[password11]

> At least one point of those ethicists is to stop people who are naive from doing things with permanent consequences without first checking to see what those consequences would be.

Are the consequences really that permanent? It's pretty easy (in China) to monitor a handful of test subjects with heritable mutations and make sure they don't reproduce.

> At this stage of the science you're more likely to cause harm than cure disease

The potential upside of developing the science is huge, which is essentially what He is doing.

[magospietato]

> It's pretty easy (in China) to monitor a handful of test subjects with heritable mutations and make sure they don't reproduce.

Feels like we've proved the importance of ethicists in genetic medicine in two replies here.

[Xeoncross]

Sorry Person275, you were approved as a test subject so you are bared from partaking in life.

But don't worry, they haven't had success passing laws legalizing your organ harvesting so you'll probably get to live a full life even after we're done testing you.

[dekhn]

Yes, these consequences are permanent. What He did was permanently modify the cells that make up a tiny embryo. The germline cells- those that go on to make sperm and eggs in the developing person- are thus permanently modified, causing those changes to be passed on to the children.

Note that the specific change he made was intended to make these subjects more robust to resisting HIV infection. HIV infection in China is extremely rare, so it's an odd choice to pick- most doctors would instead focus on a well-understood, testable condition that is caused by a mendelian gene change. And, He's change likely didn't really have the outcome he predicted (common problem with genetics- the mutation you make almost never has the phenotype you desire). So there was a lack of need for this risky work and it also wasn't the right work. And, those changes will be passed on to the children of the affected children.

Now, I need to point out if your attitude is that these are "test subjects", and that you are going to keep them from reproducing, I can assure you that politicians, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and parents are going to stop talking to you and you're not going to be able to make a career out of this. This is an area that is closely tied to people's strongest beliefs and a single misstep (He made multiple missteps) can ensure you never work in this field again. m Learnign to speak the jargon so that people think you're a well intentioned doctor, not Doctor Frankenstein, is absolutely critical to being able to work in this field.

[kevviiinn]

How, exactly, would you ensure they don't reproduce?

[dudeofea]

man-made horrors beyond your comprehension, that's how.

[quickthrowman]

Forced sterilization is the only option.

Forced sterilization only ceased in the United States in 1981, I'm sure the CCP has enough authoritarian power to forcibly sterilize genetically altered humans if they chose to do so.

I disagree with forced sterilization, just to be clear.

[kevviiinn]

Are there cases of that happening? Besides the known ones in the US I mean, I'm talking about China

[quickthrowman]

Yeah, against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang: https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-we...

I’m not sure if there are any cases against Han Chinese people, probably the one child policy was effective enough.

[trasz3]

The article is FUD of course, but one thing worth noting is how it assumes a dropping pregnancies are because of forced sterilization and not just improving life quality - which is how it works everywhere else.

[Xeoncross]

yeah, forced sterilization was common in China with their one-child policy that was only recently rescinded. There are plenty of stories and even documentaries on it.

[kevviiinn]

The wikipedia on the page is suspiciously absent of evidence, so I'm not sure how true that actually is

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

[Xeoncross]

That page isn't a list of first-hand accounts, it's just a summary. Checkout some of the documentaries on this: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=one+child+documentary+china

[dekhn]

The Nazis did it to disabled people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Prevention_of_Here...) and there are more countries listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

[candiodari]

Social workers are proposing forced sterilization for disabled people in parts of Western Europe. They have, of course, chosen to change the term to "forced anticonception".

Their case is that the attitude of one woman and one couple are causing too much stress, but really costs, on the social sector.

The woman is a prostitute that would allegedly offers sex with a visibly pregnant woman to increase her revenue. She has declared in court she doesn't mind if the child is taken away, in fact she wants that.

The other are a couple, both have Down syndrome. A very important detail is that Down syndrome, despite being a genetic problem, IS NOT hereditary, so their kids are healthy. Well, not 100%, but they certainly don't have Down syndrome. Now for this couple this is actually a problem, since these kids rapidly grow smarter than their parents ... at age 6-7-8, at which point they completely control their parents and the situation has "exploded" more than once, in fact more than a hundred times.

The couple have declared, in court, that "they will keep trying until they get to keep one".

This brings a number of weird consequences. For example, if you're worried about the future offspring then you should probably allow Down syndrome children to procreate, and in fact allow this at lower ages than 18 (because they have reduced lifespan, if you want them to have good odds of seeing their kids graduate, they must have kids before the age of 26 or so, and at 26 only half will be seeing their kids' high school graduation from their deathbed in a hospital, the other half will not see it).

On the other hand, if effects on offspring are your worry, you should probably forcibly abort babies in healthy women merely because they drink alcohol (or take drugs) during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol syndrome is real and does not just affect 1 generation. And it's the timing that matters, not so much the amount of alcohol. One sip in month 1-4 will be worse than a bigger amount after the 8th month. And whatever else you think about Cannabis, it is most certainly not safe during pregnancy, although the usual argument does apply: not nearly as bad as alcohol or drugs. But still very, very bad. Are you prepared to forcibly abort a baby because a mother had one sip of alcohol? Plus how would you ever know?

Fantastic article (fully accessible if you disable javascript) summarizing the political situation across .nl .be and even .fr a little bit:

https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/streng-verboden-een-kind-te-k...

[candiodari]

Right now there are calls to forcibly abort and then forcibly sterilize women who get drunk during pregnancy.

The consequences of that are much worse, I might add, than the ones observed in this experiment. They are also permanent and will be passed on for generations. "Fetal alcohol syndrome".

In practice I think the chance of this actually happening to those women is, for the moment, zero. The above changes are effectively proposed as a way to save money for social services, and I do hope we, as a species, are above using forced sterilization to save a buck. Additionally I hope that any doctor that is asked to do this will refuse to do it.

[autoexec]

> Right now there are calls to forcibly abort and then forcibly sterilize women who get drunk during pregnancy.

Who exactly is calling for that?

[candiodari]

Social workers in Western Europe, for example. The socialist parties of .be, .fr and .nl

e.g. https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/streng-verboden-een-kind-te-k...

They're saying the chances of making this happen are slim, but they're still calling for it.

[lajy]

> It's pretty easy to monitor a handful of test subjects with heritable mutations and make sure they don't reproduce

So just to be clear, what we're talking about here is a protocol for performing eugenics on humans that were bred as part of an experiment, right? And ethically, that isn't a hang-up for you?

[password11]

> what we're talking about here is a protocol for performing eugenics...

No. What we're talking about is if it's ethical to essentially create a race of monster-people by altering their DNA.

GP is saying, no way it's ethical, because if they have offspring it would be unethical. I'm saying maybe it's as ethical as current medical science, as long as you sterilize them.

You're the only one talking about eugenics.

> ethically that isn't a hang-up for you

Look, ethics is in its core, a public affair. Ethicists are primarily concerned whether general people will find XYZ acceptable, and why or why not.

For me personally, I'm not concerned with academics. I'm concerned with whether I feel it's right or wrong in my personal view. Is genetically altering humans ethical in my personal view? No.

[lajy]

> I'm saying maybe it's as ethical as current medical science, as long as you sterilize them

This is eugenics. You are the one that brought it up saying maybe it's relatively ethical. I'm rejecting that point and saying that it categorically is not ethical.

[roywiggins]

It's pretty permanent to the resulting children.