While gene editing to cure diseases is likely to be morally accepted by most people, the line between curing medical conditions and genetic enhancement can be highly ambiguous. The emotional and psychological cost of imposing a subjective understanding of perfection onto another person’s biology is not yet understood. Furthermore, genetic enhancement likely involves subjugating a person’s biology to another person’s will, which violates important ideals about the need for human life to flourish within the context of rational self-determination, the fundamental right to construct one’s identity, and to live an authentically fulfilling life that is not subjugated to the unrealistically high and rigid expectations of parents, doctors, teachers, and other authority figures who may wish to oppressively impose their own subjective understanding of what it means to be successful, fulfilled, and dignified. Civilization is at a moral crossroad, and we must choose wisely to defend core human rights-based values and to not instrumentalize human life according to subjective understandings of utility. As humans, we are more than our successes and our failures, because our existence is defined by its spiritual and existential core, which is something that must be safeguarded in the name of human dignity and the ethics of liberty according to individual free will and rational self-development.
Citation:
Gene-edited babies are now closer to becoming a reality. The ethical debate is far from settled
ByKatie Hunt CNN
Updated Jul 8, 2026