Scientists and ethicists worldwide are calling for a global moratorium on editing the DNA in human embryos, but a Democratic-led committee in the U.S. House of Representatives wants to leave the door wide open to the controversial research. On May 23, the House Appropriations subcommittee that focuses on funding related to the Food and Drug Administration drafted a bill that would drop the ban prohibiting the FDA from considering such research.

Congressional lawmakers instituted the ban in 2016 to prevent scientists from producing a baby with heritable genetic modifications. A rider to that law also bars the National Institutes of Health from funding research that genetically modifies human sperm, eggs, or embryos. The studies could be privately funded but cannot get very far without FDA approval to conduct clinical trials.

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Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska, the top Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee, opposed the changes to the law. “This is a prohibition that is accepted by nearly every nation in the world due to the unknown risks,” he said.

In November 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of twins from embryos that he genetically modified, increasing the urgency for governments to set guidelines for such research. Secular ethicists and researchers immediately voiced concern about the unknown risks the experiments created for future generations. Christian ethicists noted deeper problems like the inevitable destruction of human embryos involved in the research and the societal consequences of tampering with what God has created. . . .

Already, some U.S. scientists are anxious to cross the same line that He did in China. Hank Greely of Stanford University supports lifting the ban so the FDA can consider research into procedures like making an embryo from a mother, a father, and an egg donor to prevent passing on a mother’s mitochondrial disease. But ends don’t justify compromising the sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, even for medical advancement. “Utopia will never arrive, and you don’t use human beings as stepping stones to get there,” William Hurlbut, a Stanford University bioethicist told WORLD Magazine in an interview published earlier this year.

(Excerpted from World, article by Julie Borg.)