-conservative response to the fact that an African country is taking the global lead in establishing a clear ethical pathway for HHGE.”
Thaldar argues that:
The guidelines “explicitly prioritize ethical oversight, strong scientific and medical rationale, ongoing ethical evaluation and adaptation, and compliance with legal standards.”
A deliberative public engagement study in South Africa shows strong local support for HHGE to combat diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS, provided the technology is safe and effective.
Section 57(1) of South Africa’s National Health Act of 2003 only bans reproductive cloning, not HHGE and that HHGE is lawful in South Africa.
Invoking eugenics is “inappropriate and does not resonate with South African public opinion,” which is focused on addressing immediate health concerns.
Policies protecting future generations’ health through HHGE align with the African philosophy of Ubuntu, emphasizing communal well-being, interconnectedness, and future generations’ being entitled to social goods such as health. Ubuntu significantly influences South African policy
Human dignity may be understood differently depending on the country and philosophical tradition, with Ubuntu seeing dignity as relational and communal. Legal scholar Dr. Bongikosi Shozi has argued HHGE is defensible within Ubuntu insofar as preventing diseases enhances human dignity by enabling healthier lives for future generations.
Thaldar and colleagues conclude that the criticism is “ill-informed and reflects a bio-conservative stance that doesn’t account for South Africa’s unique cultural, ethical, and legal contexts. We urge scholars to consider local literature and perspectives when engaging in such discussions. South Africa’s HHGE guidelines are thoughtfully designed to respect public opinion and constitutional values, and critiques should appreciate the specific contexts shaping these policies.”
Thaldar’s statement was posted as a comment to an article by Baylis and Hasson, co-signed by Sheetal Soni, Marietjie Botes, Larisse Prinsen, Ntokozo Mnyandu, Julian Kinderlerer.
More on repro/genetics:
Slovenian constitutional court overturns law banning single and gay women from using IVF (PET)
“New South Wales IVF rebate scheme limited to lower-income families” (PET)
Some people are converting to Judaism after learning about their Jewish ancestry via DNA tests (PET)
Policies & Trends
Mexico’s fast-falling fertility rate below U.S. in major reversal (INEGI)
Mexico’s fertility rate per woman has fallen from 2.21 in 2014 to 1.60 in 2023.
The U.S. fertility rate by contrast stood at 1.616 in 2023.
This is a major reversal: in 1975, Mexico’s fertility rate was over three times higher than the U.S.’s, while in 1990 it was still over 50% higher.
Fertility in Mexico is significantly higher for rural populations (2.13 vs. 1.44 for urban-dwellers) and indigenous-speaking populations (2.55 vs. 1.55 for populations who do not speak an indigenous language).
“Does the United States have an infertility crisis?” (New York Times)
Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s most prominent supporters are warning that America has an infertility problem.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has asked “Why are so many couples infertile?”
Dr. Casey Means, a former surgeon and health influencer who has advised Kennedy, has called infertility a “crisis.”
Trump has said he would task Mr. Kennedy with investigating “the decades-long increase in chronic health problems,” including infertility.
Researchers and doctors are worried about health trends in the United States that can affect fertility.
Available statistics make it hard to gauge to what extent the recent fall in birth rates is due to infertility, unwillingness to have children, or non-medical obstacles to have children.
The CDC tracks infertility by assessing the number of married women between the ages of 15 and 49 who report having had unprotected sex for at least a year without becoming pregnant. This excludes women who have been sterilized.
Infertility rates appear relatively stable over the last several decades, with data from 2015 to 2019 showing that 2.4 million married women of reproductive age were infertile.
Impaired fecundity, difficulty in either getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to live birth, rose to 13.4% between 2015 and 2019, compared to around 10% of women between the ages of 15 to 44 reporting impaired fecundity in 1995.
People are choosing to have children later in life. In 2021, the average age at which U.S. women had their first child was 27.3, a record high. The number of U.S. women giving birth over 40 has steadily increased over the past decades.
Age is the factor that most influences fertility. Female fertility starts to decline gradually around age 32 and then falls more significantly after age 37, while male fertility tends to start declining around age 35.
Obesity rates have steadily risen in the United States. Nearly three-quarters of adults in the country are now overweight or obese.
Obesity can impact ovulation and encourage miscarriage in women. Excess weight has also been linked to lower sperm quality in men.
Several sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including chlamydia and gonorrhea, have been on the rise in the United States for decades, although some have plateaued in recent years. These can affect fertility.
A wealth of research has found links between reproductive health and exposure to harmful chemicals and substances found in personal care products, air pollution, plastics, pesticides and even food. Phthalates and bisphenol A are known as endocrine disrupters, interfering with the functioning of our hormones.
Endocrine disrupters have been tied to infertility in both sexes. Researchers are trying to understand whether some people might be particularly susceptible to endocrine disrupters at certain points in their lives, such as during puberty
Experts said more research is needed: most people are exposed to these substances every day and they are practically impossible to avoid.
