“Genetic engineering” and “Gene editing “arecatching the attention of people all over the world. The emerging technology, even though the concept is not exactly new, appeared to be a development which will fulfill the wishes of many people in many sectors – health, agriculture, even anthropology among many others. In health it seems that genetic diseases which were more or less left to fate in the past may now see a ray of hope for “cure.” These terms together with the technology which brought about the desired effects has been designated as “CRISPR” is also presented as an article in this issue.
The concept as stated above is not exactly new. The concept of manipulating human genes for selective breeding had existed since Plato, around 400 BC. However, the term “Eugenics” seemed to come into existence in early 20th Century. Eugenics is a Greek word meaning “well-born” and is applied to a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population through selective breeding (Galton, 1904). The contemporary history of eugenics began in the early 20th Century when eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom and later spread to United States, Canada and Europe.
Eugenics programs at that time consist of positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive measures include encouraging people with certain traits, like athletics/academic excellence, high IQ, maybe physical attractiveness, beauty and others deemed “fit to reproduce.” Possible approaches include financial and political assistance, invitro fertilization, egg transplants and even cloning. Negative measures include marriage prohibition, forced sterilization of people deemed “unfit for reproduction.” People in the unfit category included persons with physical or mental disabilities, criminals, members of disfavored minority groups and those termed “deviants.” In this way, proponents of eugenics thought they would be able to build better communities with people having desired higher qualities. German Nazi Holocaust of the Second World War, where the perpetrators were using the eugenics concept in their defense, brought the eugenics movement more or less to a standstill. The emergence of Human Rights Principles and Declaration also put a stop to eugenics policies in many countries. However it appeared to continue to be present in some communities linked perhaps to concepts like white supremacism.
Advancements in reproductive technology since the 1980’s, like gestational surrogacy (since 1985), pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (since 1989) and cytoplasmic transfer (since 1996), brought about concerns that more potent forms of eugenics may make a revival. The principle concern regarding eugenics revival is linked to the human rights issue where every person has the right to reproduce and the ethical involvement if the pregnancy is to be terminated because the un-born child is seen to have unwanted genetic traits. Another concern regarding eugenics is that it may lead to loss of genetic diversity which may lead to outcomes that are not predictable. An example cited by Andrzej Pekalski from the University of Wroclaw, was “of a coercive government eugenics program that prohibits people with myopia from breeding” that has “the unintended consequence of also selecting against high intelligence since the two go together.”Proponents on the other hand cited the decrease in the number of genetically transmitted diseases like Ty-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, Gaucher’s disease after application of genetic screening.
Gene-editing made it possible for converting the Haemoglobin S, which causes Sickle Cell disease, to Haemoglobin F and thereby providing cure in a patient with Sickle Cell disease (see CRISPR article in this issue). One thing to note is that Haemoglobin S is resistant to malaria parasite while Haemoglobin F is not. In Africa where both Sickle Cell disease, and, malaria which is the leading cause of mortality among many countries are prevalent, the risk for the patient of dying from malaria poses a serious concern. The article about CRISPR will also show that since the engineering aspect of the gene-editing process is still in the early stages any slight mishap and it may inadvertently end up with a cancerous condition. Still, the prospect of being “cured” of genetically determined diseases which these patients have to live with for life may worth taking the risks minimizing them as far as possible.
The Eugenics Movement during the early stages of its development was led by the State through policies regulating reproduction which provided avenues for abuses. Nathaniel C. Comfort from Johns Hopkins University (as cited in Wikipedia) claim that the change from state-led reproductive-genetic decision–making to individual choice has moderated the worst abuses of eugenics by transferring the decision-making from the state to the patient and their family. Comfort suggests that “the eugenic impulse drives us to eliminate disease, live longer and healthier, with greater intelligence, and a better adjustment to the conditions of society; and the health benefits, the intellectual thrill and the profits of genetic bio-medicine are too great for us to do otherwise.”
Many of us would agree with Comfort’s statement and hope that the societies would be able to put in regulations to prevent abuses and promote what some now called the new eugenics, consumer eugenics or liberal eugenics.
Bibliography
Eugenics – Wikipedia, downloaded from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics on 1/22/2020.
Galton, Francis (1904). “Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims” TheAmericanJournalofSociology. X (1). Retrieved 1/24/2020 from http://galton.org/essays/1910-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-euge nics-scope-aims.htm
“Eugenics- African American Studies” Oxford Bibliographies.Retrievedon 1/24/2020 from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190280024/obo-9780190280024-0029.xml
Comfort, Nathaniel (November 2012). “The Eugenics Impulse.”The Chronicle of Higher Education.Retrieved on 1/24/2020 from http://chronicle.com/article/The-Eugenic-Impulse/135612/)
Tha Hla Shwe
