About 6% of all babies are born with genetic diseases every year (Hitti). Some are small diseases, some are more life impacting. Every year, as science continues to further, scientist look for a way to help these children. There are many possibilities that could offer solutions. One of those is gene editing. Gene editing would allow scientist to fix the mutation of abnormality in a child's DNA to keep them from suffering from whatever diseases they might have been carrying. It could theoretically save lives and improve the quality of life for future children.
It does have its drawbacks though. As this technology improves, religious groups have sparked concern over what it could mean. Should humans really try and "play God"? People fear that
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In cases like Jesse Gelsinger, a young man testing out gene therapy ended up dying in a very traumatic and unexpected fashion. There is a fear that gene editing could end up causing some of the same mistakes.
But even with this set back in the CRISPR gene editing tool, the science community says that gene editing is not incredibly far off in the future.
If gene editing becomes a new factor in our lives, there are many concerns and excitements that would come with it. How would the government regulate it? Is the procedure humane to do on human embryos? Where do we draw the line between stopping disease and creating designer babies? But those aren't the only questions that are being asked. Supporters have questions as well. How expensive would it be? And how soon would it be widely available? Gene editing has given people the hope that one day we could eradicate diseases, save the lives of millions of children, keep parents from having to see their children struggle, and parents would no longer have to pay high medical bills for treatments that offer little