Gene Therapy: A Form of Eugenics?
 

I attended a seminar on gene therapy not long ago, and while I never talked much about it at the time, something stuck in my mind as someone interested in the field: is gene therapy a soft form of eugenics? Gene therapy, as referred to by most medical researchers or ethicists would likely be construed as a good thing, a positive thing meant to heal and help a person's suffering. Eugenics, on the other hand, is widely maligned as negative--to artificially produce or design offspring which fit certain criteria. If gene therapy *could* be construed as eugenics, and perhaps it can't, should we care? Is there any difference between repairing or removing a disability, as opposed to preventing one genetically?

I got into an argument very similar to this.

My position was along the lines of, repairing or removing a disability (lets say, leukemia for example) is a way to alleviate suffering that is already occurring rather than "potential suffering" or perceived aesthetic flaws. In gene therapy, the individual (rather than a third party be it parent or government) is allowed the freedom and prerogative of deciding what is an intolerable flaw. This is already afforded to of-age people who perceive some physical defect. Whether real or imagined, they can traipse down to the plastic surgeon and have their nose trimmed or their boobed inflated. Yet there might be some moral impediment to the eradication of their leukemia? I obviously don't think so.

On the other hand, under the policies and beliefs of eugenics, a higher authority was placed in charge of making the decisions which would affect the genes of individuals. This removes the autonomy of the individual, or at the very least creates conflict between the individual and the autonomy figure. It would be easy to argue that this situation in America could be perceived as equally immoral, if not more so, than gene therapy.

There also seems to be a very real ethical difference between deliberatly manipulating an embryo's genes and *failing* to take the necessary measures to ensure that child is born free of defect. What I mean is, would it be considered wrong to, say, decline to take folic acid during pregnancy even though it has been shown to drastically reduce birth defects? Does it make a difference whether the defect that could be prevented was myopia or cystic fibrosis?

-Scienceblogs.com

Well, I don't think there is anything wrong with genetically engineering someone to prevent a disease, but to take it as far as to make them act, think, react, or perform in a certain way is ethically immoral.

Now, the way I understand it, Gene Therapy is used to heal, prevent, or what have you, any defects that deal with diseases. While Eugenics deals with altering someone chromosomes so that they will be more intelligent, or more athletic, etc. To me, they are two completely different purposes in science. One is healing a mutated or abnormal gene, and the other is basically fucking with human evolution.

It's a fine line, in my opinion. What we see as diseases can easily be seen as normal human evolution. On the flip-side, what we see as unnecessary intervention into the human genome can also be seen as ridding unwanted traits, or diseases in someone's perspective.

They are practically very different, of course. Curing Leukemia through gene therapy is nowhere near the same thing as making someone faster through selective breeding, or some other form of eugenics. But from a biological standpoint, they are not so dissimilar.

The key issue here is the autonomy of the individual. I think if the autonomy is preserved, both are ethically acceptable. As was said by the person who wrote the original article, plastic surgeons affect phenotypic traits all the time. Does it really make that much of a difference if instead of having your boobs enhanced through silicon if it was through genetic engineering?

There are a few big differences in the boobs question. One, I'd imagine that the genetic engineering would be much more costly. Two, what is the reversibility of the procedure? There is a much less margin for error when you are simply placing silicon behind breast tissue to make them larger, rather than literally altering their genes to produce more breast tissue.

From a biological standpoint, of course they aren't very dissimilar, because you performing a genetic alteration, but the big difference, as you said, is the moral outcome caused by the alteration.

Obviously, if you alter someone so that they are faster, or more intelligent, then the autonomy of the person has been drastically changed. You are physically changing their DNA to make them a certain way. That isn't preserving the autonomy AT ALL. However, altering a mutated gene to heal a disease isn't changing anything, it is simply correcting it to a form that the large majority of the human race is, naturally.

Well, what I meant by autonomy was an independent decision not influenced or dictated by outside entities like the government. Typically, the term eugenics carries a negative connotation, and I generally see any eugenics program as a government-run program. I have no real problem about someone altering their genome as long as it is their own decision.

Of course then we have to get into whether or not it is okay for parents to alter a child's genome, and so forth. Where do we draw the line? That is always the question with such issues.

The breast-enhancement example may have been inadequate. However, it is safe to say that their are many irreversible procedures performed in the medical profession that alter someone's phenotypic traits. This, then, is really no different than genetic engineering, or eugenics if you'd rather. Since one is not seen as immoral, it should follow that the other is not percieved as immoral either as long as the autonomy of the individual is preserved.

I clearly was confusing autonomy with anatomy. Completely different points being made.

Eugenics typically carries a negative reaction because it is most commonly used in fiction by governments to genetically engineer super-human soliders, the best examples I know of being the Space Marines in Warhammer 40k and Clan Warriors of Battletech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_M...er_40%2C000%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clans_%...#Warrior_Caste

I'm a bit leery of allowing people to alter their own genome, because that's a really dangerous precedent to be set.

What it essentially will do is split the population between those who can afford such treatments and those who can't, essentially beginning every single "have and have-nots" scenario ever envisioned, screwing those who can't afford the treatments or those who are morally opposed to them. It will create a closed circuit of successful people, as those who are successful would be able to ensure their line's continued success by ensuring their children have the options to treatment WIDE open to them. This kind of thing is too socially impacting to be left to commercial disbursement, it would have to be government ran from a more Socialist government to be remotely fair.