As biotechnology gains power to alter human predispositions, the social norms and laws built for unedited human nature become unstable. Societies will need explicit, constitutional‑level principles—what traits may be edited, by whom, under what safeguards—to avoid a binary of taboo‑driven stagnation or reckless hubris.
— Treating human genetic engineering as a constitutional design problem reframes bioethics into governance, with stakes for legitimacy, inequality, and state capacity.
2025.10.07
56% relevant
The Church Lab’s list specifies actionable targets (e.g., CCR5 −/− HIV resistance, PCSK9 −/− low coronary disease, APOE E2/E2 lower Alzheimer’s risk), illustrating exactly the kind of edit choices that would need constitutional‑level governance once such edits are feasible.
BeauHD
2025.10.01
60% relevant
While not gene editing, in‑vitro gametogenesis that produces embryos from skin‑cell DNA similarly forces constitutional‑level questions about who may create, select, and govern human life. OHSU’s 'mitomeiosis' embryos will pressure frameworks that the editing debate already highlights (parentage, embryo status, clinic oversight).
David Farrier
2025.09.26
60% relevant
The piece argues for (or at least wrestles with) principled limits on deploying CRISPR/gene drives in wild species to counter climate and ecosystem collapse, echoing the need for overarching, explicit rules to govern powerful biotechnologies beyond case‑by‑case ethics.
Tim Lantin
2025.05.11
100% relevant
The article argues that 'as biotechnology moves ever forward... human nature and civilization’s rules that arose from attempts to curb the worst of it become subject to change,' while citing moratorium calls and 'playing God' taboos.
N.S. Lyons
2024.11.04
66% relevant
By showing how IVF, surrogacy, and embryo IQ selection are being absorbed into markets and legal doctrine without clear first principles of personhood or parentage, the piece underscores the need for constitutional‑level rules to govern human‑altering biotechnologies and their downstream legal effects.