South Africa amends guidelines to allow genetically modified children

A little-noticed change to South Africa's national health research guidelines, published in May of this year, has put the country on an ethical precipice.

- Francoise Baylis

The newly added language appears to position the country as the first to explicitly permit the use of genome editing to create genetically modified children.

Heritable human genome editing has long been hotly contested, in large part because of its societal and eugenic implications. As experts on the global policy landscape who have observed the high stakes and ongoing controversies over this technology—one from an academic standpoint (Francoise Baylis) and one from public interest advocacy (Katie Hasson)—we find it surprising that South Africa plans to facilitate this type of research.

In November 2018, the media reported on a Chinese scientist who had created the world's first gene-edited babies using CRISPR technology. He said his goal was to provide children with resistance to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. When his experiment became public knowledge, twin girls had already been born and a third child was born the following year.

The fate of these three children, and whether they have experienced any negative long-term consequences from the embryonic genome editing, remains a closely guarded secret.

Controversial research

Considerable criticism followed the original birth announcement. Some argued that genetically modifying embryos to alter the traits of future children and generations should never be done.

Many pointed out that the rationale in this case was medically unconvincing—and indeed that safe reproductive procedures to avoid transmitting genetic diseases are already in widespread use, belying the justification typically given for heritable human genome editing. Others condemned his secretive approach, as well as the absence of any robust public consultation, considered a prerequisite for embarking on such a socially consequential path.