The precautionary principle aims to influence decision‐making in contexts where some activity poses uncertain but potentially grave threats. This perfectly describes the controversy surrounding germline gene editing. This article considers whether the precautionary principle should influence how we weigh the risks and benefits of human germline interventions, focusing especially on the possible threats to the health of future generations. We distinguish between several existing forms of the precautionary principle, assess their plausibility and consider their implications for the ethics of germline (...) modification. We also offer a novel form of the precautionary principle: the sufficientarian precautionary principle. Some plausible versions of the precautionary principle recommend placing somewhat greater weight on avoiding threats to future generations than on achieving short‐term benefits. However, no plausible versions of the precautionary principle entail that we should outright reject the use germline gene editing in human reproduction and some, such as the sufficientarian version, might endorse its use. (shrink)

The media, perhaps more than any other slice of culture, influence what we think and talk about, what we take to be important, what we worry about. And this was especially true when news of Dolly hit the airwaves and newstands. Most Americans received training in the ethics of cloning before they knew what cloning was. Media coverage fixed the content and outline of the public moral debate, both revealing and creating the dominant public worries about cloning humans. The primary (...) characterization of cloning as an ethical issue centers around three connected concerns: the loss of human uniqueness and individuality, the pathological motivations of a cloner, and the fear of out‐of‐control scientists. (shrink)

In a first major study, the UK’s Royal Society found that 76% of people in the UK are in favour of therapeutic germline genomic editing to correct genetic diseases in human embryos, but found there was little appetite for germline genomic editing for non‐therapeutic purposes. Assuming the UK and other governments acted on these findings, can lawmakers and policymakers coherently regulate the use of biomedical innovations by permitting their use for therapeutic purposes but prohibiting their use for enhancement purposes? This (...) paper examines the very common claim in the enhancement literature that the therapy v enhancement distinction does little meaningful work in helping us think through the ethical issues, a claim that has significant implications for these lawmakers and policymakers who may wish to regulate genomic editing techniques to reflect the findings of this important study. The focus of this paper is on germline genomic editing as one of the main themes in this special issue. (shrink)