The Case for Lifting Prohibitions Against Germline Editing

For nearly a decade there has been a near universal moratorium on human germline editing, with calls to extend such bans for another decade. However, such prohibitions ignore current technical advances and fail to recognize the urgent unmet medical need in the area of devastating inheritable monogenic diseases for which there are no therapeutic options. While somatic genetic therapies have made many advances they still present risks to seriously ailing patients and cannot be applied in cases where disease is established before birth. In such cases, cisgenic germline editing presents the only opportunity to correct disease-causing mutations. We argue that failing to do so amounts to a failure to meet our bioethical obligations. To correct the current situation, we examine why cisgenic germline genetic editing should be permissible in cases involving devastating, single-gene diseases and offer a preliminary set of reinforced guidelines to begin the discussion about lifting prohibitions.