Columbia University Experiments on Human Embryos
Igniting grave moral concern, researchers at Columbia University, led by geneticist Dieter Egli, have developed a new gene-editing technique called base editing. It promises greater precision in correcting certain genetic mutations than earlier methods such as CRISPR-Cas9.
Unlike CRISPR, which cuts both strands of DNA to remove or replace genetic material, base-editing generally works by chemically changing one DNA “letter” into another without creating a double-strand break. While this makes the procedure more precise, it does not eliminate the serious moral concerns surrounding its use on human embryos.
This research raises serious moral and ethical concerns.
First, the embryos used in these experiments are produced through IVF, a procedure the Catholic Church teaches is intrinsically immoral.
Second, many of these embryos are obtained from fertility clinics after parents determine they are no longer needed for reproduction. In other words, human embryos are donated for scientific research and treated as laboratory material. From a Catholic perspective, this is gravely wrong because every human life, from the moment of conception, possesses inherent value and may never be treated merely as a means to benefit others.
Third, the embryos are subjected to genetic experimentation and are then intentionally destroyed after the research has been completed. Thus, innocent human lives are sacrificed in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. No potential medical benefit, however promising, can justify intentionally killing an innocent human being.
Further, although base-editing promises to be more precise than earlier techniques, scientists still cannot fully predict its long-term consequences.
“In my opinion, I think this is a huge no-no,” said Alexis Komor, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at the University of California, San Diego. “There’s just no ethical way to use this.”
Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, senior bioethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, condemned this type of research. “This research quintessentially involves a basic moral mistake that is becoming ever more widely accepted in the biosciences: The youngest human beings, whether abandoned in fertility clinics or created ‘de novo’ in petri dishes and test tubes, are treated not as ends, but as research fodder to help scientists achieve particular investigative goals.”
“Creating humans for the purpose of destroying them,” Fr. Pacholczyk affirmed, “is invariably unethical and should be illegal.”
If God's order is not respected, modern science risks opening the door to a new era of eugenics. Once scientists begin deciding which genetic traits should be corrected, enhanced, or eliminated before birth, society moves closer to judging some human lives as more desirable than others.
History has shown the terrible consequences of such thinking.