In 2018, Professor Kerry Macintosh published a book entitled Enhanced Beings: Human Germline Modification and the Law with Cambridge University Press. She critiqued common objections to the editing of human gametes and embryos and explored the psychological origins of these objections. She also argued that banning the technology would harm scientists and science, parents, children, foreigners, and society.
Macintosh has built on this expertise with two further publications. This month she published a peer-reviewed article entitled Heritable Genome Editing and the Downsides of a Global Moratorium, 2 CRISPR J. 272–279 (2019), available at https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/crispr.2019.0016. The article discusses a proposal to impose a global moratorium on reproductive use of edited gametes and embryos. This proposal arose in the wake of Dr. He Jiankui’s decision to edit human embryos and implant them in women, resulting in the birth of children who may be immune to infection with HIV. Macintosh acknowledges that Dr. He acted prematurely, but argues that germline editing potentially has legitimate applications, such as correcting genetic mutations that cause disease. She fears that a global moratorium could discourage basic research and lead to legal bans that stigmatize children born with modified genomes as undesirable and unworthy. She argues that individual nations should regulate the technology for safety and efficacy only.
Macintosh has also contributed a chapter to a book that examines how nations around the world regulate human germline modification. Her chapter offers a comprehensive look at the law of the United States: The Regulation of Human Germline Genome Modification in the United States, in Human Germline Genome Modification and the Right to Science: A Comparative Study of National Laws and Policies 103–128, Cambridge University Press (Andrea Boggio, Cesare P.R. Romano, & Jessica Almqvist, eds. 2019).