“Singapore's fertility crisis: Could flexible and remote work be the answer?” (population.fyi)
Singapore’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.1 births per woman, one of the lowest in the world. Over half, 56.8%, of Singaporeans aged 20-39 are unmarried.
Singapore is society is marked by:
A kiasu (“fear of losing,”) hyper-competitive culture driving extreme work schedules.
Workers averaging 45 hours per week, with 23% working over 48 hours.
Traditional expectations tieing marriage closely to childbearing.
Women facing disproportionate work-family conflicts.
Senhu Wang of the National University of Singapore and Hao Dong of Peking University conducted a groundbreaking experiment with over 1,000 unmarried, employed Singaporeans to test how different workplace policies might affect family planning decisions.
Fertility intentions increased significantly under flexible working arrangements:
79% higher odds with reduced hours (36- vs. 44-hour weeks)
55% higher with flexible schedules
63% higher with remote work options
Key findings by demographic:
Women showed stronger positive responses than men across all options.
Professional/managerial workers had the strongest increase in fertility intentions.
Work-family conflict mediated about 30% of the effect.
Effects held even after controlling for marriage intentions.
The research suggests workplace rigidity may be a bigger barrier to family formation than previously thought, especially for educated professionals and women.
More on population policies and trends:
Chart: “In Finland, more education = more babies” (Lyman Stone)
Genetic Studies
“Family connection: Genetics of suicide” (WGEM)
Researchers at the University of Utah and elsewhere have identified 12 genetic variants linked to suicide attempts.
By examining more than 1.3 million cases, the researchers uncovered a connection suicide attempts and factors such as impulsivity, smoking, chronic pain, ADHD, pulmonary conditions, and heart disease.
“Some of them do actually fall into gene pathways that have to do with how the brain works, with how synapses fire and how neurons are developing,” explained University of Utah Psychiatrist Dr. Hillary Coon, who is involved in the international study.
Dr. Coon stresses that no single gene causes suicide, but there is a cumulative effect of different genes.
More on genetic studies:
“Molecular atlas: Genetic and molecular changes occurring during ovarian ageing have been mapped to single-cell resolution” (PET)
Further Learning
Top 10 E. O. Wilson Quotes (Steve Stewart-Williams)
Edward O. Wilson is a celebrated evolutionary biologists who did pioneering work on island biogeography and social insects such as ants, coined the term “sociobiology” (referring to the use of evolutionary principles to explain social behavior), and won two Pulitzer Prizes for nonfiction. In later life, he became a passionate advocate for biodiversity conservation.
Quotes from E. O. Wilson:
“We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology.”
“Samuel Butler’s famous aphorism, that the chicken is only an egg’s way of making another egg, has been modernized: the organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA.”
“The emotional control centers in the hypothalamus and limbic system of the brain… flood our consciousness with all the emotions—hate, love, guilt, fear, and others—that are consulted by ethical philosophers who wish to intuit the standards of good and evil. What, we are then compelled to ask, made the hypothalamus and limbic system? They evolved by natural selection. That simple biological statement must be pursued to explain ethics and ethical philosophers, if not epistemology and epistemologists, at all depths.”
“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
“The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. Material reality discovered by science already possesses more content and grandeur than all the religious cosmologies combined.”
“You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.”
“When Confucius met Darwin” (Craig Willy/Aporia)
Darwinism has had a profound influence on Chinese sociological thought.
Pan Guangdan (1899-1967), a leading Chinese sociologist, analyzed what he called “the sociobiological implications of Confucianism,” namely this leading Chinese philosophies’ biological assumptions and evolutionary impact.
Pan argued that Confucianism, with its emphasis innate human capabilities and social promotion and prestige based on competitive exams, had eugenic effects as intelligent scholar-bureaucrats would have more children on average.
Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015), the longtime prime minister of Singapore and an ethnic Chinese, believed the Confucian practice of polygamy for scholar-bureaucrats was more genetically beneficial than the Hindu practice of enforcing marriage with rigid castes.
Several studies suggest that scholars and other elites in Imperial China sired more children than the average.
Some scholars in contemporary China are promoting neo-Confucianism as an alternative to Western liberal-democratic assumptions.
Ruiping Fan, a Confucian bioethicist, argues that some forms of genetic enhancement, such as embryo selection, are licit if these are compatible with or promote “a family-based, ritual-following, virtuous way of life.” Fan argues selecting embryos for traits such as muscle strength, improved memory, or normal genitalia (non-intersex) would be acceptable on Confucian grounds
More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:
Human nature
“12 things everyone should know about IQ” (Steve Stewart-Williams)
“Only cyber-humans could settle on other planets. Creating them is possible.” (Genetic Literacy Project)
Agrifood
“We must use genetic technologies now to avert the coming food crisis” (New Scientist)
“Australian start up that brought us the cell-derived wooly mammoth meatball rolls out cultured foie gras” (GLP/Startup Daily)
Lab-grown Japanese Quail lands on Hong Kong plates as Australian start-up Vow begins sales” (South China Morning Post)
Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.